From: utzoo!decvax!duke!bcw
Newsgroups: net.chess
Title: Re: Origin of Castling
Article-I.D.: duke.2803
Posted: Sat Dec  4 19:53:07 1982
Received: Sun Dec  5 10:06:38 1982

From:	Bruce C. Wright @ Duke University
Re:	Origin of castling in chess

Castling as currently known was only standardized in about the last two
centuries.  Before that, there were a number of variations on this theme:
for example, Chaturanga (the root game from which all later forms of Chess
are believed to have originated) allowed the King to make one Knight move
per game, whereas others allowed similar types of strange moves (like the
versions of Great Chess which allow some piece like a "crown prince" to take
the place of the King if it is checkmated, or Timur's Chess in which the
King can trade places with any allied piece once during the game in the
place of making a move and may additionally have been able to exchange
places with a special piece named the "adventitious King" under certain
circumstances.

To the best of my knowledge, castling in something like the modern form
was introduced by the Italian school during the time the ancient game (which
had Bishops moving 2 squares diagonally, leaping over the first square; and
Queens which moved one square diagonally only) was revised to something
approaching the modern game around AD 1500.  In the Italian version of the
move, the King can move towards either Rook by at least 2 squares (for
example, either to KN1, KR1, QB1, QN1, or QR1), and the Rook must move to
a square beyond the King (for example, KB1 or K1).  This was termed the
"free rochade" and is at least partly responsible for the "romantic" school
being associated with the Italians - most of those old gambits become
*extremely* sound with this rule.  The King's Gambit in particular does
very well, which accounts for much of its early popularity.

Alas, all of this chaos was done away with during the 18th and 19th
centuries when the various Chess players in Europe finally agreed on a
"standard" game.  But you can probably still find remnants of the old game
in Turkey, Iran, India, and neighboring countries.

If this topic interests anyone, I would suggest the following books:

Gollon, John    Chess Variations, Ancient, Regional and Modern
Murray, H. J.	History of Chess
Faulkener, Ed.	Games Ancient and Oriental and How to Play Them

These books describe all of this and much more - indispensable if you like
to know why things are the way they are.

			Bruce C. Wright @ Duke University