Arthur Saul
Original title: The Famous Game of Chesse-play
Arthur Saul's English manual of 1614 addresses readers who want to understand how the struggle in chess works. He explains the arrangement of pieces, their mutual protection, the advantage of the first move and the relative value of forces. Behind the individual recommendations lies an effort to teach players to assess a position and recognise both sides' possibilities.
Twenty-two chapters discuss exchanges, attack and defence, retreat, the use of an advantage, checkmate and stalemate. Saul considers disputed rules and ways of resolving disagreements, challenges universal recipes and examines dangerous methods of opening play. These subjects reveal chess as a practice in which calculation is inseparable from agreements between the participants.
The treatise offers a view of early seventeenth-century English chess culture through the teacher's own questions: what counts as a gain, when to exchange pieces and how to answer a threat. Familiar concepts appear in unfamiliar language and demand attention to their historical meaning. Reading at the board helps readers compare Saul's arguments with their own decisions and observe the development of chess vocabulary.
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