Harun Ar Rashid; of Abbasside, the Princess Irene, and the
Emperor Nicephorus of Constantinople, and the successors of
Harun, viz., Al Amin, Al Mamun, the Great Al Mutasem and Al
Wathik (the two last contemporary with our Alfred), all
cultivated and practiced chess and the strongest inference, and
a far more striking one than any yet adduced, is that we got
chess during the long reign of Charlemagne, and his Greek,
Arabian and Spanish contemporaries, and this might well happen,
for Charlemagne knew both Offa and Egbert (the latter personally),
and the knowledge becomes somewhat more than a matter of
inference, for the Saxon scholar Alcuin was in England from
790 to 793, on a farewell visit after being domesticated in
Charlemagne's household as his treasured friend, adviser, and
tutor and preceptor in the sciences for more than twenty years,
and could not be otherwise than familiar with the Emperor's
practice and enthusiasm for chess, in which he may to some extent
have shared. Alcuin would certainly have communicated a game like
this, in which he knew other civilized people were taking so much
interest, to his countrymen.
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