We are told by Hyde that the Princess Anna Comnena relates, in the Alexius a work written by her in the beginning of the 12th century, “that the Emperor (Alexius), her father, in order to dispel the cares arising from affairs of state, occasionally played chess at night with some of his relations or kinsfolk.  She then says that this game had been originally brought into use among the Byzantines from the Assyrians.”  The fair historian says nothing as to the time when the game came from Assyria, which may have been five centuries before she wrote, her statement, however, proves that it came from Persia, and not from Arabia, for Assyria formed an important portion of the Persian Empire under the Sassassian dynasty, and in fact was for some centuries a kind of debatable land, and alternately occupied by the Persians and Romans, according as victory swayed to one side or the other.  The term Assyria, then, denoting Persia in general, is used here in a well known figurative sense “per synecdechen,” a part taken for the whole, just as the term Fers is employed to at this day to denote the whole of Persia, whereas it is only the name of a single insignificant province of that kingdom.  Finally, the once splendid empire of Assyria, of Media, and of Persia, had all passed away long before Anna Comnena wrote, so that one name is just as likely to be employed by her as another. (Forbes.)

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The European origin of chess, or rather the supposed time of its first introduction through the Arabs into Spain 713, 715, though resting on a general consensus of agreement may yet prove to be ill matured, for though it is clear that Spain did get knowledge of it at the conquest and occupancy during Al Walid’s reign by the armies under Musa Ibn Nosseyr and Tarik Ibn Yeyzad it is not so certain, if the Romans were acquainted with it at the time of the edict, 830 years earlier, that it may not have been known in some parts of Europe before the time supposed, besides which we have the Asiatic Society’s statement, through its Persian M.S., and from the Shahnama applicable to Alexander the Great’s time, and the Indian Kings in treaty with him.

The commonly accepted theory, that England first got chess through William of Normandy at the Conquest or on the return of the first Crusaders (in the latter case about 1100 A.D.), though concurred in with tolerable unanimity by all writers until Sir Frederic Madden raised his doubts in 1828 also appears scarcely consistent with previous incidents found on record.  Canute’s partiality for chess (he reigned 1017 to 1035) events mentioned in the reigns of Athelstan and Edgar and the chess pieces and boards we read of including those dug up at the Isle of Lewis, and of Pepin, Charlemagne, Harfagia, King of Norway, and in Iceland seem to be unnoticed or too slightly regarded by those who wrote on assumed Saxon or English chess, first knowledge.  The period assigned for chess in England is 500 years