GIVEN that Lewis was part of the Scandinavian world, and there were great men there who would have been patrons of art and recipients of prestigious gifts, should we consider the possibility that the chessmen were manufactured on that island?
As with so much from medieval times, no strong evidence survives to confirm or deny such a hypothesis. While many craftsmen were itinerant, most scholars would at present expect to locate the manufacture of such pieces in a town or large trading centre. The craftsmen who made such prestigious items were, perhaps, more likely to thrive in such a setting. Our detailed study of the Lewis chessmen demonstrates that they had a good understanding of the robes, vestments and protective clothing worn by kings, queens, bishops and knights. This surely suggests that they had access to such people, or were perhaps employed in workshops provided by a king or archbishop. Lewis had no towns at the time in question, but there were strong links between the Western Isles and major Norwegian towns, particularly Bergen, where the kings of Norway often held court, and Trondheim, another royal centre and the site of the archbishops’ cathedral.
The limited evidence favours Trondheim over Bergen as the likely centre of manufacture of ivory chessmen. Apart from the ivory queen already mentioned, excavations in the town have led to the recovery of a wooden king of similar form to the Lewis pieces. It is thought to date to the early thirteenth century. There is a piece of twelfth-century walrus-ivory carving, perhaps the head of a staff, from the island of Munkholmen, near Trondheim. Its scrollwork decoration is comparable to that on some of the Lewis chessmen. It is known that by the early fourteenth century, and possibly much earlier, the Norse settlers in Greenland paid the archbishops large quantities of walrus tusks as tithes (taxes). A king, made from a whale’s tooth, has recently been found on the island of Hitra to the west of Trondheim. It is in the same tradition as the Lewis kings, but is clearly later, perhaps late thirteenth or fourteenth century in date.
The Lewis chessmen bishops are the earliest chess bishops known. In earlier versions of the game, the positions occupied by bishops were taken by elephants. Could it be that this substitution reflects the interest and patronage of a senior cleric like an archbishop of Trondheim? None of this makes it certain that Trondheim was the place many or all of the Lewis chessmen were made, but it is at least a strong probability.