The Game of Chess Moralized

named Tiberius? as emperor. And in this same time there was another tyrant who was King of Babylon and was named Evil-Merodach Original: "emilmerodac." This refers to the historical Babylonian king Amel-Marduk, who appears in the Bible; in medieval literature, he is often depicted as the ultimate tyrant., and he was a disloyal and lustful man: cruel in all his ways. And this king, out of great cruelty, had the body of Nebuchadnezzar his father cut into three pieces; he had them given to vultures to eat. And under this named emperor, in the time of this king, the game of chess Original: "geu des esches." This text comes from a popular medieval treatise by Jacobus de Cessolis which used chess as a metaphor for social order and morality. was found in the manner that follows:

¶ This king Evil-Merodach, among all the other evils within him, had a very wicked custom, for he would put to death those who corrected him and showed him the right path; and those who reproved him for anything at all, he hated with a deadly hatred. And in this, he resembled Nebuchadnezzar his father, for once he had dreamed, but had forgotten the form of his dream; therefore he gathered the wise men of Babylon and had them all killed, or intended to do so, because they could not explain to him the dream he had dreamed, as it says in the Book of Daniel the Prophet. And some believe that this game of chess was found at the time of the Great Battle of Troy, but truly it was not so; rather it was brought from the land of Chaldea An ancient region in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) famed in the Middle Ages for its astronomers and "wise men." to the Greeks, just as Diomedes of Greece recounts in his ancient sayings.

A large, illuminated decorative initial 'I' in blue and gold leaf, featuring vine-like flourishes extending into the margin.

It should be known that there was a philosopher named Xerxes in Chaldea, which means the same as Philometor. And Philometor means as much in English as "Lover of Justice and Moderation" original: "amy de droiture & de mesure," which the text notes is the meaning of the Latin/Greek hybrid "Philometor."; and the fame of this philosopher was so great in Greece and in Athens...