Bernice
Thank you for that link Huck.
Bee
Bee
It is worth here mentioning that playing cards are notably absent from my account, but that is only because they are notably absent from the works of Chaucer, and the first reference to playing cards in England is not until 1413. We read in the household accounts of Edmund Mortimer that he regularly lost at various games, losing over £157 in total during his travels with Henry V between September 1413 and April 1414, and one of the games at which he regularly lost was cards.
Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, was uncle to Richard, Duke of York, and therefore a great-uncle of Edward IV and Richard III. He had a good claim to the throne and for that reason, Henry IV and Henry V kept a close eye on him. In the period from September 1413 to April 1414, the twenty-three-year-old was traveling in the company of Henry V—and losing over 157 pounds in gaming. Mortimer’s companions must have been delighted when the young lord proposed a game of chance, because the word perdebat—“lost”—occurs with distressing frequency in his household accounts. Mortimer lost at tables, raffle and chance, a game called devant (apparently a dicing game)—and at cards.[18]
Despite Mortimer’s enthusiasm for cards, it would be decades before another mention of them occurs in English sources. That is in 1459 in the Paston letters, where Margaret Paston reports that over Christmas, a widowed acquaintance forbade the members of her household to engage in dancing, harping, luting, singing, or “loud disports,” but permitted them to play tables, chess, and cards.[19]
[18] Woolgar, Household Accounts, pp. 592-94.
= C. M. Woolgar, ed., Household Accounts from Medieval England, Part 2. Oxford University Press, 1993.
[19] Parlett, p. 46; Paston Letters, vol. vi, 78-79. Gairdner dates the letter in 1484, but as Parlett points out, it appears to be from an earlier time.
= David Parlett, The Oxford Guide to Card Games. Oxford University Press, 1990
Huck said:... ... I wonder, why this news doesn't cause public enthusiasm at Aeclectic, an English language forum.
English playing card use had become ca. 50 years older, is this nothing ?
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The number of notes are 3 and all relate to the year 1413 ...
1. Item in XIII die Septembris perdebat apud Docmersfeld a cardys xx s. xl d.
...
2. Item in eodem die [= 17th of September, likely at loge de Wynsor] perdebat xx s. apud cardys.
...
3. Item in XIII die Octobris perdebat a cartys apud Mertun V s.
So gambling losses at card games by Mortimer occurred 13th of September (20 shilling, 11 pence), 17th of September (20 shilling) and at 13th of October (5 shilling), all in 1413.
Docmersfeld ?
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report ... mpid=56750
loge de Wynsor = "royal lodges in Windsor park", as noted in the explanation
this? http://www.windsor-berkshire.co.uk/wind ... t-park.php
Mertun seems to be Merton near Wimbledon ?