âTHE BESTE GAME OF ALLEâ: PLAYING CHESS WITH FORTUNE ...

“THE BESTE GAME OF ALLE”: 

PLAYING CHESS WITH FORTUNE IN THE BOOK OF THE DUCHESS 

AND THE KNIGHT’S TALE 

Gerry Wolfson-Grande 

Master of Liberal Studies Program 

Rollins College 

Winter Park, Florida 

September 15, 2011

Gerry Wolfson-Grande 1 

I. Introduction 

While the Knight’s Tale does not incorporate a direct chess metaphor, an analogy may be 

made between its central themes and the game of chess, particularly when it is read in connection 

with the Book of the Duchess. Both poems are based on love pursued and won, only to be lost 

arbitrarily and capriciously despite the ordered environment in which they take place. In the 

Book of the Duchess, this process is compared specifically to a chess game between two 

individuals, the grieving Man in Black and the personification of fortune. The Knight’s Tale 

increases the cast of characters, the playing field, and even the number of levels of the game, 

wherein Fortune is not portrayed so much as a specific character but as an impersonal force 

which influences the actions of gods and humans, and the struggle to impose order on disorder 

plays out in both spheres as well. While there is no direct evidence that Chaucer may have 

entertained such a premise, in effect, the Knight’s Tale can be viewed as a multi-dimensional 

chess game played by primary and ancillary opponents on a variety of levels from the individual 

and mundane to the cosmic. 

II. 

Chaucer and Chess 

According to historian David Shenk, the game of chess is “a miniature reflection of 

society” which has been used as a metaphor encompassing “everything from romantic love to 

economics” for the entirety of its history. 1 In the Middle Ages, it was a part of the nobility’s 

education (male and female), as well as an often illicit amusement among the religious orders, 

despite frequent bans due to its association with gambling. By Chaucer’s day, several literary 

works on chess had been published. He would have been familiar with at least two of them, 

Jacobus de Cessolis’ Liber de moribus hominum et officiis nobelium (“Book of the customs of 

men and the duties of nobles”), or The Book of Chesse, and Jeu de Echecs by Jehan Vignay. 2


There has been some debate among chess scholars as to the first, as Caxton did not publish the 

first English version until the mid-fifteenth century; but, as Guillemette Bolens and Paul 

Beekman Taylor point out, numerous translations did exist in French, Latin, and German prior to 

that point, and Chaucer likely would have read it in either French or Latin. 3 Even though 

Chaucer made few references to the game in his own work other than the Black Knight’s 

soliloquy in Book of the Duchess, historian Jenny Adams concurs with Bolens, stating that 

Chaucer’s access to the poems and romances of the period, rich in “chess lore and myth,” would 

have given him more than enough familiarity with the game and its conventions, literary and 

otherwise. 4 

Furthermore, according to medievalist Mark Taylor, Chaucer’s reference to 

“jeopardyes” 5 is based on specific knowledge of written collections of chess problems, also 

known as jeopardies or partita, two of which surviving today have been dated to the late 

thirteenth or early fourteenth century in England. 6 

Interestingly, medieval chess games frequently played out in violence once the issue of 

checkmate, or pending checkmate, arose, the implication being that losing or resigning did not 

rest easily on the medieval mind. Many of the romances refer to games ending in duels, or even 

outright brawls, rather than in checkmates, complete with pieces being thrown and boards being 

used either as weapons or shields. 7 In this light, even a tournament is not outside the realm of 

possibility! 

III. 

Fortune and Her Wheel 

The influence of fortune is at the heart of both poems. In the Book of the Duchess, 

Chaucer links it directly to the chess metaphor, presenting “fals Fortune” as the Black Knight’s 

opponent. 8 As was common in both chess practice and literature in the Middle Ages, 9 the Black 

Knight has chosen to gamble on this match, but the stakes are much more substantial than a


typical wager, for he is playing with the life of his lady. 10 It is also a pointless bet; at a crucial 

point in the game, Fortune captures the Black Knight’s fers, or queen, representing his lady, and 

polishes him off with an errant pawn one move later. 11 Within a few moves, Fortune displays just 

how quickly her wheel can fling a hapless mortal from its top to the ground. Taylor points out 

that the Black Knight’s ignorance of Fortune’s dual nature allowed him to delude himself as to 

“what to expect at the height of his happiness.” 12 But the Knight’s resentment of Fortune’s whim 

is temporary; he eventually does acknowledge, however ruefully, that he “wolde have drawe the 

same draughte” regardless of any opportunity for foreknowledge of Fortune’s capricious 

nature. 13 His grief, then, is for the actual physical loss of his love rather than constituting an 

embittered outcry towards his opponent, whose influence over the lives of men he understands 

and accepts even while wishing she had treated him differently. 

The concept of Fortune as an impartial and arbitrary entity was a continuing focus during 

the Middle Ages. Howard Patch delineates three primary viewpoints: the romantic, “content to 

leave things to chance, with or without personification”; the rationalist, who, in the Aristotlean- 

Aquinian tradition, denied Fortune’s existence; and those in the middle, who “held to a belief in 

chance subordinate to reason, a kind of personification of Aristotle’s causa per accidents.” 14 He 

notes that, in a contest between the philosopher and the poet to further define the third category, 

the poet would succeed in refuting the “hardheaded philosopher” by “replying that even the 

philosopher must admit the existence of apparent chance.” 15 Patch also contends that Fortune’s 

increased literary visibility during a time when poets freely borrowed from their predecessors 

and each other, as well as the highly unstable political and social environment, increasing a sense 

that “circumstances really turn on the wheel of the fickle goddess,” also contributed to bringing 

Fortune’s role, now super-sized, back into the popular spotlight. 16


This is the Fortune of the Knight’s Tale, perhaps more force than persona, but Chaucer 

deliberately makes her powerful enough to affect the orderly progression of life and the fates of 

the tale’s characters, diverging from Boccaccio’s example. In the Teseida delle Nozze d’Emilia, 

Fortune is frequently characterized as “angry,” 17 “wretched,” 18 and “cruel,” 19 or reviled with 

specific reference to the individual complaint. Only at the beginning of Book VI does Boccaccio 

acknowledge her random whimsy: 

Fortune, that lofty governess of the world who changes one thing into another 

over and over with her inconstant movements . . . just as it suits her to do and how 

and when it suits her. 20 

Chaucer views her with more consistent objectivity. 21 Palamon and Arcite are ruled by Fortune 

in all of her aspects, although Arcite acknowledges it far more frequently, beginning with his 

observation while both share the same prison that Fortune gave them “this adversitee.” 22 Having 

acknowledged Fortune’s influence, Arcite is even inclined to fling himself toward what she 

might hold for him regardless of any potential cost, proclaiming, “And everich of us take his 

aventure,” and clings to this belief despite being exiled from Athens (and Emelye). 23 While 

Palamon acknowledges the power of Fortune, he does not understand the connection between it 

and any actions he might take. 24 This dynamic is emphasized in the relationships between the 

two and their respective patron gods, Mars and Venus, who “act along the most simple lines of 

policy as if they were pieces in a game of chess,” 25 as well as the influence of Fortune on all 

four. Alexandra Cook has observed that the lovers perceive a connection “between the act of 

surrendering oneself to the mercy of capricious, whimsical gods and surrendering oneself to the 

experience of romantic love.” 26 

Nor is Fortune content with merely ruling the affairs of Palamon, Arcite, and the object 

of their mutual desire, Emelye. Even the social and political structure created by Theseus is


subjected to Fortune’s regard, and the case could be made that it is the true target of Fortune’s 

actions. The Knight’s Tale contains a distinct progression of actions and events, much as the 

progression of a chess game: move, encounter/attack, immediate result, and ramifications 

reaching beyond the initial battle to affect the stability and fortunes of both sides. The element of 

chance represented by wagering in the medieval game, including dice play that frequently 

involved variations to moves dictated by the roll of the dice, 27 equates to the role of Fortune in 

the tale. Even when a particular encounter appears to be moving toward a specific and perhaps 

obvious conclusion, Fortune’s hand tosses the dice and introduces an unexpected element to 

change the direction of the game. 

Merle Fifield has analyzed the patterns of specific incidents within the Knight’s Tale, 

contending that they “follow a simple cause-to-result climactic order resolved by the intervention 

of Fortune or her agent,” with the additional element of celestial disorder “resolved by the 

intervention of Fortune in the character of Saturn” during the theater section: 

The opening section demonstrates the irresistible force of Fortune; the duel 

illustrates the failure of individual action; the description of the theater proves the 

failure of all earthly order; the tournament illustrates the failure of corporate 

action; and the sermon offers the only solution to survival in a world governed by 

eternal change against which both man and society are powerless. 28 

This pattern is not dissimilar to a chess match: opening exploratory moves; interaction between 

questing lesser pieces aimed at winnowing down the opponent’s forces; extended battling by 

lesser and key pieces; and eventual mate or resignation acknowledging inescapable helplessness. 

Even though, like Arcite, the player may attempt to anticipate his opponent’s actions, accepting 

their likelihood and that of his own contribution to the direction of play, the element of the 

unknown, or chance, can deliver the unexpected at any time and send the game careening in a 

different direction. Fifield points out that the “consistent original impetus of all action is force—


Theseus’ force and Fortune’s force—neither of which can be directed or reversed by Palamon 

and Arcite.” 29 One goes off into exile, the other remains in prison, and the Knight asks the 

company which “hath the worse.” 30 The hand of Fortune lies equally heavily on them both. 

Fortune returns with equally arbitrary impartiality in Part II of the Knight’s Tale. Through 

somewhat vague circumstances involving assistance by an unidentified “friend,” but which the 

Knight imputes to “aventure or destynee -- / As, whan a thing is shapen, it shal be,” Palamon 

slips his leash and escapes. 31 Fortune then turns her attention to Arcite, who coincidentally 

manages to blunder into the exact same shrubbery where Palamon lurks “as by aventure.” 32 

Fifield contends that the degree to which their enmity is renewed is the result of their mutual 

realization that, rather than each being free to pursue Emelye’s hand without interference, they 

have both been duped by Fortune once again, and that this is the cause of the animal viciousness 

with which they fight. 33 Once again, however, Fortune interferes, this time by utilizing the 

would-be agent of order, Theseus, who stops the duel, separates the players, and imposes his 

own interpretation of Fortune’s will upon them: “That ech of yow shal have his destynee / As 

hym is shape, and herkneth in what wyse; / Lo heere youre ende of that I shal devyse.” 34 

The construction of the lists and associated temples in Part III is representative of the 

continued order instituted by Theseus, the wheel of Fortune notwithstanding. Chaucer’s lengthy 

descriptive passages accentuate this aspect by their comprehensiveness, to the point where, as 

Muscatine remarks, the descriptions seem to “consume the full fifty weeks that Theseus allows 

for it.” 35 The ponderous progression is also reminiscent of the mid-game in chess, as lengthy 

combinations of moves are made in an attempt to establish a defensive bulwark from which to 

launch one’s own offensives. The setting is relatively secure as the three supplicants visit the 

temples of their respective patron gods (or goddesses). Even the varying degrees of vague


assurance rendered are not overly disturbing: Venus shakes and makes an indeterminate 

“signe”; 36 the metal accoutrements and doors on Mars’ temple ring and clatter, and Arcite 

believes he hears a voice saying “Victorie.” 37 Ironically, the ever-present Wheel does not cast as 

large a shadow for the young men during their supplications, despite their frequent references to 

its owner up to this point, as for Emelye. Only Diana is willing to concede the potential influence 

of Fortune, telling Emelye that she cannot say which rival will claim the reluctant maiden. 38 

With the focus on the two young men and their patrons, this reminder of Fortune’s role 

may not necessarily seem significant. Chaucer’s descriptions of the temples, however, should 

give it more weight. His inclusion of a blind Cupid “as it is often seene” in Venus’ temple 39 as 

well as geomantic figures Puella and Rubeus in Mars’ entourage 40 point more specifically to 

Fortune’s influence. Then there is Diana’s temple, where the goddess, standing on a “wexynge” 

moon that “sholde wanye soone,” 41 is surrounded by representations of unfortunates in Greek 

mythology who underwent transformations of some sort through her agency, 42 and most of 

whom were her victims. 43 When the mutability aspect of the moon, personified in Diana, is 

added to these representations, the looming persona of Fortune is no longer avoidable. 44 

Once Fortune enlists the participation of Saturn, however, the course of the tournament is 

firmly under her control. This is a major deviation from the Teseida; Boccaccio does not release 

Saturn from his Tartarean pit, but assigns the task of retrieving the hellish Furies to Venus in 

accordance with the agreement she has made with Mars as to the resolution of the battle. 45 

Chaucer, however, frees the Saturn/Cronus figure and puts him to work. In fact, he first appears 

in Arcite’s initial mention of Fortune and her influence upon the unfortunate cousins’ paths in 

life: 

Fortune hath yeven us this adversitee. 

Som wikke aspect or disposicioun


Of Saturne, by som constellacioun, 

Hath yeven us this, although we hadde it sworn; 

So stood the hevene whan that we were born. 46 

One school of criticism sees Saturn as the “evil genius” of the Knight’s Tale, a 

malevolent power superseding even Jupiter. 47 Yet the Knight’s introduction of Saturn does not 

appear to ascribe absolute independence to Saturn’s force; at most, it implies equality with 

Fortune. However, Fortune receives primary billing where Arcite (who comments frequently on 

Fortune and her actions) is concerned, and it is only a heavenly “aspect or disposicioun” of 

Saturn, rather than the entire personality, which he mentions secondarily. Additionally, Saturn 

himself is surprisingly reticent about the extent of his powers. He begins by claiming that his 

“cours, that hath so wyde for to turne, / Hath moore power than woot any man.” 48 Yet his selfproclaimed 

orbit of influence is limited; although he governs such matters as punishment of 

criminals, pestilence, and other dark and fatal areas, he then points out that “I do vengeance and 

pleyn correccioun, / Whil I dwelle in the signe of the leoun.” 49 

This last statement presents an interesting question as well. In The Age of Saturn: 

literature and history in the Canterbury Tales, authors Brown and Butcher examine several of 

the tales, including the Knight’s Tale, in the context of historical events during the latter part of 

the fourteenth century. 50 Saturn’s journey from one zodiacal sign to another takes about twentyfive 

months, requiring approximately twenty-nine years (including retrograde movement) to 

complete the entire tour; it would have been in Leo between July 1387 and August 1389. 51 If one 

accepts Brown and Butcher’s premise, Chaucer might very well have taken this factor into 

consideration. However, according to astrologer Stephanie Johnson, Saturn’s dominant signs, its 

“Essential Dignities,” are Capricorn and Aquarius; Leo, as a sign in direct opposition and thus an 

“Essential Debility,” would have actually decreased Saturn’s influence. 52 Considering the


various astronomical and astrological references in the Knight’s Tale alone, it seems that 

Chaucer would have been aware of Saturn’s ascribed abilities in the different signs. While Saturn 

would still evince his malefic aspect during his journey through Leo, he would not have been 

considered to possess any significant degree of clout at that time. Chaucer could have easily 

placed him in Aquarius or, better yet, Capricorn, the stronger of Saturn’s two dominant signs, 

thus giving him the necessary standing. 

Chaucer deliberately evokes Saturn’s planetary aspect rather than giving him omnipotent 

maleficent powers, referring to him as “pale saturnus the colde,” with orbit “so wyde for to 

turne.” 53 According to David Gaylord, Saturn may have more power than any man knows, 54 but 

he is only “an astrological adjunct to Boethian themes of providence, destiny, and free will.” 55 

Dorothy Bethurum Loomis makes a similar observation, noting that Chaucer’s use of Saturn 

represents the Neoplatonist view that “all [planets] express the will of Providence.” 56 Perhaps 

even more significant is the fact that, as Gaylord points out, other than Arcite’s initial reference 

to Fortune and Saturn, 57 none of the key human players even acknowledge Saturn’s existence in 

general or view him as a maker of destiny, much less as one on a par with or superior to 

Fortune. 58 

Given the overwhelming influence of Fortune through the first three parts, then, as well 

as the failure of any character to echo or even refer to Saturn’s declarations, not to mention the 

purely arbitrary choice of mechanism employed to fling Arcite from the top to the bottom of 

Fortune’s wheel, embodied in the Fury summarily summoned by Pluto at the snap of Saturn’s 

fingers, it is difficult to credit that Fortune has conceded her control of the game to a sole god, 

however inimical, who is technically subservient to another god. An analogy could be drawn 

between the Fury of the Knight’s Tale and the “poune erraunt” of the Book of the Duchess; 59


having established her supremacy on both playing fields by capturing the Black Knight’s queen 

on the one and successfully inciting Venus and Saturn to conspire to wreak havoc on the other, 

Fortune can employ lesser means to finish off her chosen victims. 

It is far more conceivable, therefore, that Saturn is acting as Fortune’s agent. Fifield 

states that men and gods alike are ruled by Fortune; “a meaningless human order is dedicated to 

a disordered hierarchy of minor controlling forces who, in turn, are subject to Fortune grinding 

all beneath Her wheel. . .the intervention of Saturn [in achieving Arcite’s downfall], as Fortune 

and not what men think Fortune is, makes the expected reversal which more completely 

separates the lovers than before.” 60 Even Brown and Butcher concede that Egeus, Saturn’s 

representative, possesses “mind-numbing ‘wisdom’. . .based on the life-long observation of 

change. . .The ‘up and down’ process is the movement of Fortune’s wheel.” 61 

Chaucer leaves no room for doubt in the Knight’s Tale as to the role of Fortune and the 

effect of her wheel, deliberately choosing to intermix the latter concept with the Knight’s 

“concern with the instability of human ‘wele’ astride the ever-turning wheel of Fortune.” 62 

Saturn’s comment to Venus concerning his wide-turning course 63 is further evidence of 

Chaucer’s play on words, emphasizing the fact that neither gods nor humanity have any control 

over either the wheel of Fortune or the course of her agents, the planet deities. 64 As Kathleen 

Blake notes: “The deciding force is actually Fortune, which pervades the tale. At every step of 

the way we hear of Fortune, Fortune’s wheel, Fortune’s dice, Fate, ‘Nature,’ ‘aventure,’ ‘cas,’ 

‘nedes coste,’ providence, Boethian ‘destinee,’ the stars, the gods.” 65 Clearly, it is Fortune who is 

in charge here, of men and gods alike. 66


IV. 

Order and Disorder 

Chaucer explores the antagonistic interaction between order and disorder, or logic and 

chaos, to a small extent in the Book of the Duchess before adopting it as a primary theme in the 

Knight’s Tale. The narrator, observing a hunt passing through the woods, inquires of one of the 

dog handlers who hunts there, and is told, “the emperor Octovien.” 67 James Winny interprets this 

reference to an unseen authority and the potential disruption stirred up by the hunt as an 

indication that Chaucer was feeling his way towards “expression of this emerging interest” in the 

“contest between authority and disorder.” 68 

While Winny’s conjecture is relatively minor, the significance of the relationship 

between order and disorder is more substantial in the Knight’s Tale. Along with Fortune, it 

defines the relationship and rivalry between Palamon and Arcite, the actions of the various gods 

who become involved, and Theseus’ efforts to arbitrate suitable outcomes; the effect of Fortune’s 

chaotic influence on each exacerbates all three areas. Robert Blanch and Julian Wasserman relate 

the separate choices of traditionally linked colors made by the two heroes (red for Arcite, white 

for Palamon) to a “dualism that is of their own making rather than of ontological 

fact . . . . separating those things which are traditionally intertwined and are hence disrupting 

what might be viewed as a natural unity.” 69 It is up to Theseus to combine the two colors, and 

presumably repair this dualism, as the “practitioner of moderation” and “arbiter and. . .restorer of 

balance and order.” Fifield suggests that it is in fact the “trial and error method of meditation, 

action, and defeat” employed by Palamon and Arcite that allows Theseus to evolve from his 

early role as conqueror to that of problem-solver, developing “a progression of logical 

deductions, each of which proceeds from his earlier deduction and all of which appear in his 

sermon as necessary steps in achieving his conclusion.” 70


According to Charles Muscatine, the Knight’s Tale is a “poetic pageant” in which the 

“general tenor of noble life. . .invokes order” with a “constant awareness of a formidably 

antagonistic element—chaos, disorder—which in life is an ever-threatening possibility.” 71 This 

order is supported by symmetry in the various groupings of characters, whether they are humans 

or gods, and even the descriptions of structures contain a balance. 72 As king and proponent of the 

principles designated by the Prime Mover, Theseus is the primary representative of order in the 

poem. 73 In fact, Muscatine contends, “When the earthly designs suddenly crumble, true nobility 

is faith in the ultimate order of all things. Saturn, disorder, nothing more or less, is the agent of 

Arcite’s death, and Theseus, noble in the highest sense, interprets it in the deepest perspective.” 74 

Not all Chaucer scholars agree with Muscatine in his glorification of Theseus as prime 

standard-bearer for Order. Joseph Westlund believes that Theseus is woefully inadequate to the 

task, and that the Knight’s true focus is the “subversion of noble efforts to bring order out of 

disorder.” 75 He does not so much assign responsibility for this subversion to Fortune as to the 

entire pantheon of gods, although he assigns the role of “misfortune” to Saturn; more 

importantly, Westlund considers the presence of the gods and their attendant disruptive aspects 

to imply that the lives of mortals have little meaning in this context, particularly absent any 

constructive effort by Theseus to resolve the situation in favor of order. 76 Blake contends that 

Theseus’ “ordering will is not a medium through which chaos is subdued and divine providence 

put into effect on earth in the form of civil law and the civilized life.” 77 E.D. Blodgett takes 

opposition to Muscatine’s premise a step further: “Theseus provides a static order within chaos 

by providing prisons, temples, and elaborate tournaments. Each is a spatial and geometric 

response to events, and each issues, wittingly or not, in strife and finally death.” 78 This statement 

is particularly interesting in terms of a chess-related reading of the Knight’s Tale, as it conjures


images of formations of chess pieces, with rooks (prisons), bishops (temples), and knights 

(tournaments), along with the inherent symmetry of the game and the concept of ordered battles 

between pieces. 

Muscatine considers Chaucer’s attitude towards disorder perhaps as being even more 

significant than his treatment of order, although, again, it could be said that it is the resolution 

toward order which enhances that significance. He describes the “subsurface insistence on 

disorder,” including Saturn’s speeches, to be “the poem’s crowning complexity, its most 

compelling claim to maturity.” 79 In that sense, as noted above, Muscatine’s conclusion that 

Theseus, as interpreter and problem-solver, is a vital representation of order, is reasonable. 80 

Others are not willing to go quite that far, preferring to cast Saturn in the role of chief 

agent of chaos, who may or may not be acting in accord with Fortune, or who may be acting 

entirely independently of any other influences. According to Robert Emmett Finnegan, Chaucer 

chose to add Saturn to the cast of characters borrowed from Boccaccio in order to emphasize 

“the problematic character of his gods, the serious nature of the division in heaven, and the 

ominous inability of the high god to resolve it.” 81 Blake views Saturn as an outsider, a type of 

universal outlaw, who creates “arbitrary and willful” solutions to problems with little or no 

concern for the ramifications of his actions. 82 Interestingly, she also comments that here one sees 

that “order may be created out of nothing, for no all-encompassing rational purpose, but out of 

gratuitous impulses of will.” 83 Considering that Saturn even admits that his primary motive for 

involving himself is to achieve peace between the squabbling Mars and Venus, 84 rather than any 

significant demonstration of his power, Blake may have a valid point. This does, however, then 

beg the question as to whether the influence of disorder, possibly operating at Fortune’s 

command, can actually create the opposite condition, in which case perhaps Theseus may


actually be on the right track. Regardless of the nature of Saturn’s compulsions, he represents the 

major voice of disorder in the Knight’s Tale, thus providing an underlying support to Fortune’s 

directives. 

V. Conclusion: The “Beste Game of Alle” 

Having made his plan for the tournament, Theseus congratulates himself on having 

perpetrated the “beste game of alle” on the two knights because the object of their desire, 

Emelye, is totally unaware of her role in their rivalry. 85 Larry Benson, editor of the Canterbury 

Tales Complete, defines “game” here as “joke,” 86 although the Middle English “game” carries a 

variety of other meanings as well, including “[a]n athletic contest; also, a game of chess, 

backgammon, dice, etc.; a tournament or jousting.” 87 This incorporates the sense of a prank 

being played within the larger gameplay of the tournament, and within the even larger cosmic 

game of chess. It is not unreasonable, then, to view Chaucer’s choice of words as significant. 

When Fortune takes her place in the design, the scope of the “game” transforms from a 

minor contest into the greater conflict between chaos and order, with the element of 

dispassionate chance perpetually shifting the balance. Fortune’s wheel does not dictate a specific 

fate for the individual. Rather, it allows for the possibility of change, which may be the 

consequence of mischance or occur at the arbitrary instigation of some other factor, and which 

may have a positive or a negative result, or both. The Book of the Duchesse and the Knight’s 

Tale ultimately end in tragedy, capped by the actions of the errant pawn and the short-lived Fury, 

both representations of Fortune’s capricious nature. Whether in play with a single individual or 

on a larger cosmic board, Fortune wields the chess pieces, enlisting the assistance of forces of 

order and chaos as she sees fit.


1 David Shenk, The Immortal Game: A History of Chess (New York: Random House, 2006), 15. 

2 Guillemette Bolens and Paul Beekman Taylor, “The Game of Chess in Chaucer's Book of the 

Duchess,” The Chaucer Review 32.4 (1998): 330, accessed March 6, 2011, DOI: 10.1353/ 

cr.2001.0014. 

3 Ibid., 330. 

4 Jenny Adams, “Pawn Takes Knight's Queen: Playing with Chess in the Book of the Duchess,” 

The Chaucer Review 34.2 (1999): 129, accessed March 6, 2011, http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 

25096082. 

5 Geoffrey Chaucer, The Boke of the Duchesse, The Online Medieval & Classical Library: line 

666, accessed January 24, 2011, http://omacl.org/Duchess. 

6 Mark N. Taylor, “Chaucer’s Knowledge of Chess,” The Chaucer Review 38.4 (2004): 303, 

accessed March 28, 2010, DOI: 10.1353/cr.2004. 

7 H. J. R. Murray, A History of Chess (Oxford: Clarendon, 1913), 739-742. 

8 Chaucer, The Boke of the Duchesse, lines 618-619. 

9 Adams, “Pawn Takes Knight's Queen,” 133. 


11 Ibid., 654-661. 

12 Taylor, “Chaucer’s Knowledge of Chess,” 308. 

13 Chaucer, The Boke of the Duchesse, line 682. 

14 Howard R. Patch, “Chaucer and Lady Fortune,” The Modern Language Review 22.4 (1927): 

378, accessed March 6, 2011, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3714845. 

15 Ibid., 378. 

16 Ibid., 379. 

17 Giovanni Boccaccio, The Book of Theseus: Teseida delle Nozze d’Emilia, trans. Bernadette 

Marie McCoy (New York: Medieval Text Association, 1974), Book III, line 76. 

18 Ibid., Book IV, line 80. 

19 Ibid., Book IV, line 86.


20 Ibid., Book VI, line 1. 

21 It should be noted that the word “fortune” itself appears twelve times over the course of the 

tale; its equivalent, “aventure,” twelve times as well, and other references such as “wheel” and 

“destynee” or “destinee” appear at least another seven times. 

22 Geoffrey Chaucer, Knight’s Tale, The Canterbury Tales Complete, ed. Larry D. Benson 

(Boston: Houghton, 2000), fragment 1, line 1086. 

23 Ibid., lines 1186, 1238. 

24 Merle Fifield, “The Knight's Tale: Incident, Idea, Incorporation,” The Chaucer Review 3.2 

(1968): 98, accessed March 8, 2011, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25093079. 

25 C. David Benson, “The ‘Knight's Tale’ as History,” The Chaucer Review 3.2 (Fall, 1968): 110, 

accessed March 10, 2011, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25093080. 

26 Alexandra Cook, “‘O swete harm so queynt’: Loving Pagan Antiquity in Troilus and Criseyde 

and in the Knight’s Tale,” English Studies 91.1 (2010): 36, accessed March 5, 2011, DOI: 

10.1080/00138380903355064. 

27 Murray, A History of Chess, 474-475. 

28 Fifield, “The Knight's Tale: Incident, Idea, Incorporation,” 97. 

29 Ibid., 99. 

30 Chaucer, Knight’s Tale, line 1348. 

31 Ibid., lines 1465-1466. 

32 Ibid., line 1516. 

33 Fifield, “The Knight's Tale: Incident, Idea, Incorporation,” 100-101. 

34 Chaucer, Knight’s Tale, lines 1842-1844. 

35 Charles Muscatine, Chaucer and the French Tradition: A Study in Style and Meaning 

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 177. 


37 Ibid., lines 2422-2432. 

38 Ibid., lines 2351-2353. 

39 Ibid., lines 1963-1965.


40 Ibid., lines 2043-2045. 

41 Ibid., line 2078. 

42 Ibid., lines 2062-2072. 

43 Susan Crane, Gender and Romance in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, (Princeton: Princeton 

University Press, 1994), 182. 

44 Kathleen Blake, “Order and the Noble Life in Chaucer's Knight's Tale?” Modern Language 

Quarterly 34.1 (1973): 17, accessed March 6, 2011, DOI:10.1215/00267929-34-1-3. 

45 Boccaccio, Teseida delle Nozze d’Emilia, Book IX, line 4. 


47 Peter Brown and Andrew Butcher, The Age of Saturn: literature and history in the Canterbury 

Tales (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 31. 


49 Ibid., lines 2461-2462. 

50 Brown and Butcher, The Age of Saturn. 

51 CyberWorld Khaldea, Ephemeris 1300-1399, accessed April 10, 2011, http://www.khaldea. 

com/ephemcenter.shtml. 

52 Stephanie Johnson, “The Essentials of Essential Dignities,” Astrological Journal 39.6 (1997): 

2, accessed April 10, 2011, http://www.seeingwithstars.net/images/EssDig.pdf. For purposes of 

this specific paper, further exploration of this particular line of inquiry is not practical, but it is 

interesting. 

53 Chaucer, Knight’s Tale, lines 2443, 2454. 

54 Ibid., line 2455. 

55 Alan T. Gaylord, “The Role of Saturn in the Knight’s Tale,” The Chaucer Review 8 (1974): 

174, accessed March 10, 2011, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25093266. 

56 Dorothy Bethurum Loomis, “Saturn in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale,” in Chaucer und seine Zeit: 

Symposium für Walter F. Schirmer, ed. Esch, Arno. Buchreihe der Anglia: Zeitschrift für 

englische Philologie (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1968), 159. 


58 Gaylord, “The Role of Saturn in the Knight’s Tale,” 184.


59 Chaucer, The Boke of the Duchesse, line 661. 


61 Brown and Butcher, The Age of Saturn, 228; referencing Chaucer, The Knight’s Tale, lines 

2839-2841. 

62 Thomas A. Van, “Second Meanings in Chaucer's Knight's Tale,” The Chaucer Review 3.2 

(Fall, 1968): 72, accessed March 10, 2011, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25093076. 


64 Van, “Second Meanings in Chaucer's Knight's Tale,” 73. 

65 Blake, “Order and the Noble Life in Chaucer's Knight's Tale,” 11. 

66 Brown and Butcher’s The Age of Saturn contains an illustration captioned “Dicing, gaming 

and sudden death: the children of Saturn,” which displays De sphaera by Johannes de 

Sacrobosco. The painting shows Saturn standing in a sphere accompanied by two smaller ones 

containing his astrological signs, above a village scene. Gamblers are dicing on the left side of 

the street; sudden death (presumably of the gamblers) is happening on the right. In the middle is 

a walkway set out in a checkerboard pattern, and a chess game is in progress in the front center 

(Plate 1). 


68 James Winny, Chaucer’s Dream-Poems (New York: Harper, 1973), 41. 

69 Robert J. Blanch and Julian N. Wasserman, “White and Red in the Knight’s Tale: Chaucer’s 

Manipulation of a Convention,” in Chaucer in the Eighties, ed. Julian N. Wasserman and Robert 

J. Blanch (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1986), 176. 


71 Muscatine, Chaucer and the French Tradition, 179. 

72 Ibid., 178. 

73 Ibid., 184. 

74 Ibid., 190. 

75 Joseph Westlund, “The Knight’s Tale as an Impetus for Pilgrimage,” Philological Quarterly 

43 (1964): 526-529. 

76 Ibid., 532.



78 E.D. Blodgett, “Chaucerian Pryvetee and the Opposition to Time.” Speculum 51.3 (1976): 487, 

accessed March 6, 2011, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2851709. 

79 Muscatine, Chaucer and the French Tradition, 189. 

80 Ibid., 190. 

81 Robert Emmett Finnegan, “The Curious Condition of Being: The City and the Grove in the 

Knight’s Tale,” Studies in Philology 106.3 (2009): 286, accessed March 5, 2011, DOI: 

10.1353/sip.0.0026. 


83 Ibid., 17. 



86 Chaucer, Knight’s Tale, note to line 1806. 

87 Middle English Dictionary. University of Michigan, 2001, accessed March 14, 2011, 

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/m/mec/med-idx?size=First+100&type=headword&q1=game& 

rgxp=constrained


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