First Strasbourg edition of the earliest printed work to mention chess, published several years before William Caxton's famous work. Primarily intended as a manual for priests, it is a collection of extracts intended to provide moral lessons and examples for the edification of both the rich and poor. It uses classical auctoritates and exempla with great accuracy, offering readers the possibility of citing sources and texts that they themselves had never actually consulted. The long passage on chess serves as one of the moral lessons or admonitions for statesmen.
The section on chess can be found in part 1, distinctio 10, chapter 7 (here folio e6r and e6v). In the typical chess symbolism of the Middle Ages, the author compares life to a chess game: "Mundus iste totus quoddam scaccarium est, cuius unus punctus est albus et alius niger" (all the world is a chessboard which is chequered white and black), ending with the caution that if a man falls into sin "in isto scaccio dyabolus dicit eschack" (in this game of chess the devil says Check). It describes the moves of the pieces in symbolic terms, explaining that the King can move in all directions because his will is law, etc. The Queen, following the Medieval rules of the game, is described as only being allowed to move one square diagononally. Although 6 editions of the work appeared in the 15th century, the chess passage is supposedly only included in the first edition, printed by Ulrich Zell in 1472, and the present fifth edition.
The work is divided in seven parts which each offer admonitions for a different social group, including princes, churchmen, and scholars. The whole of the third part deals with education and gives a good insight into later medieval pedagogics. Separate passages deal with the instruction of students, priests, and physicians. The final part discusses aspects of death and how one should prepare themselves for this event.
Johannes Gallensis or John of Wales (d. ca. 1285) was a Franciscan theologian who taught at the Universities of Oxford and Paris. He wrote several well-received Latin works, primarily preaching aids, in the late-thirteenth century. With his Communiloquium, he intended to provide preachers of his time with material for moral edification, setting a focus on the ancient writers, and making them familiar with their obligations and moral patterns of behaviour. The work was incredibly popular in its time, as it was translated into six languages, and survives in numerous manuscript copies.
The title page is slightly soiled, occasional minor foxing, lacking the final blank. Otherwise in good condition. BMC I, p. 138; Goff J 332; GW M13987; Hain-Copinger 7444; ISTC ij00332000; Proctor 649; not in IDL.