Marilyn Yalom has published a book called “Birth of the Chess Queen” where she traces the appearance of the powerful queen in modern European chess. Article on the book in The Boston Globe.
It sounds like an interesting book, even if it could be over-reliant on the idea that there just must be a connection between ideology, society, and small things like the movement of a piece in a semi-abstract game. But let’s see.
As is pointed out in the comment “Not Too Bad; Not Too Good” (on the Amazon page), and confirmed on this chess history page, this change in the queen’s moving came about in the late 15th century, at the same time as the increase in the bishop’s power — which didn’t coincide with increased church power.
I know little about chess or its history, but presumably this development is well-studied — the Amazon comment posits that it was to speed up the game for the growing middle class. Apparently “History of Chess” by Harold J. Murray (1913) and “Chess: The History of a Game” by Richard Eales (1985) are the standard references on chess history.
There’s some sociological interest in calling this powerful piece “the Queen”, but the author seems to be stretching it waaay too far. This book (which I haven’t read — I’m judging based on reviews) seems to use the power of the chess queen as a pretext for a feminist manifesto/history (I say this as a feminist: I’m objecting to the lameness of the conceit, not the project).
Another historical reference on the queen/vizer piece; it was apparently referred to as “the virgin” for a time as well.
Clearly there is often an interplay between things and their various roles and symbolisms/associations (being ludologists, I’d say: “yes, also/especially in games”) — apparently the “only one queen on the board at a time” rule (can’t promote a pawn to queen if you still have your queen) was advocated as otherwise chess would “promote bigamy” — but it seems the queen became powerful for game reasons, not social ones (especially since this happened at the same time as the bishop’s powerup).
Frankly, there’s a kind of poetry (or at least elegance) in the king being the most important piece (but weak), and the queen being the most powerful piece (but expendable), and the symbol of the couple helps make this more poignant. Were the queen to still be the vizer, the symbol of the weak king and strong vizer (power behind the throne) would be a bit facile, cliche.
Further, the queen’s power is a little piece of revolution (against the still-existing patriarchy) embedded in our culture, but I wouldn’t make too much of it. For instance, in French, checkers is called “dames”, meaning “ladies”, and the pieces move (more or less) as the chess queen used to move — but reading any feminist/lesbian subtext into checkers seems absurd.
[If I were Lacan, I’m sure I’d talk about how the queen in chess has 2 symbolic values: both as a symbol of woman (in society) and as a piece in the game, whose only value is (naturally) symbolic, and I’d talk about the glissement of the signifier, etc. — but fortunately, I’m not.]