DRAUGHTS

  SPANISH DRAUGHTS
        

             Términos y Condiciones, Derechos de Autor, Políticas de Privacidad, Colabora con CF
              Copyright 1999-2006 . All Rights Reserved       Email: govert@damasweb.com   







    
Sooner or later the peoples will understand the importance of this queen in the game of chess and draughts. In the year 1997 I wrote the work:

" The influence of the Queen Isabel the Catholic on the New Powerful Dame in the Origin of the Game of Draughts and Modern Chess. Spanish literature 1283-1700 "

It had come to this hypothesis (1994) after 10 years of deep investigations. Therefore I feel very proud to be able to come to these conclusions for two motives:
1. of being a feminist
2. of contributing as Dutchman to something very important for the Spanish history

I say "something very important", because I have many historians and simply criticans of Holland, Germany, France and even Spain against me. It is something logically, because it is necessary to bear in mind that suddenly many historical books will be without any historical value.

The real mood of an investigator is demonstrated in his aptitude to incorporate new and irrefutable truths, citing documents in evidence, although  questioning the work and the ideas that have been defended for years. No historian is free of errors, but the honesty, the feeling of being just, and the search of the truth, eagerness for freedom and independence, facing all type of dificulties, are necessary attributes in the historical investigation. This has always been my signs of identity, which besides that we have always seen in the great historians.  

Where in other occasions I dispute the official history of Spain
(in case of the expulsion of the Moriscos) my conscience does not allow me to lie in case of the queen Isabel the Catholic. As a historian, fellow and cronicler, in this case of the village of Blanca,  first  of all I have to look for the truth!

Spain is a undiscovered country and that is one of the reasons that I since years heavily promote the
research and production of new healthy ingredients, Spanish culture and the latest moorish village Blanca in Spain.

                                                                                           Govert Westerveld
Queen Isabel the Catholic
  ( 27.4.1451   -   26.11.1504)
Whole South-América pending of this webpage
In the year 2004 Spain will commemorate the  V Centenary of the death of her great queen, protector of humanistic sciences.
Some words of Mr. José Antonio Garzon Roger, with regards to the queen Isabel la Católica. He is for
me presently Spanish best chess historian (I will proof that next year) who discovered the existence of the chess book of Vicent and is tracing now the whereabout of this book. 
Mr. José Antonio Garzon Roger
La reina Isabel la Católica:
su reflejo en la dama poderosa de Valencia,
cuna de ajedrez moderno
y origen del juego de damas - 426 pages
20 years of research







Spanish
25th february, 2004







English
Book, edited by the  Generalitat Valenciana.
Sonselleria de Cultura, Educació i Esport
Secretaria autonňmica de Cultura
SALES:                                                   ISBN: 84 482 3718 8                   
                                               CELESA
                                               Laurel, 21  - 28005 Madrid
                                              Tel 34 91 517 0170  Fax  34 91 5173481
                                               e-mail:   pedidos@celesa.com
One of the bestsellers now
in the United States

Published on the 23rd may, 2004
Marilyn Yalom, in relationship with our books about  Isabella the Catholic, which are in the National Libreries of The Netherlands and Spain, wrote us the following text on the 23rd october, 2004: 
Yes, I am familiar with your work and cite it in my book. We agree (as did that great pioneer Ricardo Calvo) that Isabella I of Castile was deeply implicated in the establishment of the new, long-legged chess queen, and, as you point out, in the game of draughts. It was a labor of love for me to research and write "Birth of the Chess Queen" -- a project that brought me to the Royal Library in the Hague, to the Cleveland Public Library on several ocassions, and to Spain (Madrid and Catalonia). 
Marilyn Yalom is a senior scholar at the  "Institute for Women and Gender at Stanford University - ww.stanford.edu  -   (Photos:  Chris Stewart
Different authors wrote the following about the book of Marilyn Yalom:

Not untill the year 1000, two hundred years after Arab conquerors brought chess to southern Europe, did a chess queen appear on the board. Initially she was the weakest piece, moving only one square at a time on the diagonal, yet by 1497, during the reign of Isabella of Castile, the chess queen had become the formidable force she is today.

The chess queen got her first break in 12th-century Spain, replacing the vizier, who represented the king's counselor in Eastern chess (apparently Spaniards notices who got the most attention when she whispered in the king's ear). From Spain, the game moved to the South of France, where Eleanor of Aquitaine gave the chess queen here first real-life model, epitomizing  "the trappings of queenship that worked their way into the symbolic system on the chessboard."

Yalom enjoys telling the stories of here favourite queens: Matilda of Tuscany, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Blance of Castile, Margaret of Denmark and particularly Isabella of Castile, who ruled Spain along with her husband Ferdinand at the time of the chess piece's ascension to superpower status.

Amor relevant factor have been the rise of powerful real-life queens, principally Isabella I of  Castile (1451-1504), who married Ferdinand, prince of Aragon, and ruled Spain jointly with him.

Off and on for more than two decades, from 1469 to 1492, Isabella and Ferdinand were engaged in combating their enemies. It was during this period that 'new chess' featuring the formidable queen came into being. A militant queen more powerful than here husband had arisen in Castile; why not on the chessboard as well.
NEW BOOK   on the  25th february, 2004 tittled: " La reina Isabel la Católica: su reflejo en la dama poderosa de Valencia, cuna de ajedrez moderno y origen del juego de damas"    New foundings of  Garzón confirmed the hypothesis
March, 2006

See here now the proofs !!!!!!!!!!