A Different Route Considered?

[Rosanne]

In another thread I was questioning the two parts of Tarot 22/56 and my perceived notion that they looked visually very different and appeared hobbled together as a system. That view has been explained in one way to me. So I was looking at the History of playing cards, and was reading a small book by Richard Webster.
He makes two statements that are of interest to me.
The oldest known decks of cards are Tarot Decks, and the standard decks of playing cards that we use today, derive from them.....within a few years of their introduction, entreprenours began mass- producing using stencils. By eliminating the Major Arcana and the knaves, the pack was reduced to a deck of 52 cards, making them less expensive to manufacture and purchase...The French card manufacturers were highly innovative. They quickly discovered that they could make 4 Kings,Queens and Knaves from one woodblock and simply stencil in the four suit emblems later....

and then he writes
A latin manuscript found in the British Museum says "The Game of cards has come to us in this year, viz., the year of our Lord 1377...

So if the first premise is true, that playing cards derived from Tarot- I take it that Tarot was around in 1377.
Anyone wish to comment?
I would also like to know if anyone has heard of these two gentlemen, Card Historians apparently -Sir William Wilkinson and Dr Stewart Culin.
Many thanks ~Rosanne

 

[le pendu]

Hi Rosanne,

I'll let others with more knowledge contribute to this.. but my understanding is that what Richard Webster states is incorrect. I'm under the impression that the 52 card Playing Card pack is NOT derived from Tarot, but rather that the Tarot was a creation of combining the 52 card pack with additional cards (the trumps and the queens).

See http://it.geocities.com/a_pollett/cards3.htm

Seems that the 52 pack cards were first, and the Tarot was a development based on that.

best,
robert

 

[le pendu]

Actually, I'm not even sure about this.

Somewhere I'm under the impression that the queens were added.. probably because the Mamlûk shows three men in the court.

But did the Tarot introduce the queens? Or were other 52 card packs already showing the queens before the "earliest" Tarot references?

 

[Rosanne]

Thanks Robert, your view is what I had always thought was true. I too, will wait and see if anyone can shed light on this. I realise that there are many different held views but this seems to be a major departure fromusually held views. ~Rosanne
Edited to add: I think it was the Pages that were added.

 

[le pendu]

It's interesting as well to consider that *IF* the Tarot were the basis for the 52 cards in a regular pack, why were the Trumps and additional Court removed?

I guess it seems to me that there is some evidence that the Tarot was "building" on the 52 card pack. I think of the Cary-Yale, with its additional court cards.. showing some "experimentation" with the structure of the deck.

 

[le pendu]

I found this page on World of Playing Cards:
http://www.wopc.co.uk/history/earlyrefs.html

With this note for the year 1377.

--

1377 BASLE "Tractatus de moribus et disciplina humane conversationis" written by a Dominican friar by the name of John.

The pack described by him in his sermon "in its common form, and that in which it first reached us", comprises four seated kings, on royal thrones, each one holding a certain sign in his hand, of which signs some are reputed good, but others signify evil. Under which kings are two 'Marschalli', the first of whom holds the sign upwards in his hand, in the same manner as the king; but the other holds it downwards in his hand. After this there are ten other cards, outwardly of the same size and shape, containing pips one to ten, making a total of 52. This description corresponds not only to our modern "Poker" pack, but also to the Egyptian Mamluk pack which has a "First" and "Second" viceroy (Na'ib). Brother John forgot to describe the suit signs, however.

He goes on to describe variant packs containing queens, or two kings and two queens each with their 'marschalli', or packs containing five or six kings each (i.e. 5 or 6 suits) with 'marschalli', or even four kings, four queens and so on making packs of up to 60. It calls for raised eyebrows, however, that so many 'variant' packs existed so short after the introduction of playing cards, unless somehow, the craze for new games was quite unbridled. We can see packs fitting these descriptions from fifty to a hundred years later (Stuttgart pack, Ambras Hofjagdspiel, Liechestein pack, Master of the Playing cards, de Dale, etc.), but how can they be explained so soon?

 

[Rosanne]

Webster's premise is that it was economical to remove the Majors and four Pages????
Anyway he has some interesting things to say about the symbols and where they were borrowed from.
He says the French gave us the suits we know today.
The Heart and Leaf were German, but the German leaf was turned ninty degress to make it an upright Spade. The Club was from the German Acorn- but the Diamond was from French ecclesiastical pavement in the chancel of Churches where the wealthy were buried. The German Club symbol became the clover and represented the Peasantry, as it was the food for pigs lol.
I was interested in his story of the Master of Playing Cards who probably worked for Johann Gutenberg and a famous Knight named Etienne de Vignoles (Le Hire) who asked Jacquemin Grigonneur to create a patriotic deck to sweet talk the King into lifting a playing card ban- which according to Webster worked.
It has been interesting to say the least. ~Rosanne

 

[Huck]

He makes two statements that are of interest to me.
The oldest known decks of cards are Tarot Decks,

Nonsense. Please use
http://trionfi.com0/j/
http://trionfi.com/0/b/
http://trionfi.com/0/j/d/stuttgart/

and the standard decks of playing cards that we use today, derive from them.....

no evidence

within a few years of their introduction, entreprenours began mass- producing using stencils. By eliminating the Major Arcana and the knaves, the pack was reduced to a deck of 52 cards, making them less expensive to manufacture and purchase...The French card manufacturers were highly innovative. They quickly discovered that they could make 4 Kings,Queens and Knaves from one woodblock and simply stencil in the four suit emblems later....

and then he writes
A latin manuscript found in the British Museum says "The Game of cards has come to us in this year, viz., the year of our Lord 1377...

http://trionfi.com/0/c/01/index.php

So if the first premise is true, that playing cards derived from Tarot- I take it that Tarot was around in 1377.

Sorry, that's nonsense.
http://trionfi.com/0/p/
gives a lot of stuff to read

Anyone wish to comment?
I would also like to know if anyone has heard of these two gentlemen, Card Historians apparently -Sir William Wilkinson and Dr Stewart Culin.
Many thanks ~Rosanne

Wilkinson has or had an article in the web.

http://www.ahs.uwaterloo.ca/~museum/Archive/Wilkinson/Wilkinson.html

Currently not available perhaps?

 

[Rosanne]

Thank you Huck for the links. I have read them previously time and time again.
As I stated this is one view published in 2002, and the Author apparently has some standing with Llewellyn. You highlight a problem for enthusiasts like me.
I am curious, so I look in all sorts of places for information to try and make connections for myself. Trionfi also states this-via McKay The history of playing-cards in Europe has been subject to a good deal of misinformation. You should evaluate all information about this subject cautiously because of this (and that includes this paper).
So here you come along with the bald statement 'Nonsense' about another persons point of view- not mine-this guy Richard Webster. He has more knowledge than you? You have more knowledge than Him? I do not know the answer to that. I found what he said interesting in light of this below from an essay on the 1377 Johhannes Latin Manuscript
• 1. describing the card game and its material and its ways to be played.
• 2. using the card game to give moral advices for noble men, related to 5 courts in the 60-cards-game.
• 3. similar advices for normal people, related to professions, which are attributed to the number cards
...and its other points raised.
I understand that we have extant Cards that indicate Tarot in the 1400's- But what about the possibility......? an earlier model? and that it was economic to delete cards from that *maybe* earlier model.

Nonsense!

does not tell me anything. ~Rosanne

 

[kwaw]

I would also like to know if anyone has heard of ... -Sir William Wilkinson Many thanks ~Rosanne

Sir Willian Wilkinson on the Chinese origin of playing cards:

http://www.gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/Archives/Wilkinson/Wilkinson.html

Dr. Stewart Culin:

http://gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/Archives/Culin/index.html

This chronology of recreational mathematics also gives appearance of various games including for example, chess, go, cards etc., and may be of interest:

http://www.eldar.org/~problemi/singmast/recchron.html

Kwaw