Historical background:

Opinions differ as to the geographic origin of chess, with India, Persia and China being the main locations being cited. The period when it originated is believed to have been some time between the 3rd and 6th century AD. In the 7th century it spread to the Middle East and North Africa.
Via Moorish Spain, Italy, the Byzantine Empire and Russia, it reached Europe in the 9th to 11th century.
Since the 13th century, chess has been one of the seven chivalrous virtues. Consequently, it was played mainly in aristocratic circles, between “Mannen und Frouwen“ (gentlemen and ladies), as we can see on an illustration in the Manessische Liederhandschrift (a beautiful illuminated manuscript which is a key document for the Middle High German language), which was created here in Zurich around 1300.
The clergy frowned upon the playing of chess. Yet the books and reflections that were written on the subject were actually written by monks.

In the German-speaking area, both the game and the board were referred to as Schachzabel.

Konrad vom Ammenhausen was a Benedictine monk in Stein am Rhein who lived in the first half of the 14th century. He became known for his Schachzabelbuch (Book on Chess), which he completed in 1337. This was a German-language rhymed version of a work in Latin which  Jacobus de Cessolis, a Dominican monk from Lombardy, had written prior to 1330 in Latin.

These Schachzabelbücher saw the chess pieces primarily as representatives of society of the time. What was most important was that the “noble pieces” (the King, the Queen, etc) could not achieve anything on their own and were dependent on the cooperation of the “common people” (pawns). Indeed, the pawns were allocated to specific occupations, such as blacksmith, merchant, and so on.

In his Schachzabelbuch, Konrad von Ammenhausen described each piece, with its position on the board and its class in society or occupation.

In the first part of the book, Konrad writes about the reasons for playing the game, which he sees as instructing the king, combating idleness and satisfying the human desire for novelty.

Our “Living Chess” game is based on these considerations by Konrad von Ammenhausen..