foolish said:
i hope you are not saying that they deserved this as retribution for the murder of the pope's legate.
i would question what the pope and the king of france's real motives were in this situation (land grabbing?). and i would question who the real "bad guys" were.
This strategy "kill all and everything" at begin of a war had been the way, in which French troops often appeared, also in 15th century. The aim had been to force a quick resignation ... as it happened also in 1494, when Italian cities allowed the French march towards Naples. ... and Renee d'Anjou attempted the same fighting strategy way in 1453, when cooperating with Sforza.
All this happened more than once. And the position of the church in this time was mostly clear: "We're the good and the others are bad." And crusaders were attracted for their bloody business with the promise, that they would reach forgiveness for their sins.
Generally we've to see two factors. One is, that we had an overpopulation during the 11th century in Europe. Such phases create aggression and expansion. The aggression was directed towards crusades and on "religious aims" - which naturally all were only expansions. The necessary brutality for this enterprise became a socially accepted element in society in 12th century. For instance by the songs of the troubadours, King Arthur legends and others, all this romantic stuff, which is part of our culture.
As far the brutality of 12th and 13th century is concerned, we have much worse examples in 20th century, also following the same phenomenon: overpopulation. We'd also for the relevant time (WWI and WWII) the same preparation of war by glamorization through literature, heroes etc.
In Western cultures we've momentary after WWII no overpopulation tendencies, though, as everybody knows, we've them elsewhere, and there are enough wars to observe in daily TV.
We've also this general phenomenon "brutality" in media culture, look in your TV or play a video game, and you know, what I'm talking about.
Yes, of course, in the critical time the French king domain wished to expand, and the church was interested to keep its powerful central position ... too much independence in questions of believe was not welcome. The church (which always in the background were actually some individuals interested to keep their momentary power and income) always were interested to keep its position,as long as they could, they didn't behave different as other political parties at their time, and they did this, as long they could. And they still do, as far it is possible for them ... but the reformation had been a major break, and their attempts to turn the wheel back in 17th century, which caused in Germany a 30-years-war with a population loss of of 1/3 and some even suggest higher numbers, this failed.
In history such operations count a little more than 7.000 - 20.000 dead persons in Beziers and the destruction of one city ... long ago. Surely this 7.000-20.000 counted also much more than the one killed monk, but I demonstrated that as a methodical fighting strategy of the church, to offer a a weak monk as an agent provocateure to deliver a reason to attack with enough manpower, which was used once in the case of the Abigensan wars and a second time 1452 in the case of Peter of Milan-Verona.
... .-) ... similar systematic overreactions are naturally also used by other dubious political regimes. The Nazis for instance used the burning of the Reichstag for an attack on the communists and also as the reason to close the young democratic structures in Germany.
17th century is the time of the Marseille Tarot. It seems to have started in Paris and all what we know, the French king or his relevant minister had no problem with it. Indeed, around this time Marseille was not under control, France having a major political conflict, which went longer than 10 years
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fronde
Marseille was taken around 1660 ...
Here is an interesting fort in Marseilles, which was build ca. 1660.
Wikipedia said:
Fort Saint-Jean is a fortification in Marseille, built in 1660 by Louis XIV at the entrance to the Old Port. Fort Saint-Nicolas was constructed at the same time on the opposite side of the harbour. Commenting on their construction, Louis XIV said, "We noticed that the inhabitants of Marseille were extremely fond of nice fortresses. We wanted to have our own at the entrance to this great port." In fact, the two new forts were built in response to a local uprising against the governor, rather than for the defence of the city: their cannons pointed inwards towards the town, not outwards towards the sea.
.... and the situation settled, the king Louis XVI finally became rather successful. He was rather fond of playing cards and gambling.
The first Tarot de Marseille (in the sense, that it really was "from Marseille") is recorded for 1672, at least according Camoin who spend a lot of energy on it:
http://en.camoin.com/tarot/-Tarot-Nicolas-Conver-en-.html
The Tarot of Nicolas Conver engraved in 1760 was considered for a long time to be the oldest Tarot de Marseille made in Marseilles. But in 2001 I demonstrated that there was another deck, the Tarot de Marseille deck manufactured by François Chosson, which was older and which went back to 1672, nearly one century before Conver. The deck of Chosson was preserved in a Swiss museum, in Soleure, and nobody knew its origin. It is thanks to the documents of my grandparents that I was able to verify that François Chosson formed part of a dynasty of Master cardmakers of Marseilles.
Camoin notes something about "1608" in his text, which is explained in a thread in another forum.
Then we have following:
http://www.wopc.co.uk/france/index.html
As early as 1613, Louis XIII decreed that cardmakers should place their name on the knave of clubs. In 1701 a further law was passed in France laying down fixed designs for the playing cards from each of the nine regions, so that stereotyped playing cards from each region were produced which could be identified by the authorities. This tended to result in lower quality cards, with the standard falling all the time, as revenues became the most important criterion.
So it seems, that with the law of 1701, still under the reign of Louis XIV, it was made possible, that ALSO a sort of stereotyped Tarot de Marseilles developed in France.
That would have surely not happened, if Louis had a specific hate on this deck.
But Louis had something against the Huguenots.
Huguenots were in 17th century mainly distributed in the region, where also the Cathars had been. If one assumes a hidden historical prolongation of the disappeared 13th century Cathars, then it would be logical to see them in the Huguenots.
200.000 of them left the country, forced by a king, who apparently had a lot of sense for cards and surely no bias against the Tarot de Marseille.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguenot
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wggerman/map/huguenotwar.htm
This is taken from the 16th century Huguenot wars, but the distribution likely was somehow similar in late 17th.
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An interesting detail ... the deciding man in France from 1643-1661 had been cardinal Mazarin, minister of the state, who had been grown up in Italy (so definitely knew Italian playing cards) and who reportedly had a strong favor for card playing and gambling (like Louis XIV). Already Louis XIII. was known for card playing.
The first known deck with stronger similarities to the Marseille-Typus is estimated for 1650 in Paris ... that's Mazarin's time and it is his location.
