reconsidering a cathar connection

Bernice

foolish:...well, i guess i can live with that - unless, we can make a case out of the possibility that cards were brought back by crusaders returning from the east, where the card game of "naibbe" was believed to have been imported from.
I think that it's very possible that this may have occurred, but I suspect such cards would have been a playing card deck - no trumps.

Bee:)
 

Ross G Caldwell

foolish said:
moving on... i must appologize - i think i may have been caught again in making the mistake of relying on a source (in this case, weiss) without checking into it further. when i read her statement about belibaste, it obviously sounded like a good connection. ... but, as you have pointed out, there still doesn't appear to be solid evidence of any card making shops at the time belibaste was being burnt at the stake. what was weiss thinking?

Professor René Weis is a man. He teaches at University College London, and is considered a leading authority on Shakespeare:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/english/about/staff/rw.htm

For a picture of him, see:
http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/otherresources/interviews/ReneWeis.htm


What Weis was thinking when he wrote "card-maker" is wool cards, as he clearly explains in the footnote to that term on the same page as its first occurrence.

From René Weis, “The Yellow Cross: The Story of the Last Cathars” (Knopf, 2001 (1st American edition)) p. 259:

"“By the time Raymonde was rounding out, she and Guillaume Bélibaste had left Horta for Morella where, in the autumn of 1313, Bélibaste set up shop as a card-maker.*”

*Carding was used to prepare the wool for spinning. It came in from northern Italy and Catalonia in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and gradually superseded the more traditional method of hand-combing the wool fibres because carding, unlike combing, left the short fibres intact. The card itself was a rectangular (not quite A4 size) wire brush with angled teeth on the inside, and the process of carding consisted of placing the wool on one card and then drawing the second card against it until the wool was fully transferred from the fixed card to the active one."
 

Bernice

Well, now that René Weis has hit the dust, I wonder if there were any secret cathar sympathisers who were involoved in producing card decks......? More to the point, how could this be discovered?


Bee :)
 

Ross G Caldwell

Bernice said:
Well, now that René Weis has hit the dust, I wonder if there were any secret cathar sympathisers who were involoved in producing card decks......? More to the point, how could this be discovered?


Bee :)

Well, by the time the game of Tarot first appears, northern Italy had seen - Italian, French, Spanish, German, Flemish, English, Polish, Hungarian, Russian, Greek, Turkish, Tunisian, Egyptian, Syrian, Ethiopian, Arabian, Persian, Indian, and Chinese visitors, at least.

So obviously Tarot could have come from any of those places, and could represent the traditions of any of those peoples.

Since absolutely nothing is known about the origin of Tarot, we can only say that it was somewhere on the Eurasian or African continents, and sometime in the distant past (not to dismiss the possibility of trans-Atlantic contact before it is recorded, but that would too speculative, since there doesn't seem to be any Mayan or Aztec influence in Tarot).
 

Bernice

Ross G Caldwell said:
Well, by the time the game of Tarot first appears, northern Italy had seen - Italian, French, Spanish, German, Flemish, English, Polish, Hungarian, Russian, Greek, Turkish, Tunisian, Egyptian, Syrian, Ethiopian, Arabian, Persian, Indian, and Chinese visitors, at least.

So obviously Tarot could have come from any of those places, and could represent the traditions of any of those peoples.

Since absolutely nothing is known about the origin of Tarot, we can only say that it was somewhere on the Eurasian or African continents, and sometime in the distant past (not to dismiss the possibility of trans-Atlantic contact before it is recorded, but that would too speculative, since there doesn't seem to be any Mayan or Aztec influence in Tarot).
Right, cheers Ross. So the only avenue left would seem to be the actual card images themselves. But I have no idea what Cathars looked like, how they dressed, their implements or symbols, or even particular attitudes they may have had.

Is there something in the images that are clearly Carthar?
foolish, which deck(s) should we be looking at?


Bee :)
 

Huck

foolish said:
i've got to admit, huck, you're losing me on the first part of your message regarding history and experience. maybe it's a language issue. in any event, i don't see the point of labeling the cathars as the bad guys and the church as the good guys simply because that was the way people engaged in war. the result of such an atrocity would have left increadible scars - enough to burn your hand and make you never forget.

The church and their individual actors had an interest to make their opponents, often called heretics, look bad and themselves good ... as other poltical interests have the same desire. That's why you can't trust even "documents" ... Essentially you have to think for yourself in historic matters. The church made a a lot of the documents, on which we have to rely often ... though we're advised to be always skeptical.
The historian is generally advised to attempt to have neutral positions ... :) which definitely is not always possible or at least difficult.

moving on... i must appologize - i think i may have been caught again in making the mistake of relying on a source (in this case, weiss) without checking into it further. when i read her statement about belibaste, it obviously sounded like a good connection. i understand that most people date the begining of cards in europe at around 1370. in 1377, an ordinance in paris forbade card games on workdays. this would mean that cards would have to have been around at least a little bit before that. well, i guess i can live with that - unless, we can make a case out of the possibility that cards were brought back by crusaders returning from the east, where the card game of "naibbe" was believed to have been imported from. this could put the presence of cards in europe at an earlier date, but, as you have pointed out, there still doesn't appear to be solid evidence of any card making shops at the time belibaste was being burnt at the stake. what was weiss thinking?

hi Robert,

Thanks, that you brought the Belibaste passage of Weiss to our attention. Even, if it's a forgery, or if it is a humble error (carding comb ... Ross' explanation looks well-founded), we actually love to know such things.

We naturally have to react with skepticism and great care ... from the given situation of playing card history.

Generally at Trionfi.com we promote a theory, according which there were earlier ... somehow before 1350 and the great plague ... some isolated regional playing card use and possibly also some production in Europe.
We've found ourselves 3-4 older sources, which, as far we know, were not considered in the earlier summaries, which had led to the general assumption, that playing card didn't exist in Europe before 1370. A lot of existing material, which pointed to earlier dates, were then declared as "insecure", forged, interpolated etc. Kaplan has a long list "Interpolations and Translation Erors" and additionally "Omissions" (Kaplan I, 31-34).

We found 3-4 older sources (also "insecure" in our own estimation, but "insecure" means not "definitely wrong") say, that in 1303 three card players were killed by a lightning in Brieg (near Breslau), that Werner of Orseln, leader of the German knight order (central place: Marienburg), had a statute, that knights shouldn't play cards before 1330, that playing cards were in use in Polish nobility before 1340, that the later emperor Charles IV in 1340 allowed playing cards, that card playing was considered a game of skill by law in Bohemia and not forbidden , and that a card producer Jonathan Kraysel from Nurremberg worked 1354 in Prague.

The major find was a book about early Bohemian trade by a German researcher F. L. Hübsch in 1849, who en passant also talks about playing cards. We reported it here ...
http://trionfi.com/0/p/95/
Well, he gives no references or only few, but he's not very interested in the topic and he had no reason to lie ... he wasn't fixed on this theme. And he must have seen at least 3-4 different documents, which he summarized to his short statements. He might have 1 or 2, but an argument, that he wrong in each case, looks weak.

Actually we believe, that playing cards were produced in Bohemia still after the Great Plague (Bohemia is one of few places in Europe, which stayed more or less not attacked by plague around 1350). We think, that in other regions of Europe possibly also isolated imports or small beginnings of playing card industry had been, but that they lost the trace by the radical changes through the peste. Generally culture should have dropped to another, lower, level, and a lot of things had to find new reorganization after the impact ... and some other things disappeared also then, possibly also some forerunners of paper mills ... another disputed point, see:

We think, that the greater wave of (since now generally) accepted playing card notes since 1377 was triggered by the condition, that Emperor Charles IV with great entourage went to Aachen to have his son Wenzel (14 years old) crowned as a King of the Roman Empire in 1376, the journey possibly being accompanied by Bohemian playing card dealers.

As a basic condition for this "Bohemian origin theory" we assume, that there were not only the playing card import way China - Mongols (or Persia, or India, whatever) - Mamluks - Spain, as common playing card history assumes, but also the way China - Mongols (Goldene Horde) - trading way Krim - Kiew - Breslau - Prague or trading way Krim - Kiew - Nowgorod - Baltic Sea - Hanse of relevance.
These trading ways decreased during 14th century, as the trade lines via Venice and Genova grew in importance.

German playing card distribution didn't depend on the Latin suits, which probably had been the style of the Mamluks production.

Generally there's the note of Meister Ingold of 1432, that playing cards reached Germany in the year 1300 ... not accepted in playing card history, as it's not a contemporary report. But Ingold had read this in an old book and hadn't reason to lie about it.

The playing card note from Brieg in 1303 (not naturally a solid remark) seems to confirm this. Brieg is located at the trading way Breslau-Kiew. Nobility of Brieg had close contact to the Court of Prague, and this might have been the "Polish nobility", about which F. L. Hübsch stated, that they already played with playing cards before 1340.

300px-Boleslaus_von_Liegnitz.png


This might have been the young boy (later grown-up, as the picture demonstrates), who brought playing cards to Prague for the first time ... just in 1303.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolesław_III_the_Generous

... more to him and Werner von Orseln at the other Forum.

So - actually - we have personally nothing against Belibaste as a playing card producer in 1313. ... .-) ...
It's a pity, that there was only a carding comb producer, well, and it's a general pity, that a lot of things around the Cathars have the call to depend occasionally on forgery.

25 years ago, I met a young history student, and he told me from the Cathars, and that there were people claiming to sit on documents, which they didn't publish and this all would complicate the matter. Possibly this has changed meanwhile, but generally there was the situation, that one couldn't trust anything. Also there's the argument, that catharism is a tourism factor ... :)

Well, and the "carding combe" looks suggestive.

We worked earlier on this one ... a note about 1337 in Marseille ...
http://trionfi.com/0/p/93/
... another insecure document.
 

Ross G Caldwell

Huck said:
Thanks, that you brought the Belibaste passage of Weiss to our attention. Even, if it's a forgery, or if it is a humble error (carding comb ... Ross' explanation looks well-founded), we actually love to know such things.

The explanation is not merely "well-founded", it's just an incontrovertible fact that this is what Weis (one "s") meant.

belibastecardmaker.jpg


(search term at Amazon was "card")

Could playing cards have come into eastern Europe before 1370? Sure, it's not impossible.

But if they did, it looks like they had the same ultimate origin as the Mamluk type - a four-suited Chinese "money" pack.

To me there are too many coincidences to accept that German cards have a different ancestry than all other European cards though. Germans must have enlarged the cards - just like everybody else. Germans must have added three court cards to the Chinese-Mongol pack - just like everybody else.

I think the theory of common ancestry, via the Latin-suited packs, descending from the Mamluk suits, themselves either a re-creation of a Mongol design or a descendant through a few generations, is the best solution. Therefore, Ingold's date of "1300" is an error, and the other apparently earlier references (earlier than 1367) are indeed interpolations or misunderstandings.
 

Huck

Ross G Caldwell said:
Could playing cards have come into eastern Europe before 1370? Sure, it's not impossible.

But if they did, it looks like they had the same ultimate origin as the Mamluk type - a four-suited Chinese "money" pack.

hm ... you would think, that in all these long years before, when China knew about playing cards, and the rest of the world didn't, they'd developed only one single type of deck? And then, the transformation to 4 suits including 3 court cards plus 1-10 number cards developed at the Mamluks?
I would assume, that there was some more creativity and difference between the productions.
China is a very big region and before the Mongol period it was even parted in 3 different political regions. We don't know, which sort of decks meanwhile have disappeared ... similar we have lost deck forms in European productions.
Also we don't know, what the Mongols themselves changed during their travels. In matters of chess they had considerable own creativity. They did need only 60-70 years to take Islam in Persia. They did place themselves in India. They advanced to emperors in China in short time. They had definitely qualities to adapt foreign cultures very quickly.
Also there are possibly third factors, the traders for instance, which knew, which taste would have been best sold at which location.
There had been Jews and their abilities to organize trade between different regions. If the breakdown of some European playing card production around 1350 would be true, then one has to observe, that in these cruel years Jews were persecuted and disappeared.
They didn't disappear in Prague or Bohemia.

To me there are too many coincidences to accept that German cards have a different ancestry than all other European cards though. Germans must have enlarged the cards - just like everybody else. Germans must have added three court cards to the Chinese-Mongol pack - just like everybody else.

Well, it's a matter, who came first. The way via the Northern trade is easier to realize, than the way via Mamluks-Spain.
We definitely have the result, that the Latin suit became a stable result in Spain and Italy, but not in other countries. We also have the naib expression not everywhere.
The situation is so, that one cannot answer all questions. Still it's a possibility, that the not well documented Mamluk decks simply descended from European production, perhaps not very probable.

I think the theory of common ancestry, via the Latin-suited packs, descending from the Mamluk suits, themselves either a re-creation of a Mongol design or a descendant through a few generations, is the best solution. Therefore, Ingold's date of "1300" is an error, and the other apparently earlier references (earlier than 1367) are indeed interpolations or misunderstandings.

... :) ... well, I interprete your resolute "Ingold's date of 1300 is an error" as your opinion, not a final statement. We're not in the position of final statements in this matter. I would assume, if time proceeds in these lucky times of internet, that with some security further insecure documents will appear, which will talk about playing cards before 1370.
 

Bernice

Is foolish also considering a Cathar connection with the playing cards?

I thought he was speaking of the Trumps, and I hoped a response to Marys' post (7) might clarify if there was Cathar influence in the trump cards.


Bee :)
 

foolish

ok, so now it appears that i have the weiss "card making" quote figured out. too bad i have to give up what first appeared to be an interesting connection between a well known cathar perfect and the card business. (i'll have to delete that sentence from the book). all this discussion about when playing cards were first used in europe is very interesting (including the notion that cards from china could have been brought over). however, it is not essential to the theory of the cathar connection. although it would be convenient to be able to place the development of the tarot at the exact time of the albignesian crusade or soon thereafter, the more likely scenario was that it was the cathar refugees who fled to italy in the fourteenth century and were taken in by like-minded communities there who actually thought of incorporating their ideals and the events of their past into the trumps. it is not a coincidence that the courts of visconti and ferrara, where these cards may have originated, also had issues with the pope.

so, to ask why these people would have bothered to create this secret system of information in a deck of seemingly harmless cards, we should possibly look at motive. one of the explantions is that the significance of the events which almost eliminated an entire group of people and caused many to fee to other areas of the continent could not be overlooked (ragardless of the previous explanation provided by huck as to the typical nature of warfare at the time). people were still emotionally connected to their heritage. however, any attempt at preserving such heretical information would have to be disguised. the use of common, traditionally catholic imagery, could be the very thing which would throw the church off track.

so, why couldn' we just say that those images should be seen on their lowest denominator - as simply catholic images, the way they appeared elsewhere? my answer it that the fact that there appears to have been the addition of a few images which don't fit that mold (such as the popess, the animals on the wheel of fortune, and the hanged man) suggest that there were other intentions to the cards. this, of course, assumes that we admit that every part of the imagery of the trumps was explicit and purposeful, and therefore should be able to be explained within the context of whatever source is being presented.

this brings up bernice's question:
"So the only avenue left would seem to be the actual card images themselves. But I have no idea what Cathars looked like, how they dressed, their implements or symbols, or even particular attitudes they may have had.

Is there something in the images that are clearly Carthar?
foolish, which deck(s) should we be looking at?"

most of my interpretation comes from the conver tdm. in that deck, i can see the clearest vision of cathar imagery. their symbols, beliefs, lifestyle, etc. are breifly examined in the first part of my book, along with an introduction to other significant people such as count raymond VI of toulouse and his son raymond VII, pope innocent III, simon montfort, and some of the cathars who played an important role at the time. much of the first part of the tarot is dedicated to how these people fit in to the story, while the latter section of the cards focuses on the cathar spiritual messages. (this is most likely why so many people have split the tarot into two or three sections, with the first being about the earthly sphere and the later cards being about man's spiritual quest).

although i can't reproduce the entire set of images with their respective interpretations here, i can give you an example of some of the ones which stand out as examples:
1) the use of the dog in the Fool could very easily symbolize the church or the dominican inquisitors who were in persuit of the wandering cathar perfects who often had to use disguises to evade detection. the dog was a common symbol of the church at the time (see the painting, St. Dominic Sending Forth the Hounds of the Lord, with St. Peter Martyr and
St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1369) by Andrea di Bonauito, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy), or the statement by st. dominic's own mother that she had a dream in which see envisioned her son "barking at heresy like a dog".
2) the animals which appear on the wheel of fortune on the conver deck replace the previous imagery of the wheel with human characters. is this just the imagination of the new artist, or is it a coincidence that the cathars believed in transmigration, in which the soul is united with god or resurrected in the form of an animal, depending on how one has lived his or her life?

in addition, i would ask those who view the tarot images as a source of orthodox christianity to explain the Popess or the Hanged Man in those terms. as of yet, i have not heard a reasonable explanation. if i keep going, you wouldn't have to buy the book! (ha, ha)

seriously, though, i would be happy to discuss other images. let's not forget that the changes we see in the images from the earlier italian decks to the conver deck also give us clues. we must ask ourselves why this was done.