hist-games: Gala

[Damian Walker]

Quoting Jane & Mark Waks's message of Yesterday:

> Hmm. My main concern is making sure that the game really is that old. Enough 
> people have a tendency to equate "old" with "centuries old" to make me a 
> little nervous, at least until I've seen a bit of textual or archaeological 
> evidence. (And such evidence also ought to give me a better idea of which 
> culture(s) are known to have played it, which is useful from an SCA 
> perspective.) After the Tablero debacle a few years ago, I've gotten a tad 
> more cautious.

The move of the bishop suggests to me that the game probably doesn't 
date from much before 1490.  Having said that, the bishop could have 
been inspired by the courier from courier chess, rather than the bishop 
in modern chess.  My German geography is very rough though, so I don't 
know if the two games were near enough to each other for this to be 
likely.

-- 
Damian - http://damian.snigfarp.karoo.net/