chess thrived in central Europe, especially in Germany, from
the 12th through the 18th century. It was played alongside the
medieval form of chess brought in from the Islamic world, and
persisted well into the modern era, alongside the chess we play
The novel piece in this game was the courier, which moved like
our modern bishop. It was considered so important that it stood
among the tallest pieces, and was said to be the most powerful.
In addition, two other pieces were added: the sage and the jester.
shown here are recreated from Lucas van Leyden’s famous
painting of 1508, known as “The Chess Players.”
is a picture of each piece, with its English name, its old German
name, and the move it makes on the chessboard. We’ll begin
with the pieces more familiar to modern chess players:
King(König) moves one space in
any direction. He does not have the power to castle, and must
always move so that he is not threatened with capture (“in
Rook (Roche) moves as many squares as
it wishes, forward, backward, left or right, until it reaches
another piece, or the end of the board. Exactly like the modern
The Knight (Reutter) moves in a peculiar
L-shape: two spaces forward, backward, right or left, plus one
square at a right angle. It can not be blocked by another piece.
This move also is exactly like its modern counterpart.
Pawn (Soldat) moves one space forward,
but captures forward/diagonally, like a modern pawn. It does not
move two spaces forward (except as explained later), and promotes
only to a medieval queen (see following page).
let’s look at some more ancient and unusual pieces and moves.
(Kurierer), for which this game was named,
moves exactly like our modern bishop: as many spaces as it wishes
diagonally, but not able to jump over pieces in its way.
Medieval Bishop(Schütze) —
not to be confused with the courier — has a move rather
strange to the modern chess player. He moves two spaces diagonally,
no more and no less, and has the power of jumping over a piece
if it stands in his way. This peculiar move can only take him
to 12 possible squares on the entire 8 by 12 chessboard.
Medieval Queen(Königin) moves
only one space diagonally. Very different from the modern queen,
but typical of chess before the 16th century.
Sage(Man) moves exactly like the king,
but is able to be captured like any other piece.
Jester(Schleich) moves only one space
forward, backward, left or right.
Here is the initial array of the pieces (K=King; Q=Medieval
Queen; S=Sage; J=Jester; C=Courier; B=Medieval Bishop; Kt=Knight;
Notice that the sage, king, queen and jester all face each other
directly across the board. The white king stands on a white
square, and the black king stands on black.
game begins with each player making four peculiar moves:
The three pawns in front of the rooks and queen move two spaces
forward; the queen also moves two spaces directly forward, to
stand right behind the advanced queen pawn. The two players
then play alternately, each time moving one piece in accordance
with its normal move.
are made by moving a piece onto a square occupied by an enemy
piece. All pieces except the pawn (previously described) capture
by using their normal moves.
player’s King is threatened with capture, “check”
is declared, and the player must move so that his King is no
longer threatened. If there is no possible move to relieve the
King of the threat, he is in “checkmate” and the
game is over. Even if the King is not in immediate threat, but
any possible move would subject him to capture (stalemate),
he has lost the game.
pawn reaches the opposite side of the board, it is immediately
promoted, being replaced by a medieval queen
(a relatively weak piece).
occurs when it can be demonstrated that neither player has sufficient
means to win the game.