Chess seems an ideal way for prisoners to pass their time. I suspect medieval prisons, compared to modern one's, were places of far greater deprivation and despair, most likely beyond what I can even fathom. The chessboard from Troubadour's Tower is quite remarkable.
The French Revolution was a horrible affair inspired in part by but distorted from the American Revolution. General Flers found out the hard way.
Thanks.
Interesting arcticle, as always! 
thank you tzimakos
Reign of Terror was really a tragic page of the French Revolution history batgirl! Although the French shared probably at the beginnings same ideals of the American Revolution, I think that the two of them took place in different circumstances!
Chess seems an ideal way for prisoners to pass their time.
Not only! I searched in the Felicis Fabri Evagatorium for other chess references, as it was something that he was noticing, and found one around the avocations of the pilgrims during their sea travels, possibly towards the Holy Lands [??].
from ms Clm 188, f. 63 [1508 AD]
Translation by Aubrey Stewart in The library of the Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, Felix Fabri, 1896, vol1, part1, p. 150:
"HOW MEN PASS THEIR TIME ON BOARD OF A GALLEY.
The mode of life among pilgrims on a galley differs according to their several dispositions. They employ themselves in various occupations that they may pass the time while they are afloat, and unless a man knows how to redeem the time on board of a galley, he will find the hours very long and very tedious. Wherefore some, as soon as they arise from table, go about the galley inquiring where the best wine is sold, and there sit down and spend the whole day over their wine. This is usually done by Saxons, Flemings, and other men of a low class. Some play for money, some of them with a board and dice, others with the dice alone, some with cards, others with chess-boards, and one may say that the greater number is engaged at this pastime. Some sing songs, or pass their time with lutes, flutes, bagpipes, clavichords, zithers and other musical instruments."
It seemed to me a little free, so retried the crucial part...
Aliqui ludunt pro pecuniis, illi in alea, isti in nudis tesseribus, alii cum chartis, caeteri in scaco...
Some play for money, those at dice, these at bare cubes, others with cards, the rest at chess...
*the latin text doesn't say dice with boards, however there's an opposition between dice and bare cubes, so possibly the first dice weren't bare.
*It's unclear who was playing in the end for money as it is the first sentence and 4 games are following, giving the impression that all 4 games were being played for money. However, maybe pronouns are giving the answer. Some play for money and then is following like explanation these and those. While others with cards and the rest at chess. But certainly dont know...
Sorry - only just found time to go through this properly. I have no idea how you find all this stuff - it is wonderful. I have seen a lot of 'prisoner of war Chess' material, but this is new and fascinating. Thanks my friend - you always inspire me.😁. Happy face.
I have no idea how you find all this stuff
Pure luck! Sometimes I think that these big web search engines are inside my head
Glad you've liked it Simaginfan!
Just experienced the luck thing!! Went to a new source for a picture and found another one that may not have been seen before on the internet. As Arnold Palmer once said - ' The harder I work, the luckier I get!'😁 You work hard on this stuff 👍
An other story on a prisoner playing chess while waiting for a death penalty, I've read in https://www.chess.com/blog/Wdotti/anecdote-2-yusuf-iii-proclamed-king-of-granada-thanks-to-a-chess-game.
Here Yusef III waited in prison playing chess while a death penalty was ordered by his brother Muhammad VII, but death came first to Muhammad in 1408 AD .
Trying to find the prime source it seems that is a story told by Luis del Marmol Carvajal in Descripcion general de Affrica, 1573, 2nd book, ch. 38.
Here Yusef III is mentioned as Abu Hagex [full name seems to be Abû al-Hajjâj “an-Nâsir” Yûsuf III ben Yûsuf] while an other Iucef is making also some appearance
probably there are mistakes, but a try...
En este mesmo año adolescio de enfermedad, y dizen los escriptores Arabes, que estando a punto de muerte, y teniendo preso en el castillo de Salobrena a un hermano suyo llamado Abul Hagex, porque se avia querido alcar contra el, mando a un alcayde llamado Iucef que fuesse luego a la prision donde estava su hermano, y le cortasse la cabeça, porque si venia a morir de aquella enfermedad, entendia que tyránizaria el reyno a su hijo.
Suc cedio pues que estando Abul Hagex jugando al axedrez con un al faqui, llego Iucef a el, y notificando le el mandato del rey su señor, le dixo que no podia dexar d mo rir, y como le preguntasse si se po dria hazer otra cosa, y dixesse Iucef que no en ninguna manera, Abul Hagex le rogo muy encarecidamente, que le diesse solas dos horas de vida, y viendo que tan poco se las concedia, le importuno que solamente le dexasse acabar aquel juego que tenia començado, el qual se lo concedio, y no siendo aun acabado el juego, llego un correo de Granada a gran priessa avisando a Iucef como Mahamete era ya muerto, y que los ciudadanos con favorable voz, avian saludado por rey a Abu Hagex.
google translation a little modified
In this same year they suffer from from disease, and the Arab writers say, that being on the point of death, and having imprisoned in the castle of Salobrena his brother named Abul Hagex, because he wanted to fight against him, he sent a called mayor Iucef that later went to the prison where his brother was, and cut off the head, because if he came to die of that disease, he understood that the king would tyránize his son.
So it happened that while Abul Hagex was playing chess with a phaki*, Iucef came to him, and notifying him of the king's command, his lord, told him that he could not dexmar d and laugh, and as he asked if he could do another thing, and Iucef said that not in any way, Abul Hagex begged him very strongly, to give him only two hours of life, and seeing how little he gave them to him, he did not care that he only let him finish that game he had started, the one who granted it to him, and the game not yet finished, an email arrived from Granada at great risk telling Iucef how Mahamete was already dead, and that the citizens with a favorable voice, greeted by king King Abu Hagex.
*faqui maybe is some kind of jugde. Don't know
Hi,
As I had some doubts, possibly in the end faqui or Alfaqui could be some kind of judge [= a specialist in fiqh, the science of Islamic law in https://educalingo.com/en/dic-pt/alfaqui]
The following have some association, as were found during the same search, but not a solid unity so to make a blog. It would be just pity not to give them...
in https://www.aragonmudejar.com/zaragoza/aljaferia/aljaferia18e.htm
in https://www.aragonmudejar.com/zaragoza/aljaferia/aljaferia18e.htm
The two above images are showing a remaining of the 3rd floor of the Troubadour's Tower, the oldest construction of Aljaferia. Aljaferia was a fortified medieval Islamic palace of the 11th c., originally built during the Banu Hud reign [an Arab dynasty] in the taifa of Zaragoza. In 1118 Zaragoza was recaptured by Alfonso I the Battler and since then it had been a royal residence of the Christian kings of Aragon. Since Jan 12, 1486 [during the reign of our famous Isabella I of Castile & Ferdinand II of Aragon] a Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition was settled in Aljaferia and Troubadour's Tower became a prison. I don't know if it was prison continuously but I've read about prisoners' graffitis on the Tower's walls of 18th and 19th centuries.
The above pictures show a chessboard carved on the remaining of the 3rd floor of the Troubadour's Tower. Looking for info of this picture, I found a similar, presenting this same chessboard, in a beautiful blog.
in https://thomasguild.blogspot.com/2014/01/
There the description says that is of "Presumably late 15th century", possibly with source the Medieval castles of Spain by L. Monreal y Tejada. Meaning during the years of the Spanish Inquisition and the reign of Isabella I of Castile, the modern chess queen model. A little of irony I think.
One thing that impressed me is that the board is checkered, meaning that it wasn't just drawn and on the stone floor scribing lines, but stone was removed creating consecutive upper and lower levels so to distinguish the squares. Some patience I thought but in the end maybe it had some practical reasons. As the guards wouldn't give the prisoners some chessboard to play, they wouldn't also give chessmen. I don't know if this chessboard was used to play on it chess or draughts, but the missing pieces of the floor are 32.
In the same blog I saw the following image too. A scribed 8x8 board on the floor near one of the window benches of Castle Falaise, Falaise, France. While other games are drawn on the bench. Possibly this room wasn't used as a prison.
in https://thomasguild.blogspot.com/2014/01/. A similar photo of the same room, but without showing the floor and the chessboard, can be seen in https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/chateau-de-falaise
I tried to look for some documentation, meaning some reference of chess connected with the medieval prison. And the only thing I've found was the following...
The above was written by Felix Fabri, a German friar, in 1484 around the prisons of Venice. [Evagatorium in Terrae sanctae, Arabiae et Egypti vol3]. Although it's not in Zaragoza, it was attractive being of the same years. According to Geltner [in The Medieval Prison, p. 97]:
"Fabri’s view of the Venetian prisons differs widely from all the accounts we have encountered so far. Unlike Manenti’s description of the very same compound, Fabri’s depicts the inmates as rigidly (and probably unrealistically) classified into wards. In contrast to da Nono’s portrayal of the Paduan prison, the Venetian culprits are grouped according to their socioeconomic status, not the gravity of their offenses. Indeed, the inmates’ activities in prison are an extension of their extramural lives..."
It looks to me, too, a little unrealistic, but I surely can't know. This prison was probably the Doge's Palace in Venice and seems that the prisoners had some physical contact with the outsiders. While Fabri some lines below is criticizing the German prisons for inhuman frightening conditions and darkness and cold, in Venice "the prisons’ layout remained intact until around 1540, when a new compound on the ground floor of the eastern wing was built. These camerotti came to be known as the Pozzi (wells), alluding to their darkness, dampness, and isolation." [Geltner in The Medieval Prison, p. 12].
In any case chess here looks like a symbol of a social rank. I don't think that this was the rule in the medieval prisons. Anyway...
_
An other old chess prison reference I've found was some centuries later, during the French revolution, and I think that it has to do more with the theme of playing chess waiting for a death penalty [some aspect of given in a previous blog] rather than generally chess in prison.
In 1793, during the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution, the inmates of the prison of Luxembourg in Paris were waiting in their cells while from time to time a guard named Verney was entering announcing the names of the next to go and possibly be executed. An anonymous [??] inmate wrote:
"Je jouais un jour aux échecs avec le général d'Apremont; Flers nous regardait (le général Flers). Je me disposais à faire mat mon adversaire, lorsqu'un porte-clefs vint le chercher et l'emmena. Flers soutenait que le général aurait pu se sauver du mat ; il se mit à sa place, mais tandis qu'il méditait le coup, on vint aussi le chercher. J'ai peu vu de terreurs semblables à la sienne; son visage était d'une pâleur mortelle; ses traits étaient décomposés; à peine pouvait-il se soutenir. Les larmes aux yeux , je lui donnai la main qu'il serra. On dit qu'à l'armée il avait souvent fait preuve de bravoure." [in Les prisons de l'Europe by Maquet and Alboise, 1845, vol8, p. 371].
According to Historical epochs of the French Revolution by Goudemetz, 1796, p. 258, General de Flers was executed in the guillotine.