Rosanne
Well a musing on the subject at least...... OH where to put this thread?????
In the TdM cards the title of card 1 is the Bateleur- a French word meaning tightrope walker/dancer.
Tight rope walking has a long history from Egyptian times.
The European word is Funambulus from the Latin word Funis- a rope and ambulare meaning to walk.
Why is our Man on the card not on a tightrope?
Bateleur is a very specific term- so specific that a Kite/hawk is called a Bateleur from the way it flies using it’s wings like a walkers pole to balance, tipping from side to side.
To use the terms that bring to mind fairground hustlers- like thimblerigger- flimflam man- juggler , jongleur etc, seems more appropriate. Maybe it was a mistake? Maybe it was indicating someone else?
It is my contention that it may well be depicting a Lawyer- that vilified profession in the years of TdM Tarot’s birth.
Frederick ll of Hohenstaufen (1194-1250) who to his death was the Holy Roman Emperor, was a clever man and one of his essays was on the Structure and Habit of Birds He studied Aristotle and used a Aristotelian habit of dividing subject matter into positive and negative statements, and started with the positive debate. For this essay he deviated it would seem. He talked of birds been raptorial and non raptorial and the Bateleur is raptorial who prey upon those they are able to hold- they feed only on their prey therefore are not carrion. They are called ‘rapacious’ or ‘greedy clawed’ and they are robbers.
Methinks Frederick was bitten by ecclesiastical Lawyers!
In the beginning of the Middle ages because Germanic rulers had gradually taken over control of Government, the existing Legal system needed mending -Law schools had closed and before the 12th Century there was no longer trained jurists in Italy, Spain, France and Great Britain. Judges and Lawyers with formal training in the Roman legal system were gone. In the 12th century they started to re-appear because Roman Law and Cannon Law was revived in Bologna and Paris. (Specific Universites)So those lay people who had been advocates for the people until then were untrained and in the main unscrupulous. By the time of the Renaissance…..significant numbers of Lawyers (who practised in the Church Courts especially) were depicted by many authors as Bloodsuckers, Hypercritics, Sacrilegious, Foul mouthed, devious, deceitful,
rapacious- Vultures- Kites- Hawks was just a few names. This vilification lasts to this very day.
I think that card one would have been quickly recognised back then not as a fair ground man, but the man who the practiced Law as the ultimate confidence game. The raptorial bird- the Bateleur. Note the predominate purse on the table.
~Rosanne
In the TdM cards the title of card 1 is the Bateleur- a French word meaning tightrope walker/dancer.
Tight rope walking has a long history from Egyptian times.
The European word is Funambulus from the Latin word Funis- a rope and ambulare meaning to walk.
Why is our Man on the card not on a tightrope?
Bateleur is a very specific term- so specific that a Kite/hawk is called a Bateleur from the way it flies using it’s wings like a walkers pole to balance, tipping from side to side.
To use the terms that bring to mind fairground hustlers- like thimblerigger- flimflam man- juggler , jongleur etc, seems more appropriate. Maybe it was a mistake? Maybe it was indicating someone else?
It is my contention that it may well be depicting a Lawyer- that vilified profession in the years of TdM Tarot’s birth.
Frederick ll of Hohenstaufen (1194-1250) who to his death was the Holy Roman Emperor, was a clever man and one of his essays was on the Structure and Habit of Birds He studied Aristotle and used a Aristotelian habit of dividing subject matter into positive and negative statements, and started with the positive debate. For this essay he deviated it would seem. He talked of birds been raptorial and non raptorial and the Bateleur is raptorial who prey upon those they are able to hold- they feed only on their prey therefore are not carrion. They are called ‘rapacious’ or ‘greedy clawed’ and they are robbers.
Methinks Frederick was bitten by ecclesiastical Lawyers!
In the beginning of the Middle ages because Germanic rulers had gradually taken over control of Government, the existing Legal system needed mending -Law schools had closed and before the 12th Century there was no longer trained jurists in Italy, Spain, France and Great Britain. Judges and Lawyers with formal training in the Roman legal system were gone. In the 12th century they started to re-appear because Roman Law and Cannon Law was revived in Bologna and Paris. (Specific Universites)So those lay people who had been advocates for the people until then were untrained and in the main unscrupulous. By the time of the Renaissance…..significant numbers of Lawyers (who practised in the Church Courts especially) were depicted by many authors as Bloodsuckers, Hypercritics, Sacrilegious, Foul mouthed, devious, deceitful,
rapacious- Vultures- Kites- Hawks was just a few names. This vilification lasts to this very day.
I think that card one would have been quickly recognised back then not as a fair ground man, but the man who the practiced Law as the ultimate confidence game. The raptorial bird- the Bateleur. Note the predominate purse on the table.
~Rosanne
