The Buke of the Chess

Scots translation of the Latin "Book of Chess", a series of essays on moral themes, by Jacobus de Cessolis. The long Introduction provides a technical analysis, academic study and general account of the manuscript; this is followed by a printing of the text, an illustration of a page, textual and explanatory notes, an extensive glossary, a list of proper and place names and an appendix. Inset into the instruction are anecdotes and miniature narratives, often very pithily rendered in this Scots translation. The work survives in one of the most important anthologies of Scots verse and prose, the Asloan manuscript. It is edited here for the first time with glossary and notes.