The dating of the document makes the poem the earliest known reference to chess in a European text, as well as the earliest known document to mention the chess queen (called regina in Latin),[1] and the first reference to a bicolor board with dark and light colors (a pattern that was absent from boards in precursors such as Indian chaturanga and Perso-Arabic shatranj, both of which were single-color and were divided only by horizontal and vertical lines).

In 1877, professor and classical philologist Hermann Hagen (1844–1898) made the verses accessible to the general public in his medieval poetry compilation Carmina Medii Aevi Maximam Partem Inedita: Ex Bibliothecis Helveticis Collecta.

There exists, in addition, an early medieval copy (though not of the Codex Einsidlensis 365) of lines 65 to 98 with a somewhat more classical orthography, which is dated to 997 AD and is also preserved in the Einsiedeln Abbey Library.

[1] The first ten verses justify the game as mental recreation, in which there is no malice (ne dollus ullus inest), no perjurious fraud, and no physical risk (non laceras corpus membra vel ulla tui), underlining also the advantage of playing without dice.

According to some chess historians, this initial statement was made in order to oppose common religious disapproval of games of chance that involved gambling.