The predecessors of chess were associated with South Asian games, which traveled through Persia and the Arab world into Europe. The identities and movements of pieces changed as the game spread.
The modern moves of the queen and bishop gradually took shape in Europe. Today's established rules are the result of centuries of exchange and adaptation across different regions.
Origins
Texts referring to the origins of chess date from the beginning of the seventh century. One, the "Harshacharita", is in Sanskrit. Three are written in "Pahlavi" (Middle Persian) One of these texts, the "Chatrang-namak", represents one of the earliest written accounts of chess.
The oldest known chess manual was in Arabic and dates to about 840, written by al-Adli ar-Rumi (800–870), a renowned Arab chess player, titled Kitab ash-shatranj (The Book of Chess). This is a lost manuscript, but is referenced in later works. Here also, al-Adli attributes the origins of Persian chess to India, along with the eighth-century collection of fables Kalīla wa-Dimna. By the 20th century, a substantial consensus developed regarding chess's origins in northwest India in the early seventh century. More recently, this consensus has been the subject of further scrutiny.
The early forms of chess in India were known as chaturaṅga, literally "four divisions" – infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariotry – represented by pieces that would later evolve into the modern pawn, knight, bishop, and rook, respectively. Chaturanga was played on an 8×8 uncheckered board, called ashtāpada. Thence it spread eastward and westward along the Silk Road. The earliest evidence of chess is found in nearby Sasanian Persia around 600 A.D., where the game came to be known by the name chatrang. Chatrang was taken up by the Muslim world after the Islamic conquest of Persia (633–51), where it was then named shatranj, with the pieces largely retaining their Persian names.
In Spanish, "shatranj" was rendered as ajedrez ("al-shatranj"), in Portuguese as xadrez, and in Greek as zatrikion (which comes directly from the Persian chatrang), but in the rest of Europe it was replaced by versions of the Persian shāh ("king"), from which the English words "check" and "chess" descend. The word "checkmate" is derived from the Persian shāh māt ("the king is dead").
1200–1700: Origins of the modern game
The game of chess was then played and known in all European countries. A famous 13th-century Spanish manuscript covering chess, backgammon, and dice is known as the Libro de los juegos, which is the earliest European treatise on chess as well as being the oldest document on European tables games. The rules were fundamentally similar to those of the Arabic shatranj. The differences were mostly in the use of a checkered board instead of a plain monochrome board used by Arabs and the habit of allowing some or all pawns to make an initial double step. In some regions, the queen, which had replaced the wazir, or the king could also make an initial two-square leap under some conditions.
Around 1200, the rules of shatranj started to be modified in Europe, culminating, several major changes later, in the emergence of modern chess practically as it is known today. A major change was the modern piece movement rules, which began to appear in intellectual circles in Valencia, Spain, around 1475, which established the foundations and brought it very close to current chess. These new rules then were quickly adopted in Italy and Southern France before diffusing into the rest of Europe. Pawns gained the ability to advance two squares on their first move, while bishops and queens acquired their modern movement powers.
The queen replaced the earlier vizier chess piece toward the end of the 10th century and by the 15th century had become the most powerful piece; in light of that, modern chess was often referred to at the time as "Queen's Chess" or "Mad Queen Chess". Castling, derived from the "king's leap", usually in combination with a pawn or rook move to bring the king to safety, was introduced. These new rules quickly spread throughout Western Europe.