Exploring the Cary Sheet

[kwaw]

Bastir as 'build' and 'compose':

...The reason I ask is that in English from the 1500's the word 'baste' meant Card playing from the Old French term 'bastire' to put together or sew together loosely.

Quote:
“In lines reminiscent of Arnaut Daniel's sonet coind'e leri, Guilhem satirizes the metaphor of the love poet as builder and of poets whose "hearts have wings" yet who carve their words with blunt instruments. Being the "master of the school," Guilhem has no need of the adz and hatchet; in implying that other poets do use these, he compares them not to architects but to clumsy woodcutters who bring rough lumber to the building site:

Cel so qui capol'e dola:
tant soi cuynde e avinen
si que destral ni exola
no·y deman ni ferramen
qu'esters n'a bastidas cen
que maestre de l'escola
so, e am tan finamen
que per pauc lo cor no·m vola.
(Gm Berg 15, 1–8)


I am the one who planes and trims: I am so gracious and pleas-
ing that I do not require an adz or a hatchet, nor other tools,
for I have built a hundred [songs] without them, because I am
the master of the school, and I love in such a refined way that
my heart nearly flies away.

For fuller exposition of the theme see section on Level, Plumb, and True: Songs as Buildings here:

http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft358004pc&chunk.id=d0e10860&toc.id=d0e10267&brand=eschol

Kwaw
Ref: p.174
Van Vleck, Amelia E. Memory and Re-Creation in Troubadour Lyric. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1991 1991. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft358004pc/

 

[venicebard]

For fuller exposition of the theme see section on Level, Plumb, and True: Songs as Buildings here:

http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft358004pc&chunk.id=d0e10860&toc.id=d0e10267&brand=eschol

Kwaw
Ref: p.174
Van Vleck, Amelia E. Memory and Re-Creation in Troubadour Lyric. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1991 1991. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft358004pc/

Thanx, Kwaw: now you've made it so I have even more that I have to read during the little time I have online these days (but perhaps it will serve as further incentive for me to acquire a new computer so that I can expand said time a little).

Very interesting source, Kwaw.

 

[jmd]

Indeed a wonderful resource... and even perhaps more so for non-tarot Freemasonic symbolic reference as well.

I too shall have to find the time to peruse it anon..

 

[DianeOD]

Etymology

I found most interesting Kwaw's reference to the term's relation to simony - which I have copied, not sure from which list...

QUOTING Kwaw: ....John Florio, Queen Anna's New World of Words (1611)
Barattería = bartring or chaffring one thing for another. Also
medling with things forbidden by law, bribing or dealing in hugger
mugger. Also buying or selling that for bribes which should be done
or giuen gratis; among lay men it is properly that which among Church
men is called Symony, indirect dealing, vsed among lawyers. Also
house. Also a cogging or conycatching tricke.
Barrattería = as Barattería.
Traforería = as Barattería.
Trappoleria = entrappingsor cunnicatching trickes, as Barattería...

I don't disagree that the term came to mean people who dealt shonkily, or got people to part with their money on vain hopes, but this link to the rhetor is echoed in various ways in other important links to images, or people etc. which are important to the history of the pack.

Also links nicely to that reference to Sicily, famed for its overblown style in legal rhetoric.

And of course the jongleurs, one of whose most notable genres was the "[legal] Court of Love" composition.

On the straight side of the equation, we have the 'John the Baptist' card, whose chief importance back then, was that the Lamb+Banner symbol was also the official papal seal on the Indulgences which the people one might call 'Barrators' persuaded people to buy.

And then, there's the link to Guinefort and the legal 'club' of the Visconti (or was it the Sforza? Memory's not what it used to be)

And most of the people involved in the 16thC Italian version of those games of verbal composition were neo-Platonists, and many lawyers.

And tho' late, we have the example of the 'orator' who is a 'barrister' in modern English, using images from his scrip to remember his legal points and their embellishment - ref from Hawes, quoted in Carruther's "Book of Memory".

Yes... I'm inclined to go with that as origin, and rest as popular distortions.

Just my 2 cents. And I owe the first ref (to Simony) to Kwaw.
_________
back again to edit...
Whoops - nearly forgot to indicate refs.
On the Sicilian rhetors, my reference was a 2 vol. work on the history of Sicily. Will have to go look that up if wanted. Read it some time ago.

On the quasi-legal form of the 'Court of Love' genre for the Provencal poets... any source on 13thC Provencal poetry should talk about it. May even be something on the web. If all else fails, Crane's "16thC social pastimes and their influence on the literature of Europe" discusses it well in the long introductory Preface/essay.

Lamb+Banner as papal seal for Indulgences. Gee.. I've known that for so long, I can't remember when I first heard it. I guess 'New Advent' (Catholic Encyclopaedia) under - maybe - 'Seals' or 'Indulgences' or 'Agnus dei'

On guinefort and Sforza (or Visconti - but think Sforza) I had that from a book entitled "The Holy Greyhound etc." Guess it won't be anywhere on the web, so I'll post this and come back, otherwise line drops out.

Will also give page ref. for Carruthers citation from Hawes.

 

[DianeOD]

Refs re barratry

From Schmidtt, Jean-Claude, "The Holy Greyhound: Guinefort, healer of children since the thirteenth century', Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate culture 6, CUP 1983 (first published in French as le saint...' by Flammarion, Paris, 1979.

English edition, p. 93 "[by c.1356 Guinefort] had already gained a certain fame as a saint who was capable of keeping the plague at bay. When a new wave of the epidemic occurred in 1374, [Guinefort] acquired the reputation of being a specialist. It was from that date that members of a brotherhood for which we have records from the beginning of the thirteenth century took the name of 'Disciplinati di S. Guniforto...In the fifteenth century, there were yet other factors influencing the growth of the cult, such as the Visconti's generosity, the official adoption by the Faculty of Jurists of St. Guinefort's patronage in 1415, and in 1419, the granting of indulgences to the pilgrims of St. Guinefort by Pope Martin V [.... name common in Pavia..1446 chapel in S. Lorenzo at Milan, beside the gate of Pavia [italics Porta ticinensis.. etc. (p.93)

This bit I found easily, cause book-marked. AS far as I recall, Visconti were responsible for getting this pagan Sirius-saint whose rural lady-ministers are termed vetulae, and who do sortilege, into the canonical religious rota/ calendar of saints. Unfortunately, the index doesn't include entry for Visconti, so will have to re-read entire book if that ref. is wanted.

Same book has lots of interesting ifo. on the Vetula, and their rmethods of sortilege, as recorded in the 13th-15thC. Schmitt of course recognises the Sirius character, here. I don't agree the story started in India, as he does. I belive that I've seen a web-site recently with pictures of the Sirirus-dogheaded saint. Maybe as its other incarnation 'Christophoros'
_____
As for Carruthers' citation of Hawes re: orator and images (whether conceptual or physical) see p.42 of her "The Book of Memory" CUP 1990 edition.

Hope this isn't off-topic - the etymology question being already raised.

 

[kwaw]

Incidentally the word for "wand" in French is "baguette" not "baton" and the sort of wand that escamoteur's used was apparently (if I trust the article I referenced earlier) called a "verge de Jacob" -- the term was later pressed into service to mean "divining rod" for finding water.

It is termed Jacob's Rod in volume 11 of the 1823 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, in the article under 'Legedermaine' describing the cup and balls routine:

http://www.google.co.uk/books?id=T8wnAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA730&dq=rod+jacob's

This is probably the article mentioned in the escamoteur pdf as being based originally upon a description by a Her Kopp.

“Among jugglers, a Jacob’s staff (Fr. baton de Jacob) refers to a conjuring rod…” according to the book here (under Jacob’s Staff):

http://www.google.co.uk/books?id=7R...q=rod+jacob's&sig=XIXencfMfHFypkhypRDxApuv_SM

In relation to a divining rod as I have referenced elsewhere there was a book published in 1693 on divining called 'le verge de Jacob.'

Also incidentally again, the word "verge" is often used to refer to the male member, in case that wasn't already obvious.

http://www.cnrtl.fr/synonymie/pénis

Kwaw

 

[kwaw]

“Every one who is at all acquainted with the literary history of the middle ages, is aware that an important part of the business of the jongleur, or minstrel, was to tell stories, often of a ludicrous, and not unfrequently of a very coarse, description. Our literary historians have fallen into the error of supposing the jongleur to be merely the descendant of the older bard : he was, on the contrary, peculiar to the age which followed the crusades, and was without doubt an importation from the East. His attributes were far more varied than those of the Saxon or German minstrel. He was alternately a story-teller, a musician, a mountebank, and a conjurer…

The cup and balls routine was also taken as a metaphore for rhetoric and the juggling or play of word. Le jongleur fait des cabrioles de phrases, jongle avec ses plus beaux paradoxes the juggler played capers with sentences, juggles with their more beautiful paradoxes.

Kwaw

 

[kwaw]

Barattino (deceiver, trickster, false/cheating gamester, keeper of a barrattiere ~ a gaming house). Or perhaps related to the French baratin?

Il me fait du baratin - He's sweet-talking me

Assez de baratin ! - Cut the chatter!

Related: baratiner - to chat someone up, sweet-talk someone; un baratineur - smooth talker, windbag

Also may be translated as 'flannel' or 'to flannel', as in:

Moby Thesaurus words for "flannel":

ballocks, blarney, bull, bullshit, bushwa, cock, crap, eyewash,
flatter, flattery, hedge, hogwash, humbug, mislead, nonsense,
prevarication, rubbish, shit, soft soap, soft-soap, sweet talk,
sweet-talk, waffle, weasel words

French synonyns of baratin:
http://www.cnrtl.fr/synonymie/baratin

Of which most common is boniment (patter):
Le charlatan est bruyant. Il vend ses recettes et ses drogues sur les places publiques, sur les champs de foire, aux carrefours des rues où s'attroupe la foule. Il appelle, il arrête les chalands. Sa rhétorique spéciale use de tous les moyens pour retenir, amuser, persuader; son boniment échevelé met à sa discrétion le client ébloui, étourdi, fasciné. Toutefois, s'il cherche à amuser pour mieux envelopper, quelques-uns aussi s'amusent à le voir faire et déployer ses artifices.

boniment, nom masculin

Sens 1 Discours tenu en public pour attirer la clientèle. Synonyme discours Anglais patter
Sens 2 Propos trompeurs et habiles [Familier]. Synonyme baratin Anglais tall story

 

[eugim]

X

Hello Le pendu !

With regard to yours quote number 3 on the thread:

As clearly an human face both on the Cary Sheet and on our beloved Jacques Vieville.
As far I know the only that clearly shown an human face with regard to the others (Noblet,Dodal,both Payen,Chosson and Conver for example).

My highly respect as ever,

Eugim

 

[Bernice]

Secret Lurker:

Hello everyone,

Marvellous thread! (My thanks to Eugim for supplying the link).
I've been glued to the pc screen for hours, wonderful detective work going on here. And the business about the monkey; I have stared and stared at the image and I STILL cannot see two little men up there in the monkey & his turban. But finally, after a lot of squinting, I spotted a small cartoon face in the left side of the lower rim of the turban (no beard). It set me off laughing - deep in the midnight hours, wild gales of laughter. It's exhausted me.

And I do think that's a fishtail in the Moon card....

I had previously come to the conclusion that the politics of times & places were reflected in card images - your findings seems to be bearing this out.

Very tired now - must sleep.

Bee