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In the game of chess, the queen is the most powerful piece on the board. But she is also a relative newcomer to the game; chess existed for 500 years before the queen was introduced. She made her first appearance in the year 1000, as the weakest piece, but by 1497, during the reign of Isabella of Castile, the chess queen had become the formidable force she is today. How and why did this transformation take place? In this innovative cultural analysis, Marilyn Yalom examines the chess queen''s timid emergence and her elevation to a position of power - a move that paralleled the ascent of female sovereigns in Europe. She also explores the connection between the chess queen, the cult of the Virgin Mary, and the cult of romantic love, all of which impacted European society for centuries. Birth of the Chess Queen is a fascinating history of the politics and culture of medieval Europe and how royal power was embodied in the figure of the chess queen. Marilyn Yalom is a senior scholar at the Institute for Women and Gender at Stanford University. She is the author of A History of the Breast; Blood Sisters: The French Revolution in Women''s Memory; and Maternity, Mortality, and the Literature of Madness. ''An enticing portal into the past ... Yalom writes passionately and accessibly about this esoteric topic.'' - Los Angeles Times Book Review
About the author
Marilyn Yalom was a former professor of French and a senior scholar at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University. She was the author of widely acclaimed books such as A History of the Breast, A History of the Wife, Birth of the Chess Queen, and, most recently, How the French Invented Love. She lived in Palo Alto, California, with her husband, psychiatrist and author Irvin D. Yalom.
Summary
“Marilyn Yalom has written the rare book that illuminates something that always has been dimly perceived but never articulated, in this case that that the power of the chess queen reflects the evolution of female power in the western world.” —Cleveland Plain Dealer
Everyone knows that the queen is the most dominant piece in chess, but few people know that the game existed for five hundred years without her. It wasn't until chess became a popular pastime for European royals during the Middle Ages that the queen was born and was gradually empowered to become the king's fierce warrior and protector.
Birth of the Chess Queen examines the five centuries between the chess queen's timid emergence in the early days of the Holy Roman Empire to her elevation during the reign of Isabel of Castile. Marilyn Yalom, inspired by a handful of surviving medieval chess queens, traces their origin and spread from Spain, Italy, and Germany to France, England, Scandinavia, and Russia. In a lively and engaging historical investigation, Yalom draws parallels between the rise of the chess queen and the ascent of female sovereigns in Europe, presenting a layered, fascinating history of medieval courts and internal struggles for power.
