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 The Origin of CastlingCastling, the most distinctive move in the whole of chess, affects the nature of mating attacks in various ways and because of its importance in tis connection, the general significance o the move is worth examining. Castling is not of any great antiquity. It is also obvious that such a complex and distinctive operation as th modern castling move was not born in a day, but rather developed gradually from century to century with the evolution of the rules of the game themselves. in the Indian game of chaturanga (pre-chess) there is not trace of the move, nor can it be found n the Arab shatranji. The first traces of any unusual or exceptional movement being made b the king, out of which the castling move evolved, are to be found n mediaeval European chess, which in its first stages can be described as the first and not very significant revision of shatranji towards providing the pieces with greater mobility. A historical source attesting to the first revision is a work by Lombard monk Jacobus de Cessolis, in which are recorded the rules governing the movements of th e individual chess pieces at the time. There it is stated that king, queen, and pawns have the right to make an initial move of two squares as well and the normal one. From this early reform the double opening step taken by the pawn survives to this day, while in the case of the queen it became obsolete when the piece was given its present powers of movement during the great reform of the game at the end of the 15th century. In the case of the king it was further developed and altered until it eventually took its present-day shape as castling. There is extensive confirmation of the introduction of the king's move from other sources after Cessolis, though the particular conditions governing the move vary. The form most frequently recorded is that where the king moves like a knight ('Fredensprung'), with the limitation that it is not allowed to go beyond the second rank. The next form, which made its appearance in Italy in the 16th century, already included a movement by the rook in the same move - a step nearer to the castling of today. The kin's use of the knight's jump disappears at this point and the rules state that the king is free to move from e1 to g1 or h1 and the rook from h1 to f1 or e1. This type of 'free castling' or Italian castling ' persisted in Italy right up the 19th century, when it was superseded by the present rules, which were introduced France during 18th century. This short survey of the historical evolution of castling is a good illustration of the gradual development of the rules of chess and it makes it particularly clear that these rules have been changes and perfected with the desire of enriching the game; the general tendency towards giving the pieces more dynamic movement reflects in the increased animation of social movements in Europe from the Middle Ages onwards. In addition to this general line of development in the laws of chess, we also owe the introduction and eventual adoption of the castling move to the indirect influence of the great reform of the 15th century. This reform created a powerful queen out of the 'fers' (which moved one square) and the modern bishop out of the 'alfil' (which moved exactly 2 squares). In this new type of chess, with 3 long-range pieces, the fighting ability of the king declined; once n the days of pre- chess it had been the strongest piece of all. The king now became a hindrance with its slow movement, and its position in the centre of the back rank stood out immediately as a 'fault in the game's structure'. On the one hand, it had to be safeguarded against the formidable new forces, and on the other hand, it had to be removed from the centre so as not to hamper them. For this reason it was necessary for the king to get away fro the center as quickly as possible, and it was to this end that the kin's double move was built on and transformed into the full castling move. Therefore, not only the development of this most distinctive move can be traced through the history of chess but also its logic: it exists as the necessary complement to the reform of the other pieces' movements. We start a game of chess today with pieces placed in the ancient order which derives from chaturanga, and then we switch over by castling to a new position, which is better suited to the alterations made in the game's rules. Vladmir Vukovic - The Art Of Attack Chess' - Copyright 1998 |
