In the high Middle Ages, chess became a popular pastime for the upper crust, both men and women.

ECONOMIST: Women in chess

For reasons having nothing to do with the autonomy of cathedral schools or medieval cities and towns, the Catholic popes of the high middle ages enlisted their clerics to organize a body of law, drawing from the old Roman law as well as Scripture, that could be applied throughout Europe, and allow them to centralize authority in Rome.

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