1340, playing cards in Bohemia

DianeOD

Bohemia

Huck - THe search in trionfi.com (L tarot?) will probably bring up something from earlier posts. I think I tried to bring this to the attention of that group at some time over the past couple of years. May even have quoted some of Rozmital manuscript.

Anyway: this is the book I found helpful. You won't find instantly recognisable "tarot" pictures in it, but if considered closely, one sees certain very interesting details, and method of structing picture, and certain ways of depicting e.g. thrones, which is highly evocative - for me, at least.

Matejcek, Antonin, and Pesina, Jaroslave, Gothic Painting in Bohemia 1350-1450, Prague: Artia Prague 1955

Other ref mentioned earlier:
Letts, Malcolm (trans. and ed.), The Travels of Leo of Rozmital, Haklyut Society, (Second Series No.CVIII), CUP, 1955.

I believe I also quoted on Ltarot/trionfi a piece from this book on holiday/fair divination, but haven't time at present to hunt the book again. Ref was not in its index.

Having computer probs. So will send this, mount the Job pic and come back with the ref - if modem doesn't drop out again.
 

DianeOD

Bohemia, Job etc

Job picture
GregorysMoraliaInJob.jpg


The 'piercing supporter' (Sirius&/or Canis major) is shown below the heel of Orion.

Interesting that the early Coptic/Syrian idea of utter devotion to one's lord, maintained here, in a French ms, still maintains the character of Sirirus from much older pre-Roman Egyptian traditions for this star.

The term Isis is a bit difficult to render in a single word; it meant a swelling up to pierce something. I guess the idea of the cobra might show how those things can combine.

Anyway, it also bore the sense of a swelling mound, or of female tumescence in pregnancy. This, united with another sense: 'the piercing one' gives us the imagery of the Visconti-Sforza card commonly known as the Star, and which is just another way of depicting this star, the Piercing servant/supporter star. Obviously meant to make the equation between Isis-and Mary, Christ's mother, the principle 'supporter' of Christ. But that is a fairly mainstream equivalence and was perfectly well known. Accepted into earlier Christian scholarship due to a principle called 'Euhemerism' by which all earlier gods, prophets and eminent people were foreshadowings of the Christian message. Clever argument. Allowed monks to study 'pagan' works extensively.

.....
And now the section from my books' Prologue that was also on the initial web-page in 1998. I take it from the manuscript because I haven't got a copy handy of the old web page. I have quoted enough to show the context - its not an in-depth discussion of the Bohemian connection...
--------
REF: "Prologue", Rational Constructions: a discussion of the Moorish Quarters, with particular reference to the Charles VI and Visconti-Sforza cards...." (unpublished) copyright Daana Mindon (Diane O'Donovan) 1998.

START QUOTE
Synchronicity jewelled the regular, methodical process of this research, too, as so often it does. A work about hand-weaving falls open at random, and there is a tenth-century woven Syrian shield; a jumble-stall contains, to one’s astonishment, a rather rare work about Bohemian art, whose plates support, and clearly illustrate, the Norman-Italian-French-Bohemian connection – reasonable in view of Bohemia’s history but not one I should have expected easy to demonstrate in its relation to these figures on card.

Synchronicity (or perhaps its opposite) also constitutes, of course, the researcher’s greatest haunt, for there can be few experiences more dismaying than to find – just as one’s manuscript is finished - a volume by another author sitting, pristine and innocent, upon the book-seller’s shelf, addressing precisely some same issue and focused on the same period and place as one’s own.

Recently, Mary Carruthers work, The Book of Memory was re-issued, a decade after its original publication, and thus came to my notice, in a bookshop in Australia during the final days of the present essay. I am abashed at having failed to notice its earlier publication, for the work is an essential text on the subject of memory in the west: in ancient, classical and medieval education there. Carruthers plainly shows how in the western sphere pictorial memoria were always and invariably tied to written texts.

Having read The Book of Memory, and being now aware of how many scholars are involved in studies of the western arts of memory, I need scarcely discuss of those matters in depth. ( removed the relevant chapter from my own ms). Where the reader might find some detail useful I include secondary source material. Any other correspondence between this present work and Carruthers’ study (or indeed any other), is due to the nature of the material itself
END QUOTE

I should correct the dating for this ms, in line with recent academic studies. It is now dated to 1111. Even more helpful a date - from my point of view, at least.
 

Huck

Hm.

The Content of the journey of Leo of Rozmital gives the information, that the journey took place in the 60's of 15th century (1465 - 1467).
Likely an interesting story. However, what does it tell about the topic of playing cards in Bohemia a century before?

http://www.questia.com/library/book...ugal-and-italy-1465-1467-by-malcolm-letts.jsp
CONTENTS
PREFACE page vii
ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS xv
INTRODUCTION 1
Note on members of Rozmital's suite 16
Note on distances 17

THE TRAVELS OF LEO OF ROZMITAL
I Tetzel page 19
Preparations for the journey, , Anspach, the Margrave Albert Achilles , Feutchwangen, Crailsheim, Ohringen, Schwäbisch-Hall, Wimpfen, Heidelberg, the Palsgrave Frederick refuses to receive the Bohemians, , , Rüdesheim, , the Rhine-journey, , the Rupert of the Pfalz, the jousting, the relics, Aachen, more relics, Neuss, the nunnery.
Schaseck page 24
Heilbronn, Feuchtwangen, , , the tourney, a state banquet, a Bohemian dance with torches.
II Tetzel page 26
Guelderland, , , Philip the Good , the banquet, the zoo, the treasury, the Duke of Cleves, Charles , his 'joyous entry', the jousting, , , the baths, the carnival, Anthony the Great Bastard , Calais, the crossing to England .
Schaseck page 32
Crefeld, rabbit-catching, the Duke of Guelders kept a prisoner by his son, Lierre, Malines, Brussels, Philip the Good , the tower of the Hôtel de Ville, Duke Charles, the banquet, Duke Charles's 'joyous entry', recep*

III Tetzel page 43
, Becket 's Shrine, the Regale of France , the relics, , Edward IV , Elizabeth Woodville , her churching, the Earl of , the court banquet, the Queen at table, the relics, Margaret of York , the English countryside, beer the national drink.
Schaseck page 49
Sandwich, English ships, the agility of the English sailors, , London Bridge, the kites, the Mercers' Chapel, Edward the Confessor 's Shrine, the beauty of the women, the royal treasury, the English countryside, England a garden enclosed by the sea, the long trains of the women, the King gives decorations, the relics, the London goldsmiths, the Bohemians' long hair, the custom of the kiss, Windsor, Reading.
IV Tetzel page 57
, St Osmund 's shrine, the mechanical figures, the Duke of Clarence, a strange dish, Poole, an attack by pirates, Guernsey , a storm at sea.
Schaseck page 60
Andover, , the Duke of Clarence, the Cathedral, the mechanical figures, no lights on the altar, mirrors on the altar at Easter, the washing of the paupers' feet, distribution of the Holy Bread, our national character, attack by robbers, Guernsey , a storm at sea, St Malo, dogs guard the streets at night.
V Tetzel page 66
Nantes, the Duke of Brittany , René of Anjou , Saumur, the dwarf Triboulet, Angers, the bishop, his vineyards, the castle, the zoo, Orléans, the Duchess, the , Louis XI , the Queen, the clergy and nobles of France .

Shaseck page 70
, the Loire , Brittany and its peasants, Blois, an escape from drowning, the tomb of René of Anjou and his Queen.
VI Tetzel page 73
, the Magdalena , Châtellerault, Charles of Anjou , St Catherine de Fierbois , Blaye, the giant Roland and his sister, , Dax, Gascony, the women, Biscay, lack of food, the priests.
Schaseck page 76
An episode in the history of Joan of Arc , the giant Roland and his sister, Hernani, women with shaved heads.
VII Tetzel page 78
Spain , the Haro , a fight with customs' officers, , bull-baiting, the Christ of , its history, the road from .
Schaseck page 82
Fight with the customs' officers, fruit trees producing cider, Villasana de Mena , a strange meal, a horse dies, Medina del Pomar , , a dazzling road, the monastery of S. Agustin , shirts hung up in the church, bull- baiting, the convent of Las Huelgas, Lerma, Roa, a horse is stolen, the road to Aguilafuente, Schaseck is lost, , a threshing floor, the Alcázar, lizards and scorpions, the aqueduct, bull-baiting.
VIII Tetzel page 90
A dangerous journey, the struggle between Henry IV of Castile and his brother Alfonso , reception by Henry IV , Olmedo , Joanna of Portugal , the King's evil habits, an uproar at the inn, a wrestling match, Alfonso refuses to receive the travellers, , bull-baiting.
Schaseck page 94
Olmedo , reception by Henry IV of Castile, a wrestling match, trouble at the inn, public executions, Medina del Campo , Canta la Piedra , the visit

IX Tetzel page 100
Portugal , Braga, hardships of travel, Compostella, the cathedral besieged, the cathedral and relics described, the chapel and hermitage of St James .
Schaseck page 104
The crossing of the Douro , Freixo, Torre de Moncorvo, San Esteven de Albeiro , poisonous beasts and insects, Povoa de Lanhoso , Guimaraes , Braga, Alfonso of Portugal , apes and Ethiopians, the journey to Compostella, a disturbance at the inn.
X Tetzel page 109
Finisterre, El Padron, St James 's boat, Braga, a plague-stricken country, strange creatures, the expedition from Finisterre, the Moors described, the slave-trade, Portuguese customs, burials.
Schaseck page 114
El Padron, Compostella, the church and relics, , the Moors, the slave-trade.
XI Tetzel page 119
Alfonso of Portugal , plague in , , the civet cats, Castile, , its rivalry with , a Roman citizen's daughter.
Schaseck page 122
Montargil , a profusion of hares and conies, Arroyolhus, , Alfonso of Portugal , the civet cats.
XII Tetzel page 124
Guadalupe, the monastery of our Lady, its hospital, , the Archbishop and his nephew, the famous Bible, Medinaceli, the so-called deposition of Henry IV , heathen customs.

Schaseck page 129
Guadalupe, the monastery of our Lady.
XIII Tetzel page 132
Calatayud, John II of Aragon , he bestows a decoration, , the road to , danger from sea-robbers, the envoys taken prisoner, , the quarrel with Charles of Viana .
Schaseck page 135
, reception by the king's ministers, the Council House, our Lady of the Pillar, John II of Aragon , Molins de Rey , the attack by pirates, Schaseck is captured but released, a wrestling contest, disturbance at the inn, the character of the Catalans, Borzita is captured, .
XIV Tetzel page 142
France , , , , , Mt Genèvre , Italy , , the Galeazzo Maria , the Bianca Maria , the castle, the Duomo , St Ambrose .
Schaseck page 144
, D , Mt Genèvre , , the Duke, the Bianca Maria , the Duke's brother, the Duomo , St Ambrose , the castle, the departure, Cassano, Chiari, Brescia, the dancing madness, Lonato, Lake Garda , , the 'Palace of Theodoric', a legend of his death, , .
XV Tetzel page 152
, , , , a wretched inn, the in session, the Treasure, the Arsenal, a request for a loan refused.
Schaseck page 153
An advance party arrives from , , , , Santa Lucia, St Mark 's treasure, the theft of the treasure, the golden horses, the Doge's gallows, the Senate elects a governor, the Arenal, the Papal Legate, a merchant's palace, the Fondaco dei Tedeschi , the weavers' workshops.
XVI Tetzel page 162
The journey home, , the Frederick III , a tournament, Wiener-Neustadt, the Empress, Maximilian plays the lute, Rozmital's pecuniary difficulties, trouble in Hungary , , reception by the King and Queen of Bohemia , a Dier, Blatna, Tetzel returns to .
Schaseck page 165
, the Frederick III , a tournament, Schaseck is knighted, the imperial treasury, the journey to Wiener-Neustadt, the Eleonore , the monastery (Neu-kloster) and its bell.
APPENDIX I DISPONABLE DECORATIONS page 171
APPENDIX II BOHEMIAN MANNERS 173
APPENDIX III LETTERS OF EDWARD, KING OF ENGLAND 175
APPENDIX IV THE CATALAN SAFE-CONDUCT 178
APPENDIX V LIST OF BOOKS CONSULTED 179
INDEX 187
 

DianeOD

Rozmital

See what you mean.

Basic point. I believe that the Charles VI cards were *designed*with clear knowledge of the more ancient traditions of eastern astronomical moralia, which reached the west in waves of contact - mainly contact with eastern Christianity - from about the 7th century. THe period of Theodore in Anglo-Saxon England, of Charlemagne, of Christian Sicily, and then when Bar Sawwma came west from China and Persia.... show equivalent 'spikes' in the frequency and accuracy of such figures in ecclesiastical and monastic art and architecture.. as well as in use of 'figura' for oratory and memory.

However, from the time of the Visconti-Sforza (which in my view is plainly later in type, if not in finish, than the core figures of the Charles VI set), a new wave of imagery begins. It begins to alter, and then to 'play upon' the older kind of astronomical-moral-Christianised figures. The painters no longer seem to know exactly what they are doing.. tho one occasionally meets remarkably late works which plainly do.

I believe the rise of the Visconti-Sforza's 'clever' style is probably due to the rise in interest in a form of verbal-memory game that arose in the court of Provence long before, but was now moving from the school-room to the parlour of great houses. THe original memory-oratory game was called simply joc or joc-partits, and we know the form revived when Marie de Medici became Queen of France. The games again become popular in 16thC Italy, and from comparing the forms of that period, with earlier ones, we see that very little about the verbal aspect (Q&As) has changed since the 12th - 13thC.

By now, if not earlier, these games began from the reading of an instructional 'letter' and then also could (but didn't have to) have a first phase where tokens - sometimes alphanumeric figures, sometimes oracular 'scrolls' etc - would be distributed between players.

It was a pastime for the fashionable, emphasising cleverness and wit. I think the V-S cards were made at first to assist that sort of play.

So - it is only after the new type of imagery has begun to be favoured (compare the different styles of the 'Star' and the 'Kings' in the V-S cards) that independent contact with the Slav states including Bohemia makes a 'Bohemian' art style popular in the V-S Italian court.

Because of this - mere fashion, maybe, or religious concern about heretical ideas in the older system - other forms of cards (namely some in the Charles VI cards) undergo 'corrections' and revision to ensure they are o.k. and smart, and this can be why the 'Visconti-Sforza' sort became so widely preserved. When in fact, from an historical perspective, the Charles VI are more authentic in their content.

Concerning Rozmital.

According to the Dummett-de Paulis line of argument, though, this influence from Bohemia would not be likely, because by the time Rozmital arrives, cards, card-packs and card-play "of the ordinary sort" (as they say) are supposed to be everywhere. We do know lots of them were produced, but one wonders where that sort of game was played, and how many people "of the ordinary sort" could find actual coinage and buy such things. Is the Dummett idea of who played cards, and where they played, and what kind of games they played, really accurate?

This is one of the few places where I think negative evidence carries real weight. If card-play was so popular and was for nothing but 'ordinary' number games, then it should have been highly visible .. kids playing with cards on the streets, or perhaps men sitting gambling at inns, or the nobility sitting around together playing cards after dinner... whatever. People should have been mentioning it, if it was a popular, widespread, secular adult activity. But they hardly do yet.

Rozmital passed through Europe from one end to the other. He stays at inns, but is also invited into the nobles' homes, where he describes in meticulous detail what he ate, what people said, what presents he was given and gave, and what forms of entertainment he witnessed or enjoyed because in his honour. He spent weeks altogether travellin on the roads of France, Spain, Portugal etc., and inevitably passed through dozens and dozens of villages.

He went to churches, recording in great detail what he saw and did. So I think it is relevant that in this account there is *total* silence concerning this supposedly ubiquitous activity of the Italian/German/French. THe one *possible* referemnce is when he talks about a public festival day, and a custom of divination!

Question is - where *were* those barrrels and barrels of cards that tax was being paid on?

I am strongly of the opinion that as yet they were in monasteries, universities and kids' school-rooms. It was an educational activity, a tutorial 'contest' game, just like the one which is described in the Thousand and One Nights, where the woman talks about having learned all she knew from Alamanc makers "signs and tokens".
When did card-use get out of the educational/ecclesiastical environment? Perhaps when university students found that you could 'gull' the locals for food, drink or cash on your day off, with nothing but a pack of memory-cards. Only a suggestion. History simply doesn't relate, except for the prohibitions against gambling.
 

Huck

Here is an online edition:

http://books.google.com/books?id=8b...al&as_brr=1&ei=fk0PR8LEApCg6wKlmqzQBw#PPP1,M1
(only the first part belongs to the theme)

I don't know, which edition you've ... but what I see, is, that the journey description doesn't offer too much details. In my opinion it's not remarkable, that playing cards are not mentioned.
The stay in Milan, at least 8 days, took 3/4 of a page and the pages are not long.

St. capistran was in Bohemia in the 50's of 15th century and judging, what he did in Germany, he was an outstanding heavy impact on early playing card industry, which in Germany did need 10 years to recover. So Bohemians in the 60's weren't possibly the right objects to observe playing card culture.

For the nobility we judge, that noble men in Italy avoided playing cards , but (young) female and also very young men enjoyed it (a state till the early 70's). Enough surviving prohibitions suggest, that playing card existed for the lower classes; Franco Pratesi had focussed on Florence and the region around it and found a lot ca. 1988.

http://trionfi.com/0/p/05/

At the court in Milan Galeazzo Maria (1466) played cards occasionally, but prefered chess und juists and hunting generally and finally tennis and his chapel. A playing card scene was frescoed in Pavia in the room, where the "women" took their meal. Playing cards were for women then - in the courts.

Prohibitions were NOT everywhere handled in the same way. Filippo Maria Visconti had much more tolerant laws in the 20's than it is known from Florence. But generally it seems, as if Italy knew more prohibition than Germany in the first half of 15th century (partly thanks to the San Bernardino movement), which might be a reason, why German playing card production and printing techniques developed better.

http://trionfi.com/0/p/08/

Much more playing card documents (prohibitions, allowances, rules etc.) are known from Germany. Schreiber (1938) had collected them in great number.

Actually I wonder, why the report doesn't mention a juist in Milan. Galeazzo Maria was very fond of it in this time.
 

DianeOD

Rozmital

Im sorry you don't get much out of Rozmital, Huck.

What I object to is not that cards existed, and were used, but an assumption without any supporting evidence, that the sort of games played were those still played - in the way still played - today. I have asked at trionfi.com, and would ask again. What is our earliest, certain, dated, documentary evidence for numerical card-games of the modern kind?

re Rozmital: Did you notice the passages where printing is mentioned? Or how about this passage, speaking about Bruges..

We arrived at Brudges eight days before the carnival - which we celebrated there, entertaining ourselves with various plays and dances. In that country, and particularly for Bruges, it is the custom in the last days of the carnival for noblemen to go about masked, each striving to be more fantastically dressed than the others. Whatever colour the master affects, his servants are similarly dessed. They put masks on their faces in order that they may not be recognised, and they resort to places where dances and plays are held. Everywhere there is the noise of trumpets and drums. And if anyone meets the lady of his choice, he gives her a paper bearing his name but speaks no more to her, and thus she, but no one else, knows who he is... and after the dance she plays various kinds of games with him, each staking sundry gold pieces according to his or her means. When these depart, others follow at the same games, and all are occupied thus in the last few days.(p41).

Paper, money, games, and ladies in contest with men during the time of festival... rings a few bells for me, what about you? But it would not be valid to suppose these card-games of the *modern* kind, because the evidence does not say so. What it does say, is that paper was common, and that it was used within the context of romance, carnival and gambling. THat's all. Its only by considering a much broader context, and lots of other documents from the period, and earlier, and later, that such references can be judiciously treated.

And there are other, even better, bits if you know the period - such as printed 'pass-ports' and the relevance of pirates and heralds to the overall picture of how card-use and imagery evolved in Europe... Perhaps you might like to read the book through; if nothing else, you might find it good background for the times. For example, we hear of many towns obliged to raise huge annual taxes as tribute to Venice. 20,000 ducats per year is not rare, and it is said that "everything bought and sold" had to be taxed.

But this is talking historiography, not tarot...
 

Huck

DianeOD said:
Im sorry you don't get much out of Rozmital, Huck.

We arrived at Brudges eight days before the carnival - which we celebrated there, entertaining ourselves with various plays and dances. In that country, and particularly for Bruges, it is the custom in the last days of the carnival for noblemen to go about masked, each striving to be more fantastically dressed than the others. Whatever colour the master affects, his servants are similarly dessed. They put masks on their faces in order that they may not be recognised, and they resort to places where dances and plays are held. Everywhere there is the noise of trumpets and drums. And if anyone meets the lady of his choice, he gives her a paper bearing his name but speaks no more to her, and thus she, but no one else, knows who he is... and after the dance she plays various kinds of games with him, each staking sundry gold pieces according to his or her means. When these depart, others follow at the same games, and all are occupied thus in the last few days.(p41).

Sorry, in the version, which is on the web:

"Von dann auss ritt wir gen Brück. Do lagen wir die fasnacht und versuocheten aldo erst recht die brückischen bad, und hetten mit den burgern gern gestochen oder gerannt. Do wolten
sie mit uns nit stechen. Und an der fasnacht luod der pastor von Burgundi meinen herrn und sein erber gesellen zu haus und het die allerschonsten frawen geladen in Brück, und gab meinem herrn ser ein köstlich mal und het ein kredentz aufgerichlel, achtet man um gross guot, und giengen ruen und triben vil kurzweilig weltlich leben. "

I don't know, how this will fit together. This are not the same texts. It's carnival, it's Brügge (between Gent and Calais), but the other details are different. Are there different versions?

Added later:
... Yes, there are two writers. Tetzel from Nuremberg and a Czech writer. Perhaps this creates the confusion.

Wikipedia to King Podiebrand explains the political context of the journey. The traveller is the king's brother.
During the journey the Bohemian king is excommunicated (Christmas 1466).

###
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_of_Poděbrady
"A year after the accession of Podebrad, Pius II (Aeneas Sylvius) became Pope, and his incessant hostility proved one of the most serious obstacles to Podebrad's rule. Though he rejected the demand of the Pope, who wished him to consent to the abolition of the compacts, he endeavoured to curry favour with the Roman see by punishing severely all the more advanced opponents of papacy in Bohemia. All Podebrad's endeavours to establish peace with Rome proved ineffectual, and though the death of Pius II prevented him from carrying out his planned crusade against Bohemia, his successor in short time became an equally determined opponent.

The Hussite king had many enemies among the Catholic members of the powerful Bohemian nobility. The malcontent nobles met at Zelena Hora (Grueneberg) on November 28, 1465, and concluded an alliance against the king, bringing forward many accusations against him. The confederacy was from its beginning supported by the Pope, though Podebrad, after the death of Pius II, attempted to negotiate with the new Pope, Paul II. These negotiations ended when Paul apparently insulted the envoys of the king of Bohemia.

On December 23, 1466 Paul II excommunicated Podebrad and pronounced his deposition as king of Bohemia, forbidding all Catholics to continue in his allegiance. The emperor Frederick III, and King Matthias of Hungary, Podebrad's former ally, joined the insurgent Bohemian nobles. King Matthias conquered a large part of Moravia, and was crowned King by the Catholics in the Moravian ecclesiastical (and – at that time – also political) metropolis Olomouc, as king of Bohemia on May 3, 1469. In the following year Podebrad was on the verge of routing Matthias, but contrary to his supporter's wishes, decided to come to an agreement with the Hungarian King. George was successful in his resistance to his many enemies, but his death on March 22, 1471 put a stop to the war.

In reaction to the threat of the Turks in the east, one of George's ideas was to set up a pan-European "Christian League", which would bring together all the states of Europe. He sent Leo of Rozmital (Lev z Rožmitálu) on a tour of European courts to promote this idea. He is thus considered as one of the earliest proponents of the European Union."
###
 

DianeOD

'two writers'

Rozmital seems to have been very keen on getting every interesting detail of his journey on record. He hired two full-time scribes to accompany him, - one expects it is so that if one dies, or misses something, the other will record it.

The Haklyut edition I have takes the Tezel account as the basis for the translation, adding in the content of the other to fill out details, or add anything Tetzel misses.
_______
Sorry, I see I have not actually SAID the central point - that the Slavs of Bohemia, a dualist group, long associated with the older eastern churches, and also the most preyed upon by Muslim and Christian slavers, including of course the Knights Templar, and Knight Hospitaller whose island bases within the Mediterranean (Crete, Malta) were the greatest slave cities of all, barring perhaps Old Cairo in Egypt, and Timbuctu (if I recall correctly) in North Africa.

The reference in the Nights, and I think one inference from the place where the so-called 'Mamluk" cards were found, suggests that the Slavs of Europe not only knew the ancient astronomical/geographical patterns, but were also the way that use of the pack spread within Muslim Islam of the medieval period. One notes there was also a large community of Slav 'heretics' in Sicily before, and ?during? the period of Norman rule.

I don't think the slavs of Bohemia invented cards, nor the imagery on cards, but I do think they gained the idea earlier than much of Europe, and took that into Bohemia during their regular flights from persecution. This slavic connection could explain why Rozmital's scribes might avoid mentioning paper-using games even if they recognised them, in Bruges.

By the way, the 'divination' passage appears to be an error; if it is in Rozmital, it is not in the Bruges carnival passage.
 

Huck

DianeOD said:
Rozmital seems to have been very keen on getting every interesting detail of his journey on record. He hired two full-time scribes to accompany him, - one expects it is so that if one dies, or misses something, the other will record it.

The Haklyut edition I have takes the Tezel account as the basis for the translation, adding in the content of the other to fill out details, or add anything Tetzel misses.
_______
Sorry, I see I have not actually SAID the central point - that the Slavs of Bohemia, a dualist group, long associated with the older eastern churches, and also the most preyed upon by Muslim and Christian slavers, including of course the Knights Templar, and Knight Hospitaller whose island bases within the Mediterranean (Crete, Malta) were the greatest slave cities of all, barring perhaps Old Cairo in Egypt, and Timbuctu (if I recall correctly) in North Africa.

The reference in the Nights, and I think one inference from the place where the so-called 'Mamluk" cards were found, suggests that the Slavs of Europe not only knew the ancient astronomical/geographical patterns, but were also the way that use of the pack spread within Muslim Islam of the medieval period. One notes there was also a large community of Slav 'heretics' in Sicily before, and ?during? the period of Norman rule.

I don't think the slavs of Bohemia invented cards, nor the imagery on cards, but I do think they gained the idea earlier than much of Europe, and took that into Bohemia during their regular flights from persecution. This slavic connection could explain why Rozmital's scribes might avoid mentioning paper-using games even if they recognised them, in Bruges.

By the way, the 'divination' passage appears to be an error; if it is in Rozmital, it is not in the Bruges carnival passage.

Well, the topic is playing cards in Bohemia in 1340 and I've trouble to see a connection to the Rozmital journey. However, it might have its interesting aspects.

Early 1452: The emperor visits Siena to meet his bride. A triumphal column is erected at this occasion.
Young King Ladislaus (of Bohemia, of Hungary) is with him.

Trionfi cards in Siena are mentioned (to our eyes) only once in 15th century.
Just in 1452 - this gives reason to conclude, that this mentioned Trionfi deck
was produced for the triumphal occasion, as a present to the bride and as an article to be sold to rich guests.
http://trionfi.com/0/e/07b/
Italian Trionfi-decks, so our assumption, had a 5x14-style

So Ladislaus knew Trionfi decks and the custom, that young rich persons at triumphal occasions get card decks.
Soon after this time Ladislaus was counted as grown-up. A triumphal occasion. It's calculated, that at this opportunity or short time after the Hofämterspiel was produced (ca. 1455). So Ladislaus also got a Trionfi-deck - although not an Italian Trionfi deck, but Bohemian style.

1457: Ladilaus dies, in Bohemia Podiebrand becomes king, Rozmital's brother.
According to a wikipedia-statement, he died from Leukomia, stated by recent research, not by poison of Podiebrand or Emperor Fredrick, as occasionally suspected.

1458: Pope Pius II., new pope and earlier teacher of the young Ladislaus, is said to have been a special foe of Podiebrand (as the Emperor, friend to Pius, was against Podiebrand, this is logical, anyway, but perhaps Pius believed, that Podiebrand poisoned Ladslaus).
Reading a longer biography of Podiebrad, it is my impression, that the diplomatic activities of Podiegrad combined with occasional militaric activities build a complex network, and it's very difficult to say, who was friend to whom, who was a foe and what was the aim at specific times.
1464: Pius II. died.

End of 1465: Rozmital starts his journey. One has to see, that Emperor Fredrick 27 long years didn't visit the upper part of the German kingdom, so Rozmital was a rather unusual "high visit" and the relation Fredrick-Podiebrand was not only friendly.
Curiously: The complex biography, which I read, even didn't give a note of Rozmital. The journey is not mentioned.

From our studies about the Trionfi cards we got the impression, that the 5x14-scheme was changed in the years 1465 - 1468, just during Rozmitals journey. That's a puzzling context, which raises my curiosity.

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I don't think, that an earlier relevant context between the words Slaws and slaves (the Romans took the word for slaves from the Slavs) is of relevance in Rozmital times.
Astronomical Ferrara was inspired by Peurbach (ca. 1448 - 1450) and Regiomontanus in the 60's ... and Regiomontanus went to Hungary then, interestingly, after it, coming back a few years later. With Hungary nearer to Oriental countries than Bohemia.

I don't know of "Slav heretics" in Scily in the Normannic time.

The use of a piece of paper with a name on it doesn't really touch the phenomenon playing cards in 1465. Paper was known in Italy since second half of 13th century and in the Netherlands we've a country with lots of early engravings - these were on paper and the most of them were not playing. And 1465 is very near to the general of letter printing in Europe ... paper was everywhere.

Anyway ... the time in this thread is 1340. There is spoken of playing cards, and there is no note, what the motifs of these playing cards were. Assuming astronomical content is speculation.
The nearest information that we have are the report of Johannes of Rheinfelden (1377) and the coincidence of an Emperor visit just at this time and the observation, that a deck described by Johannes of Rheinfelden has curious similarities to the Hofämterspiel (which shows Hungarian, Bohemian, French and German heraldic; Ladislaus was nominated king of Bohemia and Hungary and son of a German king - and there was an old friendship between Bohemia and France).

I don't see an astronomical context in the Hofämterspiel. Do you see one?
 

DianeOD

Contentious

This may sound like a cop-out.

I'd like to be clear. I find the whole argument about Atouts being invented by the nobility - and especially by the Italian nobility - to be built on a premise which I find self-referential and a-historical.

That premise is that the pack of cards entered Europe as a means for playing games of the modern kind - or at least direct ancestors of the modern-day, secular, value-neutral, gambling kind.

Such an argument, to hold water, *has* to posit a time when the supposedly original pack of 40 cards (and don't mention the Mamluk cards; verbal imagery is equivalent to pictorial imagery) - got some Atouts added to it.

This in turn demands that one *presume* without any reference to the historical context, that - say - the Gringonneur reference is to three packs of that sort.

To make that assumption is certainly nothing but speculation. And since we have numerous images from as early as the eighth, and more easily 'read' figures in plenty from the 12th-14th centuries to show that figures of the atout sort were well known and were being used in medieval churches and some manuscripts, the balance of probability would, in other areas of scholarship, lead to a presumption that Gringonneur's '3 packs' very likely included some such, especially since they still appear.

THat such figures were always found in the educational/moral environment, and are... (tho granted, my papers in support as yet are not many ...) based on the system of astronomical moralia, so it seems more reasonable to me to suppose that whether or not they gained their present form in Italy, the most distinctive and plainly 'paired' images remaining in the Charles VI cards represent the original form of those images in Europe. I absolutely disagree that these were invented for and by the nobility, tho I do accept that they were chiefly used at times of high holiday, or solemnities, and elections.
The connection between "Names" and slips of paper/cards can be glimpsed by considering the correlation which Ibn Arabi recorded between the names of God (names formerly for individual dii gentium) and the asterisms of the lunar mansions. But we also find this hint in the account of the Nestorian Mar Sawwma, during his election to the primacy.

So - since I cannot even agree with the assumptions from which the foundations of the Dummett-de Paulis thesis have been constructed, I think that any exchange between us on such subjects in this forum will be nothing but contentiousness. And while healthy debate is good, contention I believe is unfruitful for the speakers, and uncomfortable for the audience.

From now on, I think perhaps I would do better to limit my contributions to pictures from sources prior to 1377, and perhaps links to other papers.

In peace

Diane