Why the bishop has notch on it's head?

Any answer?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=bishop+hat

looks to much like a pawn without it

If everyone possessed basic search skills, these forums would be dead, dead, dead.

http://bit.ly/1anIrhI 

Thanks for the two nice sites !  Thereupon I checked a few of my reference books but could not find an answer, only the titles of the following books, in which the reason for the notch will be, no doubt...

Chessmen, 1968, by A.E.J. Mackett-Beeson

Chessmen for Collectors, 1985, Victor Keats

Book of Chessmen, 1950, Alex Hammond

Chess, the story of Chess Pieces from Antiquity to Modern Times, 1964, by Hans and Siegfried Wichmann

Chess Sets, 1968, F. Lanier Graham

Chessmen, Practical and Ornamental, 1986, Michael Mark.

I have found two pictures of Saint George Chessmen, the standard pattern in Britain until superseded by the Staunton Chessmen in the 1850s, all turned on a lathe with rings around, discs above each other ( very strange for our modern eyes ), but : an older set without notch and a newer set with one at the side of the top part.

I will try to scan that picture hereafter.

I have never even thought about it. I have no idea why the bishop needs a notch on his head. All I know is that the Queen (female), is the most powerful, and rightly so.  

The notch seems to have been popularized in England in the mid 19th century, in St George and then Staunton chess sets, designed to make the pieces easier to recognize.  (The St George examples I've seen all have a vertical notch bisecting the top of the bishop.  The diagonal notch seems to have been a Staunton invention.)    The piece was called a bishop in English, so in England the notch made sense as a sort of stylized mitre.   In regency style (popular in Europe starting in 18th century) the bishop looks like a slightly taller pawn: no particular shape, just a spindle stacked with knobs or rings.   

But at the very beginning, Shatranj had al-fil (the Elephant) represented with a forked (tusked?) face:  here's a 12th century example:  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Shatranj.jpg  

That's the piece that became known in English as the bishop.  (To this day, it is called other things in other European languages.)  Originally it could only travel two squares (diagonally, by jumping).

The bishop is a pawn that "stepped things up a notch".

@ tmkroll and nartreb : this makes the forums interesting, thanks a lot, chess is inexhaustible (hope that is the good word for it...), it keeps me busy !

I go along with the idea that the notch is there to represent the bishop's mitre.

One of the rooks cut the bishop years ago, and it's become a genetic mutation.

>In France that piece is a "Fool" or court Jester. The church was not as big a deal there but the Jester was the king's confidant... the only one able to always tell the truth so it became an important piece on the chessboard.

I assure you the Church was a every bit as big in France in the 16th century (when the "fou" got its name) as it was in England.   This is one of those frequent bits of etymology where there is more than one satisfying explanation - the jester *is* considered an honest advisor in European tradition (though It's more of a literary tradition than something I can think of any historic examples of) but the *first* reason for picking the name seems to be due to confusion with the Arbic name al-fil; in the same way the Italian name became al-fiere (the proud one, standard-bearer)

Edited to add: I agree with you that there is a discontinuity between the old tusks and the English notches; one did not evolve into the other.

I stand corrected.

@RomGer again, a lot of old collector books that call what we would today call French Régence/Regency/ or Directorie or Lyon or something pieces "St George" just like British sets with stacked discs from that time. Victor Keats comes to mind. It looks like your book calls both of those sets "St George." Nowadays we normally call the French one, Régence. I think making a distintion between the two style, which are very different, is better so I like the modern way. We've already explained about the Bishops in them, but I'm not sure this part was clear if your book calls them both St. George. It's not *wrong* so much as an older way to call them. I'm not familliar with all the books on your list, but I imagine Mackett-Beeson calls a Regence set a Regence set, (though there are some other issues with his book), and I imagine the Michael Mark to be stellar (I haven't read it but he has a good reputation.) I would recommend Gereth Williams which is cheap and very accurate: http://www.amazon.com/Master-Pieces-The-Architecture-Chess/dp/0670893811

I'm going to second RomyGer's thanks to both Nartreb and Tmkroll.  Just when I've about given up finding anything other than adolescent tomfoolery on the forums (not that I haven't enthusiastically taken part ), posts like yours come along to change my mind.  Thanks again.

Actually, it's more complicated.  There was a very popular book of sermons published around 1300, written by an Italian monk (Jacopo da Cessoles).  The original was in Latin, but translations  appeared and were very popular.    The original title is 

LIBELLUS DE MORIBUS HOMINUM ET OFFICIIS NOBILIUM AC POPULARIUM SUPER LUDO SCACHORUM

Loosely, "the book of morals drawn from chess".  The bishops are described as representing judges who travel the land on behalf of the king.  In the early French versions, the word for these pieces is "auphin" which is obviously very close to the Arabic "al-fil".  Not really clear to me how "l'auphin" changed to "le fol" - it feels like a *bigger* phonetic change than straight from "al-fil" to "le fol".

Staunton did not design the 'Staunton' chessmen but only lent his name to them. I believe the original design was by Nathaniel Cooke in 1849 for Jaques of London. I also believe that the Bishop's notch was intended to represent the Bishop's mitre in certain Christian denominations. Hope this helps. John C.

Shaped more like a Bishop's hat.  Simple.

The History of Woodworking, not withstanding.