CHESS

The origin of this game, which is popular throughout the civilized world, is lost in antiquity, but there seems reason for believing that it came from India, and was introduced into Persia about the 6th cent. Then it was acquired by the Arabs, and through them it probably came to be introduced into Europe during the earlier crusading period. Perhaps the earliest writer on the game was a 12th cent. Dominican friar, Jacobus de Ce olis, whose treatise was first trans. into French and thence into English, and printed by Caxton, 1474, under the style of The Game and Playe of the Che e.