huguenots and tarot?

[firefli]

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[Sophie]

what decks did The Templars use?

None. Tarot was born after the Templars were disbanded in the early 14th Century. The Templars might have known playing cards, but that's uncertain. What is certain, however, is that the surviving craftsmen/imagers who followed Maître Jacques, the head of the Templars who was executed, continued to work and to pass on traditions within their corporations - and some of these traditions might have been Templar-inspired. Some of these craftsmen, at a later date, are said to have become cardmakers.

The Templars have nothing to do with the Huguenots, which is simply the term for French Protestants in the 17th-18th Centuries.

Huguenots did have something to do with cardmaking - including tarot cards - as they did with most crafts. Many of them also belonged to one of the two rival corporations of journeymen that operated in France until the French Revolution - one, a Catholic one, said to go back to Maître Jacques and the Templars (and beyond him!), and another, a Protestant (Huguenot) one said to go back to King Solomon (these filiations are legendary but meant a lot to corporation members). Cardmakers could be journeymen in those corporations.

They'd have made tarot cards in the Tarot of Marseille (TdMI or II) pattern, mostly. Huguenots came to Switzerland or to what is now part of Switzerland (e.g. mz home town of Geneva, then an independant city state) and among them were cardmakers, who continued to make cards in their new home. But Catholic cardmakers also came to Switzerland - settling in Catholic towns: the most famous example being Burdel in Fribourg.

 

[firefli]

Fascinating post thank you so much Heleva!!

 

[Ross G Caldwell]

Huguenots did have something to do with cardmaking - including tarot cards - as they did with most crafts.

Can you give me more information on the cardmaking and tarot card parts? I have my doubts, only because of the Calvinist origin of the French protestants, and Calvinism was at its origin extremely puritanical, forbidding idle and potentially diabolical things like cards and dancing.

It could be that there are exceptions, which would be interesting to know.

And of course, centuries later, descendants of early Huguenot families would not necessarily hold to the same strict beliefs. A man such as Antoine Court de Gébelin is an example.

 

[Sophie]

Can you give me more information on the cardmaking and tarot card parts? I have my doubts, only because of the Calvinist origin of the French protestants, and Calvinism was at its origin extremely puritanical, forbidding idle and potentially diabolical things like cards and dancing.

It could be that there are exceptions, which would be interesting to know.

And of course, centuries later, descendants of early Huguenot families would not necessarily hold to the same strict beliefs. A man such as Antoine Court de Gébelin is an example.

Let me get home and check my Schweizerische Spielkarten. Off-the-top-of-my-head I can remember a Rochas family in Geneva who were cardmakers. Rochas is a Huguenot name (and in any case, being in Geneva, would have been Protestants back then).

As you say, the strict Calvinism of the 16th Century had softened - and when it came to trades and crafts, business seemed to be more important! Just because they forbade gambling does not mean they did not make cards - in the same way that you find some very nice wines in Muslim North Africa (and some ardent wine-drinkers!)

 

[Ross G Caldwell]

Let me get home and check my Schweizerische Spielkarten. Off-the-top-of-my-head I can remember a Rochas family in Geneva who were cardmakers. Rochas is a Huguenot name (and in any case, being in Geneva, would have been Protestants back then).

You don't have to go home! I have SSII here - if it is SSII and not SSI you are thinking of. I didn't know Rochas was a Huguenot name.

As you say, the strict Calvinism of the 16th Century had softened - and when it came to trades and crafts, business seemed to be more important! Just because they forbade gambling does not mean they did not make cards - in the same way that you find some very nice wines in Muslim North Africa (and some ardent wine-drinkers!)

Yes, the puritanism of the first generation has a way of evaporating, although traces remain. My family's ancestral religion (one side anyway) is Methodist, which also had some strict rules about leisure, and even after 200 years that kind of spirit is still with the family.

You're right about business - making money is never much of a sin.

Which North African wines can you recommend? I like trying new ones.

 

[kwaw]

You're right about business - making money is never much of a sin.

And work was/is very much part of the puritan / protestant ethic, and being opposed to something does not necessarily equate to being unwilling to make money out of it. Crowley's family, tee-total Plymouth Brethren, made their fortune as brewers and in ale houses.

Kwaw

 

[Ross G Caldwell]

And work was/is very much part of the puritan / protestant ethic, and being opposed to something does not necessarily equate to being unwilling to make money out of it.

I think a distinction should be made between work and "making money" or profit making. I think Catholics and other religions value work and condemn idleness as much as any kind of Protestant, but within Catholicism there is a much broader definition of acceptable "work". Study can be a form of work, as can prayer. Those dedicated to that kind of life in Catholicism earn their living by labor for their community, teaching, etc., typically without a profit motive.

Some kinds of monks, Christian and Buddhist (less Christian now, I think), used to get their food only by begging. No Protestant would accept that as any kind of work.

On the other hand, it is perfectly acceptable for most Protestants - or I should say their descendants - to make money by sheer speculation, involving no labor and hardly any work - mental or physical - at all. The profit is enough to justify the idleness, however many people are working to support it.

Crowley's family, tee-total Plymouth Brethren, made their fortune as brewers and in ale houses.

That's true. But I don't know if Crowley's father was himself a brewer. I'm not clear (despite having studied Crowley a long time) if his father and mother were converts to the Plymouth Brethren, if his father relied on past riches, etc. Can you fill me in?

 

[kwaw]

That's true. But I don't know if Crowley's father was himself a brewer. I'm not clear (despite having studied Crowley a long time) if his father and mother were converts to the Plymouth Brethren, if his father relied on past riches, etc. Can you fill me in?

Crowleys father had worked in the brewery but had retired as such to preach by the time that Crowley was born. The founders of the Crowley Brewery of alton were Quakers. Crowley Brewery was sold to Watneys in 1947, but I think the family had ceased to be involved after the first world war. Crowleys father was a quaker but converted to Plymouth Brethren when he married Emily Sparrow or shortly before and became something of a religious fanatic.

Here is a family history of the Crowleys and Curtisses [both quaker families connected with each other, the three Crowley brothers who founded the Crowley brewery at Alton were all married to Curtis sisters] by Mary Crowley:

http://www.manicai.net/genealogy/CrowleyFamily.pdf

Kwaw

 

[Ross G Caldwell]

Here is a family history of the Crowleys and Curtisses [both quaker families connected with each other, the three Crowley brothers who founded the Crowley brewery at Alton were all married to Curtis sisters] by Mary Crowley:

http://www.manicai.net/genealogy/CrowleyFamily.pdf

Kwaw

Thank you for pointing me to this delightful document, Kwaw.