Courier Chess or Courier Spiel or the Courier Game is a board game in the chess family. The original form is known to have been played for at least six hundred years, after which it was replaced by a more modern form. It pioneered the modern chess bishop, and probably played a part in evolving modern chess out of Medieval Chess.
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| Courier chess, position after obligatory starting moves. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Courier Chess is played on a board of eight ranks by twelve files. Literary and artistic evidence indicate that the board was checkered from the beginning, but that there was no rule as to which squares were dark. The practice is still unsettled, but the more frequent practice seems to be that the square at each player's extreme right is white.[note 1] The kings, though, start on squares of their own color, at f1 and f8 by the algebraic notation. The king moves one square in any direction, but may not be placed or left in check (at risk). There is no castling. Next to the king, on e1 and e8, stands the Rath or Mann, the counselor or henchman, which moves one square in any direction, but may be placed or left en prise (at risk). On the other central file, at g1 and g8, stands the queen, who has the move of the fers: one square diagonally. On the queen's other hand, at h1 and h8, stands a piece known as the Schleich (sneak or smuggler) or Trülle (trull) and sometimes depicted as a jester, moving one square along a rank or file. The two flanks mirror each other. At d1, i1, d8, and i8 stands the piece that gave the game its name: the Courier or Läufer, the runner, still the German name for the chess bishop. Next out, at c1, j1, c8, and j8, stands the Bischof or bishop, also called the "old man" or "archer": the alfil, leaping diagonally to the second square. At b1, k1, b8, and k8 stands the knight, and in the corners the rook.[note 2]
The second rank is filled with pawns. These move one square forward, capturing one square diagonally forward, except that at the start of the game each player must move his rook-pawns, his queen-pawn, and his queen two squares forward. Such a two-square leap along a file was called a Freudensprung—English "joy-leap".[note 3] The original rule for pawn-promotion is unknown. The standard medieval rule was that a pawn reaching the farthest rank was promoted at once to (medieval) queen.[note 4]
Wirnt von Gravenberg, writing early in the thirteenth century, mentioned the Courier Game in his poem Wigalois, and expected his readers to know what he was talking about. Heinrich von Beringen, about a hundred years later, mentioned the introduction of the couriers as an improvement in chess. Kunrat von Ammenhausen, still in the first half of the fourteenth century, told how he had once in Constance seen a game with sixteen more men than in the "right chess": each side having a trull, two couriers, a counsellor, and four extra pawns. He added that he had never seen the game anywhere else, in Provence, France, or Kurwalhen.[note 5][note 6]
Sometime shortly after 1475 someone put the courier on the standard chessboard in place of the old alfil and gave the queen the combined powers of the courier and the rook.[note 7] This game was so much more exciting than medieval chess that it soon drove the older game off the market.[note 8] Other improvements were tried out. One was an optional double first step for the pawns. This was at first restricted to the king's, queen's, and rooks' pawns, and then gradually extended to the others.[note 9]
In the early sixteenth century Lucas van Leyden, in the Netherlands, painted a picture called "The Chess Players" in which a woman appears to be beating a man at Courier Chess. Gustavus Selenus (Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg) in his 1616 book Das Schach- oder Königs-Spiel, mentioned the Courier Game as one of three forms of chess played in the village of Ströbeck near Halberstadt in Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany. He described it in detail, and gave drawings of the pieces. The names he gave the pieces do not always match the figures in the drawings: the piece called the Schleich is depicted as a court jester. In 1651 Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia, gave to Ströbeck a playing board with chess on one side and the Courier Game on the other, and a set of silver pieces. These pieces were lent in the eighteenth century and never returned, but there is a set of wooden pieces. In 1821 H. G. Albers reported that Courier Chess was still played in Ströbeck, and that some pieces had gained more powerful moves, but a few years later other visitors found that it had been abandoned.[note 10] In 1883 the local chess club revived it. Playing sets based on Lucas van Leyden's painting are commercially available.[note 11]
The starting set-up is the same as for medieval Courier Chess. The king, queen, courier (remember, the German word for a chess bishop), knight, and rook have their modern powers. The bishop (or archer) can move one square diagonally, or leap diagonally to the second square. The fool, standing beside the queen, moves one square in any direction. The sage, standing beside the king, combines the powers of the fool and the knight. The pawn moves like the modern pawn, except that after reaching the farthest rank it must remain there for two moves before taking up its new career as a piece. Castling is permitted, if all squares between the king and the rook are vacant, the king has not been checked, the rook is not en prise, neither has moved, and no square between them is under attack. The king moves to the bishop's square, and the rook leaps over him to the courier's square, in either wing.[note 12] The rule on stalemate has not been preserved; the subject was unsettled in Germany well into the nineteenth century.[note 13]