Medieval manuscripts, paintings, and even chess sets are offering a new perspective on how people in the Middle Ages understood race, identity, and intellectual ability. A new study suggests that the so-called “game of kings” could provide a space where individuals from different cultures engaged as equals—challenging assumptions about rigid social and racial hierarchies in the medieval world.
The research, by Dr Krisztina Ilko of Queens’ College, Cambridge, has been awarded the Medieval Academy of America’s ‘Article Prize in Critical Race Studies’ for her study “Chess and Race in the Global Middle Ages,” published in Speculum. Drawing on a wide range of evidence—including manuscripts, paintings, literary texts, and surviving chess pieces—Ilko argues that chess functioned as a rare arena in which intellectual ability could take precedence over status, background, or skin colour.
One of the most vivid examples comes from a richly illustrated chess treatise completed in Seville in 1283 for King Alfonso X of Castile, known as the Libro de axedrez. In one striking scene, a Black chess player is on the verge of defeating a white opponent, a cleric. The player appears relaxed, seated comfortably on a finely decorated bench, with a bottle of red wine nearby and a full glass at hand. His opponent sits opposite him, and the two figures are presented as equals, engaged in a shared intellectual pursuit rather than a contest defined by hierarchy or power.
This image stands in sharp contrast to many other medieval depictions involving race. “When people with non-white skin colour are depicted in medieval images, scholars have tended to see them in either exalted or subdued positions,” Ilko explains. “So you get the Queen of Sheba at one extreme and executioners and other malignant forces at the other. Chess reveals a different, more complex story.”
Mongol chess players. Chess problem 23 in the Libro de axedrez, dados e tablas (Seville, 1283). Image Credit: Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial
Across the Libro de axedrez, numerous scenes depict players from across the known world, including figures identified as Muslim, Jewish, and Mongol. In one image, a Mongol figure leans casually on a sabre, yet the weapon is not used for violence—the only conflict taking place is on the chessboard. These images reflect a setting in which individuals from different cultures interact through shared intellectual engagement.
“Medieval sources repeatedly state that chess is war without bloodshed, and that it represents a just world,” Ilko says. “Chess became a representation of the known world, the people in it and how society should function through orderly moves. Chess was a powerful vehicle for people hailing from widely different places, even civilizations, to interact with each other. It was an intellectual exchange.”
Two Black men playing chess surrounded by three female attendants. Chess problem 25 in the Libro de axedrez, dados e tablas (Seville, 1283). Image Credit: Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial
The study places these visual representations within a broader global context. Chess originated in India around the sixth century, likely evolving from earlier strategic board games connected to the organisation of armies. From there, it spread across Asia, the Middle East, and into Europe, becoming one of the most widely shared cultural practices of the medieval world. By the end of the first millennium, it was played across a vast geographic area, from the Islamic world to northern Europe.
As Ilko details in her article, chess was not only a shared pastime but also a medium through which people from different cultures could interact, sometimes in unexpected ways:
According to a medieval tradition, the Abbasid caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd (r. 170/786–193/809 AH/CE) gifted a chess set to Charlemagne (r. 768–814) upon his coronation as emperor in 801. In a less amicable interaction, al-Ṭabarī narrates that al-Rashīd waged war against Nikephoros I (r. 802–11) after the Byzantine emperor reportedly accused the caliph of making his predecessor a pawn to al-Rashīd’s rook. But intercultural encounters through this ‘game of kings’ were not limited to courtly culture and the most elite echelons of society. In thirteenth-century communal Florence, a Muslim traveler entered a contest where he masterfully defeated two Italian opponents while playing blindfolded. Chess was also a potent tool of intercultural communication between civilizations that had never been in direct contact before. The commander of the first Portuguese expedition to Malacca in 1509 was playing chess when a Javan came aboard his ship. The Javan immediately recognized the game, and the two men started to discuss the different forms of the pieces, through which first contact was established.
These examples highlight how chess could operate as a shared intellectual language, allowing individuals from different cultural and religious backgrounds to communicate, compete, and even form connections.
St Nicolas miracle chess scene in the late 14thC altarpiece from San Nicolas, Portopi, now in the Museu de Mallorca. Image courtesy Krisztina Ilko
Another example explored in the study comes from a late fourteenth-century altarpiece dedicated to Saint Nicholas of Myra, now housed in the Museu de Mallorca in Palma. Originally from the church of San Nicolás in Portopí, the altarpiece includes a scene showing a dark-skinned man playing chess with a lighter-skinned opponent in what appears to be a Muslim court.
Ilko connects this image to a medieval narrative preserved in the French play Le Jeu de saint Nicolas, written around 1200. In this story, a group of non-Christian figures—likely Muslims—defeat a Christian army and discover a lone survivor praying before a statue of Saint Nicholas. The local ruler places the statue to watch his treasury, but after gambling over a game of chess in a tavern, three thieves manage to steal the treasure. Saint Nicholas later appears and compels the thieves to return what they have taken, eventually convincing the ruler and his court to convert to Christianity.
Within this narrative framework, the chess scene becomes part of a larger story about faith, morality, and transformation. At the same time, Ilko argues that the visual representation challenges conventional hierarchies. The darker-skinned ruler is shown with authority and dignity, rather than subordination, countering the dominant value system that often privileged whiteness in medieval imagery.
Abu’l Qasim Firdausi, Buzurgmihr Masters the Game of Chess, Folio from the First Small Shahnama, Book of Kings (Iraq or Iran, c.1300–30). Image Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Ilko identifies a similar pattern in depictions found in manuscripts of the Persian epic Shahnama, which recounts the transmission of chess from India to Iran. In several fourteenth-century illustrations, an Indian ambassador presents the game to the Persian court. Earlier interpretations of these scenes suggested that the ambassador’s darker skin and distinctive clothing emphasized his defeat at the hands of a Persian courtier.
However, Ilko argues that this reading is misleading. Rather than depicting inferiority, the ambassador is portrayed as a respected figure—an emissary of a powerful ruler and a bearer of valuable intellectual knowledge. His appearance marks him as a foreigner, but not as a subordinate.
“The dark skin colour of intellectual Indian figures in Persian manuscripts challenged the value systems shared by both Christian and Islamic worlds that privileged whiteness,” Ilko says.
Lewis chessmen – photo by Stephen Coles / Flickr
Beyond visual representations of players, the study also examines chess pieces themselves as reflections of how medieval societies understood human difference. Chess pieces were often designed in ways that reflected local artistic traditions and cultural identities. Some sets include figures with features associated with South Asia, while others depict rulers with characteristics linked to Turkic or Mongol populations. In northern Europe, the famous Lewis chessmen present figures that align with Scandinavian styles of dress and appearance.
These variations suggest that chess pieces were not merely abstract game objects but representations of human figures, shaped by the cultural contexts in which they were produced. The game’s origins also reinforce this idea. The word for chess in several languages derives from terms connected to the four divisions of an ancient Indian army—infantry, cavalry, chariots, and elephants—indicating that the pieces were originally conceived as representations of human roles within a structured system.
The symbolism of chess extended even further. Medieval writers sometimes described the chessboard as a miniature version of the world, with its opposing sides representing different peoples and its pieces reflecting the structure of society. Here is how one thirteenth-century poem puts it:
All the world is a chessboard, of which one square is white but another black on account of the two-fold state of life and death, of grace and sin. The pieces of this chessboard are the people of this world, who are drawn out of one bag, like a mother’s womb, and are positioned in various places of this world, and each one of them has a different name.
Colour played a particularly important role in this symbolic system. The contrasting squares of the chessboard—often rendered in black and white—provided a visual framework through which ideas about difference could be expressed. Chess sets themselves frequently used contrasting materials, such as dark ebony and light ivory, to distinguish opposing sides. Yet Ilko’s study emphasizes that these colour associations were not fixed or universal. Some medieval chess sets used entirely different colour combinations, and artworks often depict players of varying appearances competing on equal terms.
“Chess was and remains a game of logic, where intellectual prowess matters,” Ilko says. “Chess operated on a different plane where people could engage with each other as equals, irrespective of their skin colour. What mattered was ‘who’s smarter?’, ‘who can win?’, not ‘who’s more powerful or socially superior?’”
A Jewish chess player playing against a Muslim chess player. Chess problem 102 in the Libro de axedrez, dados e tablas (Seville, 1283). Image Credit: Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial
The study also sheds light on the interconnected nature of the medieval world. At the court of Alfonso X, for example, intellectual life was shaped by the translation and adaptation of knowledge from the Islamic world. This influence is evident in the chess treatise itself: of the 103 chess problems it contains, the majority follow styles developed in Islamic traditions, reflecting admiration for the techniques and strategies of Muslim players.
By combining visual, literary, and material evidence, Ilko’s research offers a new way of understanding both chess and the medieval world more broadly. Rather than simply reinforcing existing hierarchies, the game could create moments in which those hierarchies were questioned or reimagined. In doing so, it reveals a medieval world that was more interconnected—and in some contexts more intellectually egalitarian—than is often assumed.
“Chess reveals a more diverse and fun Middle Ages,” Ilko notes. “So much that survives and gets taught about this period is religious. It’s especially dominated by a Christian worldview. Chess allows us to see a different side of medieval society—one shaped by global connections, shared knowledge, and intellectual exchange.”
Dr Krisztina Ilko with a chess set. Photo courtesy Krisztina Ilko
Krisztina Ilko’s article, “Chess and Race in the Global Middle Ages,” is published in Speculum. Click here to access it.
Dr Ilko is currently writing a book entitled The Pawns of History: A New Approach towards the Global Middle Ages.
Many congratulations to @drkrisztinailko.bsky.social for winning the @medievalacademy.bsky.social prize for best article in critical race studies!
Top Image: A Black chess player about to win against a light-skinned cleric. Chess problem 88 in the Libro de axedrez, dados e tablas (Seville, 1283). Image Credit: Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial
Medieval manuscripts, paintings, and even chess sets are offering a new perspective on how people in the Middle Ages understood race, identity, and intellectual ability. A new study suggests that the so-called “game of kings” could provide a space where individuals from different cultures engaged as equals—challenging assumptions about rigid social and racial hierarchies in the medieval world.
The research, by Dr Krisztina Ilko of Queens’ College, Cambridge, has been awarded the Medieval Academy of America’s ‘Article Prize in Critical Race Studies’ for her study “Chess and Race in the Global Middle Ages,” published in Speculum. Drawing on a wide range of evidence—including manuscripts, paintings, literary texts, and surviving chess pieces—Ilko argues that chess functioned as a rare arena in which intellectual ability could take precedence over status, background, or skin colour.
One of the most vivid examples comes from a richly illustrated chess treatise completed in Seville in 1283 for King Alfonso X of Castile, known as the Libro de axedrez. In one striking scene, a Black chess player is on the verge of defeating a white opponent, a cleric. The player appears relaxed, seated comfortably on a finely decorated bench, with a bottle of red wine nearby and a full glass at hand. His opponent sits opposite him, and the two figures are presented as equals, engaged in a shared intellectual pursuit rather than a contest defined by hierarchy or power.
This image stands in sharp contrast to many other medieval depictions involving race. “When people with non-white skin colour are depicted in medieval images, scholars have tended to see them in either exalted or subdued positions,” Ilko explains. “So you get the Queen of Sheba at one extreme and executioners and other malignant forces at the other. Chess reveals a different, more complex story.”
Across the Libro de axedrez, numerous scenes depict players from across the known world, including figures identified as Muslim, Jewish, and Mongol. In one image, a Mongol figure leans casually on a sabre, yet the weapon is not used for violence—the only conflict taking place is on the chessboard. These images reflect a setting in which individuals from different cultures interact through shared intellectual engagement.
“Medieval sources repeatedly state that chess is war without bloodshed, and that it represents a just world,” Ilko says. “Chess became a representation of the known world, the people in it and how society should function through orderly moves. Chess was a powerful vehicle for people hailing from widely different places, even civilizations, to interact with each other. It was an intellectual exchange.”
The study places these visual representations within a broader global context. Chess originated in India around the sixth century, likely evolving from earlier strategic board games connected to the organisation of armies. From there, it spread across Asia, the Middle East, and into Europe, becoming one of the most widely shared cultural practices of the medieval world. By the end of the first millennium, it was played across a vast geographic area, from the Islamic world to northern Europe.
As Ilko details in her article, chess was not only a shared pastime but also a medium through which people from different cultures could interact, sometimes in unexpected ways:
According to a medieval tradition, the Abbasid caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd (r. 170/786–193/809 AH/CE) gifted a chess set to Charlemagne (r. 768–814) upon his coronation as emperor in 801. In a less amicable interaction, al-Ṭabarī narrates that al-Rashīd waged war against Nikephoros I (r. 802–11) after the Byzantine emperor reportedly accused the caliph of making his predecessor a pawn to al-Rashīd’s rook. But intercultural encounters through this ‘game of kings’ were not limited to courtly culture and the most elite echelons of society. In thirteenth-century communal Florence, a Muslim traveler entered a contest where he masterfully defeated two Italian opponents while playing blindfolded. Chess was also a potent tool of intercultural communication between civilizations that had never been in direct contact before. The commander of the first Portuguese expedition to Malacca in 1509 was playing chess when a Javan came aboard his ship. The Javan immediately recognized the game, and the two men started to discuss the different forms of the pieces, through which first contact was established.
These examples highlight how chess could operate as a shared intellectual language, allowing individuals from different cultural and religious backgrounds to communicate, compete, and even form connections.
Another example explored in the study comes from a late fourteenth-century altarpiece dedicated to Saint Nicholas of Myra, now housed in the Museu de Mallorca in Palma. Originally from the church of San Nicolás in Portopí, the altarpiece includes a scene showing a dark-skinned man playing chess with a lighter-skinned opponent in what appears to be a Muslim court.
Ilko connects this image to a medieval narrative preserved in the French play Le Jeu de saint Nicolas, written around 1200. In this story, a group of non-Christian figures—likely Muslims—defeat a Christian army and discover a lone survivor praying before a statue of Saint Nicholas. The local ruler places the statue to watch his treasury, but after gambling over a game of chess in a tavern, three thieves manage to steal the treasure. Saint Nicholas later appears and compels the thieves to return what they have taken, eventually convincing the ruler and his court to convert to Christianity.
Within this narrative framework, the chess scene becomes part of a larger story about faith, morality, and transformation. At the same time, Ilko argues that the visual representation challenges conventional hierarchies. The darker-skinned ruler is shown with authority and dignity, rather than subordination, countering the dominant value system that often privileged whiteness in medieval imagery.
Ilko identifies a similar pattern in depictions found in manuscripts of the Persian epic Shahnama, which recounts the transmission of chess from India to Iran. In several fourteenth-century illustrations, an Indian ambassador presents the game to the Persian court. Earlier interpretations of these scenes suggested that the ambassador’s darker skin and distinctive clothing emphasized his defeat at the hands of a Persian courtier.
However, Ilko argues that this reading is misleading. Rather than depicting inferiority, the ambassador is portrayed as a respected figure—an emissary of a powerful ruler and a bearer of valuable intellectual knowledge. His appearance marks him as a foreigner, but not as a subordinate.
“The dark skin colour of intellectual Indian figures in Persian manuscripts challenged the value systems shared by both Christian and Islamic worlds that privileged whiteness,” Ilko says.
Beyond visual representations of players, the study also examines chess pieces themselves as reflections of how medieval societies understood human difference. Chess pieces were often designed in ways that reflected local artistic traditions and cultural identities. Some sets include figures with features associated with South Asia, while others depict rulers with characteristics linked to Turkic or Mongol populations. In northern Europe, the famous Lewis chessmen present figures that align with Scandinavian styles of dress and appearance.
These variations suggest that chess pieces were not merely abstract game objects but representations of human figures, shaped by the cultural contexts in which they were produced. The game’s origins also reinforce this idea. The word for chess in several languages derives from terms connected to the four divisions of an ancient Indian army—infantry, cavalry, chariots, and elephants—indicating that the pieces were originally conceived as representations of human roles within a structured system.
The symbolism of chess extended even further. Medieval writers sometimes described the chessboard as a miniature version of the world, with its opposing sides representing different peoples and its pieces reflecting the structure of society. Here is how one thirteenth-century poem puts it:
All the world is a chessboard, of which one square is white but another black on account of the two-fold state of life and death, of grace and sin. The pieces of this chessboard are the people of this world, who are drawn out of one bag, like a mother’s womb, and are positioned in various places of this world, and each one of them has a different name.
Colour played a particularly important role in this symbolic system. The contrasting squares of the chessboard—often rendered in black and white—provided a visual framework through which ideas about difference could be expressed. Chess sets themselves frequently used contrasting materials, such as dark ebony and light ivory, to distinguish opposing sides. Yet Ilko’s study emphasizes that these colour associations were not fixed or universal. Some medieval chess sets used entirely different colour combinations, and artworks often depict players of varying appearances competing on equal terms.
“Chess was and remains a game of logic, where intellectual prowess matters,” Ilko says. “Chess operated on a different plane where people could engage with each other as equals, irrespective of their skin colour. What mattered was ‘who’s smarter?’, ‘who can win?’, not ‘who’s more powerful or socially superior?’”
The study also sheds light on the interconnected nature of the medieval world. At the court of Alfonso X, for example, intellectual life was shaped by the translation and adaptation of knowledge from the Islamic world. This influence is evident in the chess treatise itself: of the 103 chess problems it contains, the majority follow styles developed in Islamic traditions, reflecting admiration for the techniques and strategies of Muslim players.
By combining visual, literary, and material evidence, Ilko’s research offers a new way of understanding both chess and the medieval world more broadly. Rather than simply reinforcing existing hierarchies, the game could create moments in which those hierarchies were questioned or reimagined. In doing so, it reveals a medieval world that was more interconnected—and in some contexts more intellectually egalitarian—than is often assumed.
“Chess reveals a more diverse and fun Middle Ages,” Ilko notes. “So much that survives and gets taught about this period is religious. It’s especially dominated by a Christian worldview. Chess allows us to see a different side of medieval society—one shaped by global connections, shared knowledge, and intellectual exchange.”
Krisztina Ilko’s article, “Chess and Race in the Global Middle Ages,” is published in Speculum. Click here to access it.
Dr Ilko is currently writing a book entitled The Pawns of History: A New Approach towards the Global Middle Ages.
Top Image: A Black chess player about to win against a light-skinned cleric. Chess problem 88 in the Libro de axedrez, dados e tablas (Seville, 1283). Image Credit: Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial
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