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Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Sat, Apr 11, 2020 02:59 AM EDT:Poor ★

I came on this page and I am horrified to read what I read.

"In H.J.R. Murray's History of Chess, page 181 states that the Alfonso manuscript was published in about the year 1211" >> no, not 1211! Murray wrote it right: 1283. 

"which on page 346 is said to have used algebraic notation, and to have described a chess variant that included the modern B and Q": not at all!
That chess variant wich used algerbric notation and modern move is another one, from India, written in Persian and dated 1796-8. It is reported quite clear in Murray page 181 for who has eyes to read!

Page 348, Murray gave a short description of Grant Acedrex from King Alfonso X.Today this is better known thanks to the PhD work of Sonja Musser. I worked a bit with her on this, this is reported in my book A World of Chess (McFarland, 2017). In few words: what was called Unicornio in medieval spanish was clearly a Rhinoceros. So the Rhino was a piece first jumping like a Knight, then going away like a Bishop.


It was the counterpart of another piece moving one step diagonal then moving away on rows and columns. That later piece is called Aanca in the manuscript. It's an Arabic word, not Spanish, designating a giant Eagle or prey bird, from oriental legends (able to carry elephants). This was mistakenly traduced by Gryphon by Murray. This is unfortunate as the Gryphon was a very different legendary animal. This is why I prefer to use the name of Eagle in Metamachy and not Gryphon to avoid replicating that mistake.
 

"Not described there is a piece which makes a one step Rook move and then continues outwards as a Bishop. For lack of a name, I'll call it the Aanca." 
No no no please! Aanca is the Giant Eagle, or the Gryphon if you want. Do not give that name of Aanca to a piece which is different and is more like the Unicornio / Rhinoceros. This is a very very bad idea. Stop adding confusion, I wish one is more careful when reading the work of Murray.

 


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