The Chessboard Book

original: "Schachzabel", from the Latin "scacci", referring to the game of chess.

This book is called the Chessboard Book, and it takes its name from the board that is called the chessboard. But it is not made here so that one may play the game with it. It is made so that it corresponds to how every person original "kint", literally "child," but used here to mean "soul" or "person" should behave: both poor and rich, simple folk, widows and orphans; and furthermore how a king should conduct himself, so that other women may take a good example from the queen; and then how a knight should conduct himself, and how a judge should conduct himself, and how a bailiff amptvogt: a district administrator or official representing a lord's authority should conduct himself—indeed, all citizens holding office, none excluded. Many fine pieces of advice are written here following.

The left margin is decorated with extensive red pen-work filigree that forms the tail of the initial "D". Midway down the column, the decorative line incorporates a caricature of a human head in profile, wearing a peaked hood or cowl and looking towards the left edge of the page. The bottom of the page is finished with large, red, scrolling wave-like ornaments.

In God's name I begin, for no one can create anything without His help and His favor. Neither wisdom nor any art is of use without Him, for these flow entirely from Him. All things are beneficial when they begin with Him and have their middle and end in Him; that which is from Him is indestructible.

And so, therefore, I too wish to call upon Him with devotion, that He might enlighten my mind in all good things, so that I might complete that which I have undertaken, and that I may come to a successful end. May He guide me with His help—for this I pray—in the beginning, and also at the conclusion, and in the middle as well. May He grant me His help so that the work may be completed just as I have intended.

Now here is the beginning of this little book, which I found written in Latin This likely refers to the "Liber de moribus hominum" by the Dominican friar Jacobus de Cessolis, written c. 1300.. Good companions sought this from me, because they knew me well—that I gladly listened to foreign things. Thus a young man brought me this text, which many people do not know. I took it upon myself to translate it from the Latin, so that I might gladly bring it into German, if I were able to convey the sense of it properly in rhyme according to the correct flow. If I cannot manage this perfectly, may everyone be permitted to improve upon it, joining the rhymes together better if a verse seems too long to him.