Reading 16th Century English

Many are put off with reading earlier English because it looks too difficult to read. There are two main obstacles: the font and the difference in spelling. Blackletter fonts were used because that was the font used in handwritten manuscripts prior to printed books. Reading texts from this time is not as difficult as you might think. It takes some patience, but there are rewards in enjoyment.

Good examples of both obstacles can be found in texts dating from the reign of Henry VIII (r. 1509-1547). Printing was still in its first century, and the font universally used in England was blackletter, which today is often called "Old English" or something like that. Here's an example from Thomas More's The Supplycacyon of Soulys, published in 1529. More wrote this book about heresy, one of his obsessions. He tortured heretics for entertainment, and salivated at the opportunity to have them burned alive. Here's an excerpt:

 

A transliteration:

He sayeth that the lyuynge whych the clergye hathe ye the onely cause that there be so many beggers that be fyh and fore. Very well and wysely/ as though the clergye by theyre substaunce made men blynde and lame. The clergye also ye the the cause he sayth why they dye for hunger/ as though euery lay man gaue to beggers all that euer he could/ and the clergye gyue them neuer a grote: (as though there wolde not mo beggers walk a brode yf the clergye lefte of such lay men as they fynde.

And, a modernization in spelling and punctuation:

He sayeth that the living which the clergy hath ye the only cause that there be so many beggars that be fie and fore. Very well and wisely, as though the clergy by their substance made men blind and lame. The clergy also ye the cause he sayeth why they die for hunger, as though every layman gave to beggars all that ever he could, and the clergy give them never a groat: (as though there would not more beggars walk abroad if the clergy left of such lay men as they find).

Most of the words are familiar, with the exception of "groat," which was a small coin worth four pence. The spelling presents obstacles, however. One obvious one is the use of "y" for "i." Another is the switching of "v" and "u." Some of the words are spelled the same as they are today, such as "the," "men," "not," etc.

Knowing this usage, it isn't that difficult to read it if you read it aloud phonetically.

Here's a somewhat later example, from a 1553 translation of Quintus Curcius' The Actes of the Greate Alexander:

 

Transliteration:

For as calamitie of his nature is querelous, so felicitie is always proude & euery one doth use to consider his own fortune, when  he determineth an other mans. For except we had all ben in mysery, one of us long ago had bene wery of an other.

Modernization:

For as calamity of his nature is querulous, so felicity is always proud and every one doth use to consider his own fortune, when he determineth another man's. For except we all been in misery, one of us long ago had been weary of another.

In a few decades modernization in spelling had moved along, and the font, although still blackletter, is easier to read, thanks to improvement in the technology in making type. As for the spelling, again, sound it out and it will make sense.

An early example of the use of a Roman type face in an English book is the Geneva Bible, first published in 1560. Initially it was printed in Geneva, Switzerland, but soon was printed in England.

Here is a very familiar passage, the opening of Genesis:

With the Roman font this is easy to read, despite some earlier spelling:

In the beginning God created ye heauen and the earth. And the earth was without forme & voyde, and darknes was upon the depe, & the Spirit of God moued vpon the waters. Then God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw ye light that it was good, and God separated the light from the darknes.

For the most part this is close to modern English with some exceptions, such as only one "s" at the end of "darkness," an "e" at the end of "form," and the continued transposition of "v" an "u."  Something else appears that is not always seen in a blackletter font: the word "ye" for "the." This is a leftover from Old English, which has more letters than modern English. The letter for the sound "th" looks a lot like "y," so that is how it is printed. It is pronounced "the," just as we say today, not "ye."

When you get into the early 17th century the modernization of spelling continues. Take the King James Bible (the "Authorized Version,") published in 1611. Note that the spelling is not the same as the KJV of today. The modernization of the spelling was done in the 1760's. Here's the original:

In the beginning God created the Heauen, and the Earth. And the earth was without forme, and voyd, and darkenesse was vpon the face of the deepe: and the Spirit of God mooued vpon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God diuided the light from the darkenesse.

Here the printer chose to use a blackletter font rather than a Roman font, perhaps to lend the text a bit of extra dignity. Sorry, "dignitie." 

That's a brief romp through my strange little world. Or as Thomas More might have written, "Thvs be a brefe rompe through my straunge lyttle worlde."

Comparisons to Donald Trump

Periodically, there is a lot of press comparing President Trump to a really bad person in history. Stalin and Hitler come up most often. As much as I feel that Trump is perhaps the worst president this country has ever had, I am not sure those comparisons are accurate. Stalin and Hitler both killed in the range of 20 million people. Hitler launched an invasion of Europe that led to World War II, and Stalin carried out the plans of Lenin by centralizing the Soviet economy and steamrolling over anyone who got in the way.

I have another comparison that I feel is much more accurate. As it turns out, it’s a probable ancestor of mine who lived 500 years ago. He ruled a European nation with an iron fist, and couldn’t help but let his personal problems dictate national policy.

Henry VIII of England.

Here is why. Henry started out as a good ruler with the promise of lifting England out of the Middle Ages, overseen by his cheap and suspicious father, Henry VII. When Henry VII died in 1509 Henry VIII was eighteen years old and raring to go. He married the widow of his brother Arthur, who would have succeeded their father had he survived.

Most know that Henry remained married to Catherine of Aragon for over twenty years, and in that time they had only one child to survived, who turned out to be a murderous tyrant, Mary I. One son survived birth but only lived a few weeks, and with the exception of Mary, the rest of her pregnancies ended in miscarriage or stillbirth. Henry became convinced that despite a papal decree, marrying his brother’s widow was a violation of Scripture, and by happy coincidence this revelation came about around the time that Anne Boleyn graced Henry’s court. The rest is well known. Henry fought with the Pope and members of his own court to have his marriage annulled so that he could marry Anne.

Here’s where the comparison of Trump and Henry comes in. Despite his marriage, Henry was a serial philanderer. He had a habit of drawing in a mistress, using her for a year or so until he tired of her, then pawning her off in marriage to a low level courtier. Sometimes an illegitimate child resulted. One son, Henry Fitzroy, was all but acknowledged by Henry, and had he survived past the age of 20 he might very well have become Henry’s heir.

My 12 great grandmother, Mary Boleyn, was another such mistress. Henry’s affair with her went on for awhile, and to cover his tracks Henry married her off to a courtier, William Carey, who obediently died of the plague. They had two children, Henry and Katherine. I am descended from Katherine. Many historians feel that Katherine is likely an illegitimate daughter of Henry. She bore a close resemblance to her cousin/possible half sister Elizabeth, with whom she was very close.

Henry did not use people very well. He treated women abominably, showering them with gifts until they got pregnant, when he sent them away. He was too cowardly to face people personally when they were about to get the ax. With the two wives that he executed (Anne Boleyn, #2, and Katherine Howard, #5), he had them hauled in, tried in his absence, and sent off to the Tower for execution, never seeing them again. Shades of using Twitter to fire someone?

As Henry got older he got worse. Historians trace this back to a jousting injury in 1536, in which his horse fell on top of him. He was unconscious for two hours and at the time was thought to be dead or nearly so. This aggravated a leg wound which never healed and plagued him the rest of his life. Some have speculated that a head injury at the same time may have caused a brain injury which changed his personality. To be sure, he was becoming more imperious before the accident, but it got worse after. It is well documented that a serious blow to the brain can cause a change in personality. Henry had a volcanic temper which he displayed in public on a regular basis, upbraiding members of court for one failing or another.

Henry saw the world as revolving around him, and in England it actually did. He changed the course of English history by separating England from the Roman Catholic Church. He was all consumed by the desire for a male heir. The Tudors were always looking over their shoulders because they knew that Henry VII had a very, very slim claim to the throne. We see this behavior in Trump, obsessing about voter fraud that didn't happen, Russian collusion which would seem to call the legitimacy of his election into question, and "Crooked Hillary" and Obama. He can't seem to get past this obsession with proving his election was legitimate.

Henry is known to have had a short attention span, and was more likely to be found gorging himself at a meal or hunting than attending to the business of the kingdom. Even though he laid plans for the modernization of England’s defenses and its educational system, and bringing the Church in England under the control of government, Henry was rather bored with work and spent a lot of time doing the 16th century equivalent of playing golf every weekend. Can anyone say Mar-a-lago?

Henry had a large but fragile ego and crushed anyone who crossed him. He regularly fired members of his Council who did not  perform up to expectation, and even had Thomas Cromwell, a Chancellor (Prime Minister of sorts) executed because he didn’t like Cromwell’s choice of Henry’s fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. How many heads have rolled in the White House lately?

Henry didn’t like it when someone said no to him. He was never intended to be King. Arthur was groomed for kingship from birth, but Henry was the second son who could well have become a bishop or a military commander. He grew up under his mother’s care, which would not have happened if he had been the first son.

Henry was a self-centered, impulsive ruler who frequently went through aides who always seemed to disappoint him. Any takers on this comparison?

A Little Piece of Connecticut in Maine

I have a fascination with cemeteries bordering on obsession. I grew up in central Connecticut where old cemeteries were everywhere. Old, as in 250 plus years old. My hometown has several. Our town of Rocky Hill has a really good cemetery filled with brownstone gravestones. Surrounding towns have them.

One of the things that interested me (and still does) is the material used for gravestones in Connecticut. It’s commonly called brownstone. It’s all over the place in Connecticut. It’s a sandstone that ranges in color from a rusty color all the way to a purplish-brown. There are different grades of hardness, the rusty colored stone generally being softer, and the purplish stone harder.

What older brownstone does when exposed to the elements for centuries is that it spalls. A good example is the gravestone of the Avery children. The outer surface becomes harder but the layers directly underneath get soft, in the same way that old brick can do. After years of this erosion, the harder surface will fall apart and potholes will develop on the surface of the stone, destroying the inscription and artwork. Lots of Connecticut cemeteries are full of stones that were intact a century ago but now are totally illegible.

Because of this, I have always been able to spot these brownstone gravestones. One startling example is in Monmouth, Maine, where my family and I lived for eight years. Next door to the church was a cemetery that dates from the 1790’s, which for that part of Maine is about as old as they get. In the oldest section in the front are a number of graves simply marked by a flat piece of rock. Some have initials and a date, some just initials, and some have no markings at all. This indicates that there were no trained gravestone carvers in the fledgling community, and families used whatever they could to mark the grave of a loved one.

In the very front row of this cemetery is a pair of brownstone gravestones that would easily blend in in a Connecticut cemetery but which stand out dramatically in the cemetery in Monmouth. My thanks go to Bobbie Bowler of Monmouth who sent me photos of the gravestones. They mark the graves of Samuel Avery and two of his children. Samuel, whose wife was named Jerusha, Samuel was born on May 12, 1774 in Groton, Connecticut, son of William and Mary Avery, and died at the age of 26 on June 8, 1799. Samuel Avery and Jerusha Arnold were married on June 26, 1796 in New London, Connecticut,

Gravestone of Samuel Avery, Monmouth, Maine
Photos courtesy of Bobbie Bowler

across the river from Groton. I am distantly related to them, also having Avery ancestry through my mother. Their children are buried next to Samuel: Sally, age 8 months and 19 days, died on February 17, 1799. Samuel, age one year, died on March 1, 1799. Clearly, the two children died of an illness that swept through the household that winter. Did Samuel die so young of the same illness, lingering for months? We don’t know. Jerusha died the same year, on November 27, and is buried in the Cedar Grove Cemetery in New London.

I have wondered what the cause of Samuel's death was. Was it accidental, or illness? Recently I came across his will online and it confirms that he was ill for over a month prior to his death. His will of April 23, 1799, in Kennebec County Probate records, is brief and reads as follows:

In the name of GOD amen

I Samuel Avery of Monmouth and County of Kennebec and Commonwealth of Massachusetts being weak in body, but of sound and perfect mind and memory, blessed be Almighty GOD for the same, do make and publish this my last Will and Testament, in manner & form following (which is to say) I give and bequeath unto my beloved Wife Jerusha Avery, all my Estate real and personal, of what kind name or nature four, and wherever to be found and I hereby appoint John Arnold of New London and County of New London, and State of Connecticut Merchant, sole Executor of this my last Will and testament, hereby revoking all former Wills by me made.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal this twenty third day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety nine.

His executor was John Arnold, a merchant of New London, and his father-in-law. This is important because it confirms that the couple's New London family was actively in contact with them, and Arnold was undoubtedly the person who arranged for the gravestones.

Gravestone of Avery children, Monmouth, Maine

A tragic ending for a young family, to be sure. It’s not surprising that Jerusha would die so soon after losing both of her children and her husband. The stress she undoubtedly experienced in her grief could have been enough to kill her. Did she move back to Connecticut to be with her family after their deaths? Probably. In that part of Maine at that time marriage prospects would have been minimal, and a single woman would have been in some danger.


It is clear that Samuel and Jerusha came from a family with means. In a cemetery that at the time had nothing but flatrocks for gravestones the two brownstone gravestones would have stood out. Here was a young couple who moved their two children to a remote place. Was it for speculation in land? It wouldn’t be surprising. Whatever the reason, when Samuel and the children died someone clearly arranged for gravestones to be made in Connecticut and shipped up. That in itself would have been an undertaking. Shipping them by sea wouldn’t be difficult. They would have come up the Kennebec River and unloaded at Hallowell or Augusta, the transported by land. Given the lack of roads that alone would have been a major undertaking, done at great cost.

Gravestone of Jerusha Avery, Cedar Grove Cemetery,
New London, Connecticut
 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/83985082/jerusha-avery

There they lie buried in a foreign place. It’s a story that has been lived out again and again. Young people pick up and move to a new place for adventure, in pursuit of wealth, or just to get away from civilization. Whatever their reason for going to Maine, they left behind two little pieces of Connecticut in the place that brought them only hardship and death.

Jerusha's stone, made out of Connecticut brownstone, has suffered the same fate as that of her children. Most of the face of the stone is gone, and only cemetery records now indicate who is buried there. There she lies, forgotten to most.

O Who Hath Caused This?

William Blake, Pestilence: Death of the First Born, 1805

O for a voice like thunder, and a tongue
To drown the throat of war! When the senses
Are shaken, and the soul is driven to madness,
Who can stand? When the souls of the oppresed
Fight in the troubled air that rages, who can stand?
When the whirlwind of fury comes from the
Throne of God, when the frowns of his countenance
Drive the nations together, who can stand?
When Sin claps his broad wings over the battle,
And sails rejoicing in the flood of Death;
When souls are torn to everlasting fire,
And fiends of Hell rejoice upon the slain,
O who can stand? O who hath caused this?
O who can answer at the throne of God?
The Kings and Nobles of the Land have done it!
Hear it not, Heaven, thy Ministers have done it!

William Blake, Prologue, intended for a Dramatic Piece of King Edward the Fourth

This is one of my favorite poems, although I have many, many favorite poems, many by Shakespeare. I find it arresting. The imagery is striking. I can see a huge dragon flapping its wings over a battlefield. Blake's question, "O who hath caused this?" is the eternal question in war. Whose fault is it? Nations will usually come up with blame for the other side. "They did it first!" That doesn't matter, in this scenario. Nations engage in war for less than honorable reasons. Wars come about through the failure of nations to be reasonable. Wars happen when nations think short-term rather than long term. World War II, for example. My father is a veteran of the European theatre. He was nearly killed in a rocket attack in London. The war was a necessary one, but only because the West supported Hitler as a bulwark against Bolshevism. Many in the US held eugenics to be a legitimate science--the belief that some races are superior to others. Where did Hitler get that idea? He got it from us.

The bottom line is always who suffers the most. The common soldiers suffer the most. The civilian populations suffer the most. The heads of state and the generals, who assign their sons to a general's staff far away from danger, do not suffer.

As long as nations choose to short circuit diplomacy and go to war, common people will suffer. They will die on battlefields or starve at home.

Our current regime is rattling a saber at a frightening pace. Today President Drumpf called for a military parade in Washington. Such a parade would cost millions of dollars and would fly in the face of concerns about excessive government spending. It would be a demonstration of his own bloated sense of power. Military dictatorships such as the Soviet Union, East Germany and Romania used to put on such parades. So does North Korea. Is this what we want to become? Every day Drumpf is resembling more and more a dictator such as Stalin, who demanded worship from the mindless masses and tolerated no dissent. God help us.

I don't think comparisons of Drumpf to Hitler are quite accurate. I see Stalin as a better comparison. For your perusal I offer a passage from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago, in which he  describes the compulsory applause for Comrade Stalin at the 1937 Party Congress that went on for a long time:

A district party conference was under way in Moscow Province. It was presided over by a new secretary of the District Party Committee, replacing one recently arrested. At the conclusion of the conference, a tribute to Comrade Stalin was called for. Of course, everyone stood up (just as everyone had leaped to his feet during the conference with every mention of his name). The hall echoed with “stormy applause, raising to an ovation.” For three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, the “stormy applause, rising to an ovation,” continued. But palms were getting sore and raised arms were already aching. And the older people were panting from exhaustion. It was becoming insufferably silly even to those who adored Stalin. However, who would dare to be the first to stop? The secretary of the District Party could have done it. He was standing on the platform, and it was he who had just called for the ovation. But he was a newcomer. He had taken the place of a man who’d been arrested. He was afraid! After all, NKVD men were standing in the hall applauding and watching to see who would quit first! And in the obscure, small hall, unknown to the leader, the applause went on—six, seven, eight minutes! They were done for! Their goose was cooked! They couldn’t stop now till they collapsed with heart attacks! At the rear of the hall, which was crowded, they could of course cheat a bit, clap less frequently, less vigorously, not so eagerly—but up there with the presidium where everyone could see them'

The director of the local paper factor, an independent and strong-minded man, stood with the presidium. Aware of all the falsity and all the impossibility of the situation, he still kept on applauding! Nine minutes! Ten! In anguish he watched the secretary of the District Party Committee, but the latter dared not stop. Insanity! To the last man! With make-believe enthusiasm on their faces, looking at each other with faint hope, the district leaders were just going to go on and on applauding till they fell where they stood, till they were carried out of the hall on stretchers! And even then those who were left would not falter… Then, after eleven minutes, the director of the paper factory assumed a businesslike expression and sat down in his seat. And, oh, a miracle took place! Where had the universal, uninhibited, indescribable enthusiasm gone? To a man, everyone else stopped dead and sat down. They had been saved! 

The squirrel had been smart enough to jump off his revolving wheel. That, however, was how they discovered who the independent people were. And that was how they went about eliminating them. That same night the factory director was arrested. They easily pasted ten years on him on the pretext of something quite different. But after he had signed Form 206, the final document of the interrogation, his interrogator reminded him: “Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding!”

Take it a day at a time

Not marble nor the gilded monuments

Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,

But you shall shine more bright in these contents

Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time.

When wasteful war shall statues overturn,

And broils root out the work of masonry,

Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn

The living record of your memory.

’Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity

Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room

Even in the eyes of all posterity

That wear this world out to the ending doom.

    So, till the Judgement that yourself arise,

    You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.
Shakespeare, Sonnet 55

Shakespeare's profound words raise the most uncomfortable issue of all in human existence--that nothing lasts for ever, not even us. He seems optimistic, though, that memory will suffice in keeping one's existence alive. A recent article suggests that the cultural malaise that we seem to be in--of unhappiness, stems from our habitual overuse of electronics.  The cure--get out and do something. Talk to people. Go to church, read a book, take a walk, do something.  I believe this is true. Countless times I have seen couples eating out who are both scanning their phones, presumably on Facebook, looking for the perfect post--the one that will fulfill all desire, that will make them ultimately happy. The sad truth is that it will never come. Nothing available online will finally satisfy that eternal quest for ultimate meaning. Vaguebooking and coming up with nothing substantial only makes the user more unhappy because he or she never finds what they are looking for. It's the modern permutation of channel surfing.

Shakespeare wrote at the end of the Renaissance, when the English Renaissance was coming to a close and the even flashier Baroque era was ramping up. A preoccupation of the Renaissance was the realization of mortality. Shakespeare's poetry, whether in the sonnets or his plays, echos that preoccupation.

I believe the root of unhappiness in contemporary society lies in our refusal to acknowledge death as a part of life. We've made some progress in that regard. Hospice is now widespread, almost universal in the U.S., and helps the family and the patient both to ease into the next world. But we're still unhappy. Certainly the death of a young person (I'll let you decide what is "young") seems unjust, but we have come to see all of death as unfair and unjust, as though we somehow had a guarantee of everlasting life without pain.

It seems to me that some people go through life always hoping for something more. Perhaps all of us do that to one extent or another. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. "My soul shall not rest until it rests in you," Augustine wrote to God in his Confessions. By nature we are always looking ahead to what is better. Unfortunately that can easily translate into never being satisfied with anything in life. That's not a happy way to exist, yet many people do exactly that. Balance this with the sense of entitlement that life should be trouble-free and you have a recipe for unhappiness. Serious unhappiness. Take it a day at a time.

O Where Are Kings and Empires Now

In 2013 I had the opportunity to travel to Istanbul. I was there for a week so I had the chance to visit a number of historic sites in the city.

Istanbul, of course, is the modern permutation of Constantinople, the wealthiest city in the ancient world. Constantinople was the gateway to the wealth of the East. The Italian city states of Venice and Genoa had branch offices there to get a piece of the action. These cities dominated trade, and became fabulously wealthy as a result.

One of the most interesting sites was the Hippodrome. The Hippodrome was a circus, a long chariot track. Chariot racing was central to Roman identity. It was one of the premier entertainments along with gladitorial contests. But this wasn’t just any circus. It was the Emperor’s circus. It ran alongside the royal palace, and the Emperor had a special box that was accessible to the palace. This was royal theater at its best. The Hippodrome was not just used for chariot races, but was also used for large imperial public events.

The Hippodrome now sits next to the Blue Mosque, which stands on the site of the Church of the Holy Apostles, the burial site of Byzantine Emperors for centuries. The outline of the track is still there, with the track itself paved with asphalt. Chariots don't race there anymore. Taxis do. The perimeter is mostly cafes and shops--a number of shops selling pashmina shawls and things like that.

As I sat at a cafe I thought about the chariot races that were held there and tried to imagine them whipping around the curve. I also thought about the emperor Justinian luring the rival factions after the Nike riots into the Hippodrome, then shutting the gates and slaughtering 30,000 of them. A profound moment.

The base of the obelisk, which came from Alexandria and was erected by the emperor Theodosius in the late 4th century, has reliefs depicting the Emperor and his court, including the submission of the barbarians. I spent some time with this, thinking about the moment captured in time, when Byzantium was in its glory, the Emperor ruled over the world, and everything was wonderful and stable. The marvelous thing about art such as this is that it freezes a moment in time. It's a fantasy, I know, but it's wonderful to be drawn into this fantasy scene for a few minutes. In this sculpture, the Emperor is eternally reviewing the charioteers and waving to the adoring crowds. It's almost as if everything that happened after never actually happened--the Crusades, the World Wars, the Holocaust, 9/11. How much history has passed by the relief of the Emperor and his retinue awarding the laurel wreath to the winner of the race. This gave me pause, looking on a scene from 1600 years ago, when the Emperor couldn't imagine anything better than what he saw from his private box. This was a wonderful opportunity to reflect on mortality. It makes me think of the opening line of an old hymn:

O where are kings and empires now
Of old that went and came?

It's Only a Pawn

White pawns from the Charlemagne chess set, ca. 1050

I’ve decided to write a history of chess pieces, one piece at a time. I’m hardly the first person to do so, but I thought it would be fun. All the pieces were either made by me or are in my collection.

It might seem appropriate to start with the king, the focus of the entire game. Trapping the king is the central goal of chess. But, I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to start at the bottom, the lowly pawn.

Pawns have gotten a bad rap over the years. A commonly used phrase, often by talking heads on History Channel documentaries, is that people of lesser standing were moved around by kings and the nobility “like pawns on a chessboard.” What they fail to understand, of course, is that ALL the pieces on a chessboard are moved around by the player. Duh. I guess they'd be easy to checkmate! Part of what is behind that sort of phrase is the idea that pawns were worthless, disposable, just cannon fodder to protect the king and his court. Actually, that is not true.

This was even more untrue during the Middle Ages. When chess came to Europe around the 8th century it was a very different game. The queen was not a queen, but a vizier or general (and the weakest piece on the board), the rook was a chariot, the bishop was an elephant with limited moves, and the other pieces were the same as today. In such a game, with only the rook having unlimited movement in one direction, action in the game was more localized. Hence, the pawns were very important strategically. They were used to form a barrier against the forward movement of the other side.

Even in modern chess pawns can be very powerful. You can checkmate with a few pawns with cover. Really.

This did not make them less valuable, cannon fodder (although there weren’t cannons in Europe at the time), disposable pieces of lesser value. They had a great deal of value. They were often used in a way that they were captured, given that there were eight of them. That didn’t make them less valuable. They were used strategically.

Having said that, the uniformity of pawns in medieval chess might give the impression they were less valuable. They represented foot soldiers, of which there were more than there were of other components of the army.

As chess evolved in India the pieces represented the four parts of an army. The rook was the chariot, capable of high speed movement straight ahead. The knight, which along with the rook has retained its original movement since the beginning, was more nimble and could turn off if necessary. The bishop (at the time an elephant) was limited in movement, but if it were in the right place it could be devastating. Finally, the pawn represented the infantry--soldiers on foot, not in a chariot, riding a horse or elephant, and carrying a shield and spear. All parts of the army were important, and each had its own function.

l to r: Persian/early European pawn, ca. 1000;  Lewis Chessmen, ca. 1100; Spanish, ca. 1250, Scandinavia, ca. 1300 Russia, ca. 1350; England, ca. 1480; Italy, ca. 1490; Germany, ca. 1500

The development of the chess pawn is an interesting one. The pawn as it came out of Persia in the 7th century was small, with some decoration. Most pieces from this period resemble that form. The pawns in the Lewis Chessmen are similar, with two designs, perhaps reflecting two different sides. The rest of the pieces are figural, and I’ll get to them another time.

l to r: England, ca. 1560; Italy, ca. 1600; England, ca. 1700; Portugal (made in India) ca. 1650; France, ca. 1750; England, ca. 1750, England, ca. 1830

Regional variations on the pawn cropped up in various parts of Europe. In places the pawn became somewhat bottle shaped, with a small neck that was easy to pick up. In many parts of Europe, the pawn remained a the simplest piece, taking the shape of a barrel or cylinder with minimal decoration. Some examples are illustrated here. One notable exception is the pawn in the so-called Charlemagne chess set now in Paris, made in Sicily during the eleventh century. Here the pawn is a foot soldier.

As time went on pawns were still uniform in shape but took on many different designs. In places they retained that bottle-shaped form, while disks and other additions mad them more elaborate. In some designs the pawn became a miniature of the bishop and/or queen, such as in the Regence style. In the case of the ubiquitous Staunton design, introduced in England in 1849, the pawn had its own design not based on another piece.

l to ro: English, bone, ca. 1860-1900; German, wood, ca. 1840-80; French, Staunton design, wood,  ca. 1920; German, wood, ca. 1860-80; French, Regence design, wood, ca. 1880; Irish, Killarney, wood, ca. 1880; Russian, wood, ca. 1950. The only piece I made here is the Killarney piece.

Pawns are almost always the shortest pieces on the board. That has remained consistent. That does not make them of less value or insignificant, however. In modern chess the pawn can be promoted to any piece the player desires once it has made it to the other side. It often takes most of the game to get a pawn to the last rank on the other side. It is very rare for a player to get more than one pawn to the other side. Generally players will promote their pawn to a queen, since it is the most powerful piece on the board. New chess sets today quite often will have an extra queen for each side. That was not true when I was learning how to pay as a kid. Back then, you took a rook and turned it upside down to make a second queen. That’s why rooks in old sets will often have damage to the top.

Enjoy the photos of pawns through the ages!