History of Ideas - the Hanged Man

[Rosanne]

Thank you Debra- I love the window into the past that Tarot gives me- for game playing was everyman's pastime in those days- and so it seems was scrapbooking. Well it would be if you think about it- printing was not swamping the market- but up and running. These notebooks were handed on to your children- much like talking sticks are here- and were also apparently passed amongst friends to be added to (and sometimes corrected). Another thing that is interesting to History ideas- is that when printed material became readily available- you could get printed pictures for your notebook- which makes me wonder about things like the Cary-Yale sheet- maybe they were not for cards at all- but for the scrapbooks. The few examples of pages from these show someone's pilgrimage and the look on the face of the figure arriving at the church is like all travelers- worn out. One mapamundi was copied so much that it lost all recognition as a map by some who could not draw for peanuts- oh and they called these little treasures quadernucchi which I guess means what we call a sketchbook today-sort of notebook in a nutshell lol.
I am going to try and see some at the Uffizi when I get there.

[John Meador]

Originally Posted by Ross G Caldwell

In my admittedly flimsy library of modern interpretations of the cards, the earliest direct association of the Hanged Man with Odin is in Edred Thorsson (Stephen Flowers) "Futhark: A Handbook of Rune Magic" (Weiser, 1984), p. 147, in his Appendix D table of Runic-Tarot correspondences (Rune 13, eihwaz).

He doesn't elaborate in his text, but I think the association must be older than that.
Ross

One of Stephen Flower's resources is Sigurd Agrell:
Die pergamenische Zauberscheibe und das Tarochspiel. Lund: The University of Lund, (Sweden), 1936. Reportedly, Agrell draws upon the works of the earlier Swede, Johannes Bureus.
“Bureus equates Odin on the Yggdrasil with Jesus on the Cross”.
Bureus was an associate and correspondant of Abraham von Franckenberg, adapting the ideas of Postel and John Dee, he created a runic cross said to resemble an inverted monas hieroglyphica.
Whether or not this has any bearing on Agrell's understanding of Tarot's Hanged Man I have not discovered. It seems (from Google booking) Agrell associated the Hanged Man with the rune perthro and the goddess Hecate. Anyone know more about Agrell's thoughts on the subject?

-John

added curiosity:
Scandinavian Runes in a Latin Magical Treatise
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0038-7134(198304)58%3A2%3C419%3ASRIALM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W

[Teheuti]

Originally Posted by John Meador

One of Stephen Flower's resources is Sigurd Agrell:
Die pergamenische Zauberscheibe und das Tarochspiel. Lund: The University of Lund, (Sweden), 1936. . . . Anyone know more about Agrell's thoughts on the subject?

Wow - thank you, John, for this reference. Luckily Flower's gives a three page summary of Agrell's theories in _Hermetic Magic: The Postmodern Magical Papyrus of Abaris_, pp. 122-124. You can find the text on google book search by searching on Agrell+Tarot.

[John Meador]

Hi Mary,
"Scandinavian Runes in a Latin Magical Treatise " Speculum 58 (1983), pp. 419-429. says this is a Italian Ms of s. xiv "containing a Latin Version of an Arabic hermetic treatise. The a. has succeeded in restoring the proper order of the folios int he ms. Inserted into the treatise is a digression which provides instructions for casting spells using runes. The a. edits this passage and his collaborator discusses the runes. The Italian responsible for Sloane 3854 shows a remarkable knowledge of Scandinavian runes and their names." (J.C. Scriptorium 40 (1986) B 451.)
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache...lnk&cd=3&gl=us

"This particular manuscript also uses Scandinavian runes as a cryptic alphabet to write the names of the planets"
http://books.google.com/books?id=Gzi...yo3DLuppsitg84

your'e welcome.

here's some links to Agrell:

http://books.google.com/books?id=aiv...ksyJdJFU-HZOS8
http://books.google.com/books?id=aiv...eoiik#PPA60,M1
http://books.google.com/books?id=rvG...u9wkA#PPA74,M1
"Agrell, however, goes further and also the associated symbols on the Pergamon disc, Egyptian hieroglyphs, etc. each with a Tarot card or a rune"
http://translate.google.com/translat...%3Den%26sa%3DN


I still can't find Agrell's concept of the Hanged Man somewhere online.

-John

[prudence]

Originally Posted by Rosanne

Thank you Debra- I love the window into the past that Tarot gives me- for game playing was everyman's pastime in those days- and so it seems was scrapbooking. Well it would be if you think about it- printing was not swamping the market- but up and running. These notebooks were handed on to your children- much like talking sticks are here- and were also apparently passed amongst friends to be added to (and sometimes corrected). Another thing that is interesting to History ideas- is that when printed material became readily available- you could get printed pictures for your notebook- which makes me wonder about things like the Cary-Yale sheet- maybe they were not for cards at all- but for the scrapbooks. The few examples of pages from these show someone's pilgrimage and the look on the face of the figure arriving at the church is like all travelers- worn out. One mapamundi was copied so much that it lost all recognition as a map by some who could not draw for peanuts- oh and they called these little treasures quadernucchi which I guess means what we call a sketchbook today-sort of notebook in a nutshell lol.
I am going to try and see some at the Uffizi when I get there.

Your enthusiasm is making me want to create a scrapbook of my own, maybe a notebook based on all of the Marseille-sih decks I have collected, and all that I have learned from them....or about them so far (which is not a ton of info, but it is steadily growing)

I also agree with Debra, whole heartedly.

[Rosanne]

Oh Prudence I am sure your descendants will love something so personal. I have a large one that I did years ago when I only had 5 decks to my name, and I embellished it with drawings and quotes and insights. I had the five decks xeroxed and cut them up and pasted them in. My Kids love to look through it- even though they are adults now.
I keep repeating like a mantra 'history is not boring'- how often do you sit with friends and say "Do you remember when......." It just has to become vernacular, and then it comes alive. That is why it was so popular and still is- the creativity (no TV!) and the nostalgia for things past. It is why we have photo albums today. The scrapbooks were like one Givanni Rucellai said was like a salad or zibaldoni ' a salad of many herbs' they were personal selections from the common cultural array of many things. Who would not like to read them? I would love to have a look. ~Rosanne

[Ross G Caldwell]

Here is how the anonymous Italian author of a discourse on the meaning of the trump sequence interpreted the Traitor (in the company of the Hunchback/Time, Death, and the Devil) around 1570.

"Then after these follow the Hunchback, the Traitor, Death, and the Devil. By the hunchback, who is none other than time, it is shown that all these are vain and transitory, thus it is the sum of folly to love them and desire them so intensely that nothing else is considered, since in a short time old age is reached, with all of the miseries accompanying it, and then one begins to know the deceptions of the assassin world, placed before the eyes by the traitor, but having acted on the hardest neck (most stubbornly?), and living sadly, and with difficulty, not being able to hold back at all from nefarious errors, comes upon unforeseen death, in the horror of which, terrified and desperate, he brings upon himself the devil, that is to say the cause of everything (that happened). And this is the miserable end I say, of those who are so immersed in vain and lascivious delights which the world promises, and can give, following madness for a guide, and having no regard to his end, or of God, from whom only are born and depend the greatest goods, and perfect and everlasting happiness."

I am far from sure of parts of this translation, but the general meaning must be clear. Below is the text I have and my transcription. Anybody (especially you Italians) who wants to tackle it, please correct me -

Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria, ms. 1072, vol. XII F, folio 111r


Or doppo questi segue il Gobbo,
il Traditore, la morte, et
il diavolo. Per il gobbo, che
altro non è, che il tempo, ci
si dimostra, che tutte
queste sono vane, e tran-
sitorie, e percio somma
pazzia è adamarle, e de-
siderarle, tanto intensa-
mente, che ad altro n-
pensi, poiche in poco d(i ?)
ora si giunge la (vecczia ?)

folio 111v


ia da tutte le mise-
rie accompagnata, et
allora si cominciano à
conoscere l'inganni dell-
assassino mondo, postici
avanti gli occhi per il tradi
tore, mà avendoci fatto
sopra durissimo collo, et
abito tristo, è malagevo-
le à potersene ritirare,
senza punto allontanar-
si da gli (nefasti ?) errori, so-
praviene all’improvi-
so la morte, nell’orrore
della quale sbigottia
e disperati, il diavolo,
che di tutto (cioè ?) stato
cagione, se lo portavia.
E questo è il miserabil
Fine delle azioni uma

folio 112r


ne, di coloro dico, che im-
mersito talmente, nellè
vane, e lascive delizie
che promette, e può dare
il mondo, seguendo per gui-
da la pazzia non han-
no mai risguardo al suo
fine, et à Dio, da cui solo
nasce, e dipende il sommo
bene, e felicità perfet-
ta, e permanent(o).

Ross

[Teheuti]

Ross - you've done it again! What a wonderful offering. It does show the tendency again to view the card sequence in the most obvious, literal way. It also shows that some variation on the word desperation (disperati) is almost always mentioned with the Hanged Man. Dante and other Catholic writers made much of Despair as opposing Hope - leading, at worst, to suicide (a moral sin with no possibility of penance), and guaranteeing Hell instead of Purgatory - the worst result of Death.

In the Marseilles ordering Death is followed by Temperance and the Devil, which are like an after-death fork in the road. One road leads to possibly salvation - Purgatory and/or Heaven (Purgatory is only a temporary stop on the path to Heaven), and the other leads straight to the Devil with no hope to ever escape.

Mary

[le pendu]

Originally Posted by Teheuti

In the Marseilles ordering Death is followed by Temperance and the Devil, which are like an after-death fork in the road. One road leads to possibly salvation - Purgatory and/or Heaven (Purgatory is only a temporary stop on the path to Heaven), and the other leads straight to the Devil with no hope to ever escape.

Ya know... that bothers me. I guess I'm not a huge fan of the TdM ordering, it just feels strange to me. I like the virtues grouped together, not split up like this. To me, the flow would be much smoother if it did go Wheel (or Hermit), Hanged Man, Death, Devil, Tower. The virtues seem unnatural in the TdM order, (well, to lil' ole me at least).

[Ross G Caldwell]

Hi Mary,

Originally Posted by Teheuti

It also shows that some variation on the word desperation (disperati) is almost always mentioned with the Hanged Man. Dante and other Catholic writers made much of Despair as opposing Hope - leading, at worst, to suicide (a moral sin with no possibility of penance), and guaranteeing Hell instead of Purgatory - the worst result of Death.

Yes, it seems that to the early moralizers "Treason=Desperation". Here the Anonymous knows that the card is a Traitor, so he must be hung by one foot like normal, but still, like Piscina, considers the meaning desperation. Suicide is a difficult literal interpretation of the Anonymous, and certainly of the image, but the theme of desperation bridges the gap for these moralities.

I don't know the layout of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua where Giotto's frescoes showing "Hope" and "Desperation" are (the latter showing a suicide by hanging), but it might show such a direct connection. Especially in light of Robert's remarks on another thread about Cicognara's claim that "Judas Traditor" was on the noosed figure below Hope in the Cary-Yale deck.

In the Marseilles ordering Death is followed by Temperance and the Devil, which are like an after-death fork in the road. One road leads to possibly salvation - Purgatory and/or Heaven (Purgatory is only a temporary stop on the path to Heaven), and the other leads straight to the Devil with no hope to ever escape.

Mary

I had theory about "forks in the road" here too - that the plan of the trumps was a two dimensional scheme hammered into a one dimensional hierarchy. The Devil and the Tower are one fork, and the rest are the other. In one dimension, you have to have a simple ladder from low to high.

I'm with Robert in general, in seeing the A sequence as the preferred for interpreting the "original" meaning of the trump sequence. But the changes, from any perspective, show that people looked at the standard images in different ways.

Ross