The Piececlopedia: Bishop-Knight Compound

Princess, Archbishop, Cardinal, Paladin

Historical remarks

This piece has a long history and has been called by many names. At present, there is no name it is universally known as, though some come close. Judging by how many games this piece has been given a certain name, the top names for this piece are Paladin, Cardinal, Archbishop, and Minister. But there are other considerations than just number of games. The author of this text, Fergus Duniho, has stuffed the ballot in favor of Paladin by creating several games using that name for this piece. Generally, the most widely used names for this piece are Cardinal, Archbishop, and Princess.

Princess is the standard name for the piece among fairy problemists. This name is used as the favored name in both Dickin's Guide to Fairy Chess and The Oxford Companion to Chess. The rationale behind this name is an analogy with the Queen. This piece, the Queen, and the Rook/Knight compound are the three main compounds of the three simple pieces in Chess, the Rook, Bishop, and Knight. The idea is that, like the Queen, all three of these compounds should be named after female royalty. Since the Bishop is weaker than the Rook, this piece was considered the weaker of the two compounds besides the Queen. So it got the name Princess, while the name Empress went to the Rook/Knight compound. Ironically, the Princess has the advantage of being able to checkmate a King entirely on its own, whereas an Empress requires assistance from another piece to checkmate a King.

The name Archbishop was introduced by Capablanca, who had originally called this piece a Chancellor, perhaps because one of its meanings is "a Roman Catholic priest heading the office in which diocesan business is transacted and recorded" (Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th). Both of Capablanca's names for this piece suggest some kind of augmented Bishop. For non-Catholics, the name of Archbishop more clearly does this than Chancellor, which to many people may just mean a head of state or a college president. In Grand Chess, Christian Freeling took a similar approach to naming this piece, calling it a Cardinal, which is the highest rank in the Catholic Church besides the Pope. While the ecclesiastical significance of Cardinal is certainly better known to non-Catholics than that of Chancellor, the name Archbishop still has the advantage of being more ecumenical, and this name more clearly suggests an augmented Bishop of some sort. This is evident when we consider what other pieces have been given these names. The name Archbishop has been used for two other augmented Bishops. In A Guide to Fairy Chess, Dickins describes one that moves like a Bishop but also "reflects off one edge of the board like a billiard-ball off a side-cushion" (11). In Diamond Chess, an Archbishop is a piece that moves as a Bishop or a King. In contrast, the name Cardinal is used in the commercial game Cardinal Super Chess for a lame camel, which is given an ecclesiastical name for being colorbound like the Bishop. Both Archbishop and Cardinal have been popular names for this piece. Archbishop has been used in the commercial variant Gothic Chess, and John William Brown has favored the name Cardinal in his book Meta-Chess.

Despite the popularity of both names, neither one captures the specific compound nature of the piece. Each suggests some kind of augmented Bishop, but neither name suggests any kind of augmented Knight. Yet this piece should be thought of as both an augmented Bishop and an augmented Knight. When I created Cavalier Chess, I introduced the name Paladin, which does capture the specific compound nature of this piece. In Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, a paladin is a hybrid character class of the cleric and the fighting man classes. Since Bishops are clerics and Knights are fighting men, the name seems appropriate for a compound of the Bishop and Knight. Curiously, Gary Gygax, the creator of AD&D, used the name for a 3D piece that is similar to the Centaur in his own Chess variant, Dragon Chess. Despite this, Paladin remains an uncommon name for the Centaur, and I have now used the name in several games besides Cavalier Chess, particularly in Fusion Chess and its many derivatives.

This table gives an overview of the history of this piece.

Year	Game	Name of Piece	Creator of Game
14th century?	Shatranj Al-Kabir (Great Chess)	Unknown
1617	Carrera's Chess	Centaur	Pietro Carrera
<= 18th century	Turkish Great Chess	Wazir	Unknown
1840	The Emperor's Game	Adjudant	L. Tressan
1840	The Sultan's Game	Adjudant	L. Tressan
1874	Bird's Chess	Equerry	Henry Bird
1920's	Capablanca Chess	Chancellor / Archbishop	J. R. Capablanca
<= 1943	Wolf Chess	Fox	Dr. Arno von Wilpert(?)
1968	Modern Chess	Minister	Gabriel Maura
1950-1975?	Cagliostro's Chess	Archbishop	Savio Cagliostro
1978	Tutti-Frutti Chess	Princess	Ralph Betza and Philip Cohen
1980	Renniassance Chess	Archbishop	Eric V. Greenwood
1984	Grand Chess	Cardinal	Christian Freeling
<= 1996	Janus Chess	Janus	Stephan Blasius(?)
1996	The Colorbound Clobberers (CDA)	NB	Ralph Betza
1997	Cobra Chess	Vizir	Derick Peterson
1997	Grand Hexachess	Vizir	Derick Peterson
1998	Euchess	Cardinal	Carlos Cetina
<= 1998	Chess 2000	Knight/bishop	Gerhard Josten
1998	Eric's Great Chess	Vizir	Eric Greenwood
1998	Pre-Grand Chess	Cardinal	Eric Greenwood
1998	Hammer Chess	Bishop	Jim Aiken
1998	Cavalier Chess	Paladin	Fergus Duniho
1999	Haynie's Great Chess	Cardinal or Archbishop	Billy Haynie
1999	Pick-the-Team Chess	Cardinal	Hans Bodlaender
1999	Hexmate	Paladin	Michael A. Rouse
1999	Grand Cavalier Chess	Paladin	Fergus Duniho
1999	Bedlam	Paladin	Fergus Duniho
1999	Metamorphin' Fusion Chess	Paladin	Fergus Duniho
1999	Fusion Chessgi	Paladin	Fergus Duniho
1999	Fusion Chess	Paladin	Fergus Duniho
1999	Metamorph Chess	Paladin	Fergus Duniho
2000	Giant Chess	Minister	Köksal Karakus
2000	Perfect Chess	Minister	Köksal Karakus
2000	Terror Chess	Cardinal	Brian Wong
2000	Turkish Chess	Minister	Köksal Karakus
2000	4 Armies	Cardinal	Patrick Riley
2000	Trihex	Cardinal	Marek 14
2000	The Knightliest Black Hole	Count	João Pedro Neto
2000	Drop Chess	Crusader	Key McKinnis
2001	Twenty-First Century Chess	Baron	Karl Munzlinger
2000	Fantasy Grand Chess	Cardinal	Peter Hatch
2001	Gigachess	Cardinal	Jean-Louis Cazaux
2002	Abecedarian Big Chess (ABChess)	Archbishop	Glenn Overby
2002	Full Double Chess	Cardinal	Sergey Sirotkin

Movement rules

The Cardinal may move like an orthodox chess Bishop, or like an orthodox chess Knight.

Movement diagram

The blue circles indicate the leaping moves of a Knight, while the green circles indicate the Bishop move.

diagram of cardinal move

Notes

This is an item in the Piececlopedia: an overview of different (fairy) chess pieces.

Alternate Images

Click on an image to view the full piece set it belongs to.

Written by Fergus Duniho and David Howe.
The Meta-Chess move map was reprinted from Meta-Chess, copyright 1997, by permission of John William Brown. One sentence added by Hans Bodlaender.
Movement diagram and piece icon created from Zillions of Games.

WWW page created: February 12, 1999.

For author and/or inventor information on this item see: this item's information page.
Created on: February 12, 1999. Last modified on: January 24, 2003.