Chess History Guide : Medieval Chess

This guide is mostly about Medieval Chess Rules – how those in Ye Olde days did battle on the board …

However, I’ve also tacked on a bit about Medieval themed Chess Sets; just a short mention, but I thought they looked quite good, with some excellent detailing of some of the pieces, so I felt they required an obligatory few words.

Chess Rules Of The Medieval Game

The Rules here are based on research by Edinburgh University Chess Club.

At the time of writing, I couldn’t find any mention of moves such as En Passant, Castling, or Pawn Promotion, so, to play it safe, the Rules on this page mainly concern the Basic Moves of the Chess pieces.

You’ll also find mention of Checkmate, a comparison between the modern game and the Medieval version when a King would Not be in Checkmate and an alternative winning move, known as Baremate, which was a feature of the Medieval game.

Where capturing is concerned, I’m assuming, unless restricted by range of movement, they’re the same as they are today.

Medieval Chess Rules

The first nine pages are all focused on the Rules of the Medieval game of chess – specifically, how the Pawns and Pieces moved …

1. How Pawns Moved

Pawns could only move 1 square, at all times – there’s no first-move two square option, like in chess today.

2. How Knights Moved

Knights moved in the same L-shaped pattern as they do today.

3. How Bishops Moved

Bishops could only move a maximum of two squares, but they could jump over obstacles!

4. How Rooks Moved

Rooks could move across the full length of their Rank or File that they occupy, providing there was no obstruction, just like today’s Rooks.

5. How Queens Moved

Queens could only move one square in any diagonal direction, but they couldn’t move in a straight line along either the Ranks or Files.

6. How Kings Moved

Kings could move one square in any direction, just like they can today.

7. Medieval Checkmate

Because of the limitations of the Queens, in particular, Checkmate took more effort to achieve. This article shows an example of Checkmate and contrasts it with when it wasn’t.

8. Medieval Baremate

Perhaps brought in to speed up games of chess, Baremate was a type of Checkmate victory when all the Pawns and Pieces of a player’s army had been captured, leaving the King without protection – or, Bare.

9. Medieval Themed Chess Sets

Basically, this article’s just a random collection of chess sets with a Medieval theme.