The Lewis Chessmen Read online

  The Lewis Chessmen

  Unmasked

  The Lewis Chessmen

  Unmasked

  DAVID H. CALDWELL

  MARK A. HALL

  CAROLINE M. WILKINSON

  Originally published in 2010 by

  NMS Enterprises Limited – Publishing

  a division of NMS Enterprises Limited

  National Museums Scotland

  Chambers Street, Edinburgh EH1 1JF

  www.nms.ac.uk

  Reprinted in 2010 and 2011 (twice), 2012 and 2014.

  e-book 2014

  Text and images, unless otherwise credited:

  © National Museums Scotland 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  The moral rights of David H. Caldwell, Mark A. Hall and Caroline M. Wilkinson to be identified as the authors of this book have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (print): 978 1 905267 46 0

  ISBN (e-book): 978 1 905267 94 1

  Cover design: Mark Blackadder.

  Cover image: Montage of the Lewis chessmen in National Museums Scotland.

  Publication format:

  NMS Enterprises Limited – Publishing.

  Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by Bell & Bain Limited, Glasgow.

  Published by National Museums Scotland as one of a number of titles based on museum scholarship and partnership.

  For a full listing of NMS Enterprises Limited – Publishing titles and related merchandise:

  http://www.nms.ac.uk/books

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Foreword by Jane Carmichael, National Museums Scotland

  Introduction

  The Lewis Chessmen: Unmasked

  The Hoard’s Discovery

  The Contents of the Hoard

  Why Twelfth-century Scandinavian?

  How Lewis?

  Lewis and the Kingdom of the Isles

  The Lewis Chessmen in Lewis

  Analysing the Chessmen

  From Trondheim

  Playing Games

  The Legacy

  References and Research

  About the Authors

  Acknowledgements

  THIS book was written to accompany a travelling exhibition in 2010-11 about new research on the Lewis chessmen. It could not have been done without the support and input of many colleagues in National Museums Scotland, and also the help and generosity of colleagues in the British Museum, particularly James Robinson. We are also most grateful to Sally Foster, editor of Medieval Archaeology, for allowing work originally published in that journal to reappear here.

  David H. Caldwell

  Mark A. Hall

  Caroline M. Wilkinson

  Foreword

  Jane Carmichael

  Director of Collections

  National Museums Scotland

  THE Lewis chessmen have long been associated with mystery and romance: mystery about their origins and burial in the Western Isles some eight hundred years ago and the romantic story of their chance discovery in the nineteenth century. The remarkably expressive detailing of the figures gives them a unique immediacy and attractiveness and has made them famous.

  Many scholars have been drawn to investigate them. Contemporary scholars have the advantage of drawing on advanced scientific techniques. This book summarises the story of the chessmen and the most recent research in which Dr David Caldwell, of National Museums Scotland, and his team have used forensic analysis combined with historical expertise to review the evidence.

  National Museums Scotland and the British Museum are pleased to be partners in creating the exhibition, The Lewis Chessmen: Unmasked, with funding from the Scottish Government. This exhibition brings the chessmen together to tell their story and will be shown first at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. We are delighted to be able to work with our partners across Scotland to take the exhibition to Aberdeen, Lerwick and Stornoway.

  We hope that the exhibition and this book, as well as associated events and information on the National Museums Scotland and British Museum websites will be enjoyed as widely as possible.

  May 2010

  Introduction

  ON 11 April 1831 Roderick Ririe from Stornoway in Lewis had a hoard of 93 pieces of ivory, most of which were readily recognised as chessmen, exhibited in Edinburgh at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The Antiquaries were interested in acquiring at least some of them for their museum, but after a delay 82 of the pieces were purchased later that year by the British Museum. The other eleven eventually ended up in the Society of Antiquaries’ museum in Edinburgh, now subsumed in National Museums Scotland.

  The Lewis chessmen, as they have long been known, are arguably the most well-known treasure ever to have been found in Scotland and certainly one of the most valuable. It is difficult to translate that worth into money, and practically impossible to measure their cultural significance and the enjoyment they have given countless museum visitors over the years. We can be sure that their appeal continues to be very considerable. Since their acquisition by the two museums, they have been almost continuously on display in London and Edinburgh and some have been sent to prestigious exhibitions elsewhere in Britain and also overseas, including Sydney in Australia and to several locations in North America. Both museums have also lent pieces on a number of occasions for display in Museum nan Eilean in Stornoway.

  The Lewis chessmen have acquired an iconic status as the epitome of chessmen. There is worldwide recognition that that is what they are, and art historians have always regarded them as outstanding examples of Romanesque Art – a style of art that was widespread throughout Europe in the twelfth century. They are often featured in books on art or Scandinavian culture, but after more than 170 years there is still some mystery surrounding how and when they got to Lewis and a lot to be said about their true significance. This book reviews the Lewis chessmen story and shows how they can tell us a lot more about our history and heritage.

  The Lewis Chessmen

  Unmasked

  The Hoard’s Discovery

  HOW and where the hoard was discovered has always been a subject of interest. It has long been believed that Malcolm MacLeod, a resident of the settlement of Peighinn Dhomhnuill (Penny Donald – since cleared) in the Parish of Uig on the west coast of the island, discovered it in a sandbank in the Mains of Uig. This locates the find-spot in an area of sand dunes at Ardroil on the south side of Tràighe Ùige (Uig Strand) [Fig. 1]. Lewis is a part of the world where there is a strong tradition of storytelling, and it is not surprising that the hoard’s discovery was no sooner public knowledge than an explanation for its loss was found.

  1. MAP OF LEWIS This map shows possible find-spots for the Lewis hoard.

  According to the most well-known story, sometime in the seventeenth-century a servant of the MacKenzie tacksman (tenant) of Baile na Cille, known as ‘An Gille Ruadh’ (the Red Gillie), spied a young sailor fleeing his ship with a bundle, which turned out to contain the Lewis chessmen. The gillie at first befriended the youth, but then murdered him for the sake of his treasure and buried it for recovery at a later date. That he never managed to do, and his crime was only uncovered when he himself confessed it some time later on the scaffold at Stornoway as he was about to be executed for other misdemeanours.

&nb
sp; Needless to say, there is no record of this tale being told prior to 1831. As a story it no doubt satisfied and amused countless Lèodhasaich (natives of Lewis) as it was recounted over the years, but it had the unfortunate effect of reinforcing a belief that somehow the hoard did not belong in Lewis but only got there by accident. The story’s origin can be traced to Donald Morrison, known as An Sgoilear Bàn, a noted local storyteller. Morrison died in 1834, but left a manuscript of his stories for others to use. It is now preserved in Stornoway Public Library and was fully published in 1975.

  Very little is known about Malcolm MacLeod, the hoard’s finder. Indeed, the first time his name is actually recorded is in 1863, and none of the nineteenth-century experts who wrote on the hoard seem to have had the opportunity to meet or to discuss his discovery with him. Morrison the storyteller appears to be the source for the hoard being found in the sands at Uig Strand, but, remarkably, the earliest accounts of the hoard give a completely different find-spot.

  On 29 June 1831 The Scotsman newspaper reported that the chessmen had recently been acquired by an Edinburgh dealer, Mr J. A. Forrest (listed in contemporary records as a watchmaker, jeweller and medallist). They had been found some months previously by a ‘peasant of Uig’ near the ruins of a nunnery in Uig, known as Taigh nan Cailleachan Dubha (the house of the black women). Ririe, the man who had brought the pieces to Edinburgh, had apparently sold them to Forrest, but not before he had allowed an Edinburgh collector, Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, to purchase ten of them. It is these ten, plus an eleventh later acquired by Sharpe from Lewis, that are now in National Museums Scotland. Forrest sold the rest to the British Museum.

  Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe [Fig. 2] is our source for yet more detailed information on the chessmen’s find-spot. According to him, they were found in a vaulted room about six feet (1.83 metres) long. They were partially buried in sand and the floor was covered with ash. The chamber was located near ‘the house of the black women’, where tradition affirmed a nunnery once stood. Sharpe also described the chamber as similar to a small subterranean stone building, like an oven. It was at some depth below the surface and some distance from the shore, and was only exposed after a sudden and very considerable inroad by the sea. ‘The peasant’ discoverer had to break into this structure to find the hoard.

  2. CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE (Source: The Walter Scott Digital Archive, Edinburgh University Library)

  Sharpe is a particularly important witness since he dealt directly with Roderick Ririe. Indeed, Ririe may have been ‘the gentleman from Stornoway’ that, according to a late nineteenth century source, dug out pieces which were not recovered by Malcolm MacLeod himself. So where was this underground chamber? The answer is very easy, since its location can be identified by its proximity to the alleged nunnery, at Mèalasta on the west coast of Lewis, still within the Parish of Uig but about six miles south of Uig Strand [Fig. 3]. There are no traces now of any structure that could be identified as a nunnery, and indeed this appears to be a red herring. There are no documentary sources suggesting that there was a nunnery here in medieval times, only the opinion of the minister of Uig, writing in the 1790s, that its remains could be identified.

  The underground chamber is much more plausible. From the descriptions supplied by Sharpe it might be identified as a souterrain, an underground structure dating to the Iron Age or Early Medieval Period, perhaps used for storage. These are fairly widespread throughout Scotland, and from other sources one is known to have existed at Mèalasta. It was described in 1870 as consisting of a gallery terminating in a bee-hive chamber, but by that time its stones had been removed for building purposes. Intriguingly, a circular stone chamber, about two metres in diameter and accessed by a passageway, lies under the medieval house at Jarlshof in Shetland, a complex site with occupation extending back to the Bronze Age. The excavators could not be sure of its age, but the wind-blown sand that accumulated within it contained a slate inscribed with a Viking age interlace pattern.*

  Whereas the sand dunes at Uig Strand now appear a desolate and secluded spot, Mèalasta has evidently been an important local settlement with relatively good soil and access from the sea. There is the site of a medieval church with a burial ground and, adjacent to the spot marked on Ordnance Survey maps as the site of the nunnery, the sea is weathering out midden deposits from which a bronze finger ring was recovered a number of years ago and awarded as Treasure Trove to Museum nan Eilean in Stornoway. The ring is engraved with crosses and dates to the twelfth or thirteenth century.

  All this suggests that Mèalasta is to be preferred to the sands of Uig Strand as the hoard’s find-spot. However, there is one further source that backs this up. When the Ordnance Survey mapped the Parish of Uig in 1852-53 for the first time, they noted in their ‘Name Book’ that chessmen, which were sold to ‘a society of antiquaries in Edinburgh’, were found in the ruins of a nunnery about seventy years previously. Nothing then remained of it but the site. Not only does this appear to verify the information supplied through Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, it also raises the interesting possibility that some or all of the chessmen could originally have been discovered in the 1780s. It is not beyond the bounds of likelihood that pieces from the hoard could have remained in a local house or barn for fifty years, their value and interest unappreciated until a travelling merchant – Roderick Ririe even? – saw them and spotted a chance to make some money. Might it even be the case that the story of the nunnery was created on the back of the discovery of the chessmen? That, of course, is speculation, but Mèalasta may yet have a lot to tell us.

  3. MÈALASTA (Source: © Stuart Campbell)

  * J. R. C. Hamilton: Excavations at Jarlshof, Shetland (Edinburgh: HMSO, 1956), p. 76 and pl. XIIIb.

  The Contents of the Hoard

  RODERICK Ririe brought 93 ivory pieces to Edinburgh in 1831 [Figs 4.1-63]. These included a buckle, decorated with foliage designs, that may have fastened a leather or textile bag containing the rest of the hoard. While ivory can survive well in the ground over hundreds of years, it takes very special circumstances, normally permanent water-logging, for cloth or leather to remain intact for any length of time. There are also 14 plain disks, about 55 to 60 millimetres in diameter, which are clearly men for playing a board game. The remaining 78 pieces can readily be identified as chessmen, including kings, queens, bishops, knights, warders (equivalent to rooks today) and pawns. All but the pawns are figurative, that is modelled in considerable detail as humans with appropriate clothing and equipment. These face-pieces vary in height from 70 to 103 millimetres, and the pawns from 40 to 59 millimetres. While the detailing of the face-pieces is realistic, they are not in true human proportions but have comparatively large heads and clothing to the ground to create broad steady bases for ease of play.

  The most economical explanation for this group of 78 is that they represent the remains of four chess sets, each, then as now, containing two sides with a king, a queen, two bishops, two knights, two warders/rooks and eight pawns. In that case the missing pieces are a knight, four warders and 44 pawns. Perhaps they were hidden away with the rest, but were too fragmentary to be recovered. Those that were recovered vary considerably from near perfect to ones which are cracked and have bits missing. Despite early reports that some bore traces of staining, presumably so that a red side could be distinguished from a white side, scientific analyses in recent times have so far failed to identify any substance that could have been used to colour them. It would be possible, however, to group them into four sets on the basis of size alone. Altogether, with the missing pieces and some more tables-men, the hoard could have weighed as much as 1.5 kilograms and have occupied a box or bag about 200 by 350 by 250 millimetres.

  4.1-4.63 THE LEWIS HOARD OF GAMING PIECES (Source: Mediaeval Archaeology [2006], 53, 155-203)

  NOTE ON FIGS 4.1-4.63

  The captions to the black and white single images that follow take this form:

  •The piece type (e.g. King, Queen, Bishop, et
c.)

  •The piece number (pieces 19-29 in National Museums Scotland)

  •The height (in millimetres)

  •The group (see the chapter ‘Analysing the Chessmen’) – e.g. A-E, X – and the set number (1-4)

  KINGS National Museums Scotland kings (NMS 19, left and NMS 20, right).

  The kings [Fig. 5] are all seated on thrones and hold a sword across the knees, right hand on the grip and left hand grasping the scabbard or blade. All but one has long hair worn in braids and most or all appear to be bearded. They wear open crowns with four trefoil ornaments and are robed in long mantles fastened at the right shoulder, with a tunic or dalmatic (a vestment with sleeves and slit sides) underneath.

  QUEENS National Museums Scotland queens (NMS 22, 23 and 21, left to right)

  The queens [Fig. 6] are also enthroned and crowned. Four crowns are similar to those worn by the kings, but on the other four the trefoils have merged to form a continuous, pierced band. Their hair, worn long in braids, is covered by a veil. Two queens hold drinking horns in their left hands, the rest support their right elbows with their left hands. All are clad in long mantles or cloaks which cover their shoulders but leave a gap down the front. Three are fastened at the neck. Under them they have a gown with close sleeves. In two cases these gowns are cut off at the knees and display an undergarment extending to the feet.

  BISHOPS National Museums Scotland bishops (NMS 26, 25 and 24, left to right).

  The bishops [Fig. 7] show the greatest variety in terms of design. Some are seated on thrones, and all wear mitres, have cropped shoulder length hair and are clean shaven. Five wear a cope (cloak) as their outer garment, the rest have chasubles (sleeveless vestments). These are worn over a dalmatic, followed by a stole (a scarf-like garment of silk, etc.), and, next to the skin, an alb (a white vestment reaching to the feet). All these items of clothing differ little from the vestments still worn by priests today when officiating at masses and sacraments. Each bishop also holds a crosier, grasped with one or two hands, the crook either facing right or left. Some hold a book or have their right hand raised in blessing.