Spanish cartomancy and witchcraft with cards

Teheuti

I found a Spanish-English translation for "echar suertes" that looks at it as a group of similar experiences/words:

e·char suer·tes Verb
1. draw lots, cast lots, draw straws; Synonyms: echar a suertes, echar las cartas, echar suerte, sortear, tirar los dados, echar cédulas, echar pajas; Echar a suerte. Utilizar medios fortuitos o casuales para resolver o decidir algo.

This might clear up some of the translations.
 

Huck

PIRUCHO said:
-Ross: Is it the oldest (1538) of Ciruelo,about divination source oldest known ?

-I mean we were talking about Fernando de la Torre at another thread,a text about 1449 or 1450.

Migue

...:) ... hi Pirucho,

as already stated in post 75 in the other active thread

Hi Pirucho,

... the oldest very sure evidence for divination with playing cards is from 1505 and from Germany (Mainz and Strassburg) ... and this divination is transfered from an earlier lot book, known from 1485.

With more detail this is reported at
http://trionfi.com/0/p/41/

Another text, which is "perhaps" also relatable to early playing card divination is the Boiardo Tarocchi poem ..

http://trionfi.com/0/h

.. which is in technical sense higher developed then the Strassburg production, but the signs, that it was used in divinatory manner, are only spurious (a few sentences in the description of Viti are suspicious)

This poem has a technical relationship (poem text appears on the cards) with the Fernando-de-la-Torre production - that's the reason, why I asked for a communicative relation between Fernando de la Torre and the region of Ferrara, possibly given by a visit of Angelo Dcembrio just in 1450 in Saragossa.
 

PIRUCHO

Hello Teheuti:
"echar suertes" is closest to draw cards for luck
So it is related to divination use of the cards.

Migue
 

PIRUCHO

Okay Huck:
So which date you estimate is best dated oldest year to have a serious parameter ?
-And must be say that I entered here,at this topic not for divination interest btw,only for the history facts Ross given to us.
I don t believe in divination by cards.


e.
 

Huck

PIRUCHO said:
Okay Huck:
So which date you estimate is best dated oldest year to have a serious parameter ?
-And must be say that I entered here,at this topic not for divination interest btw,only for the history facts Ross given to us.
I don t believe in divination by cards.

e.

hi Pirucho,

1505 (Strassburg/Mainz) is sure, although it's obviously "primitive divination".

Some circumstances, especially a visit of Gianfrancesco Pico de Mirandola in 1505 make it possible, perhaps even probable, that the idea of "divination with playing cards" was brought to Strassburg from Italy (Schürer, the printer in Strassburg, simply transformed an already existing lot oracle, made by a relative of him, Martin Flach 1485, based also on poems, to a playing card oracle ...
... at least we know, that Gianfrancesco called 1507 "divination with playing cards" a minor art of precognition, true precognition was only received by prophets in hisopinion.
The true prophet to Pico was Savonarola, who died 1498 ... Gianfrancesco was a follower in this party since at least 1494. Savonarola was a foe of playing cards, he burnt them, when he had the power, and it might well be, that he also didn't like divination with playing cards, which in this case should have already existed - in Florence.

Gianfrancesco was a nephew to Boiardo and Boiardo made the Boiardo Tarocchi poem (I think 1487) - which for other reasons (Viti report) already transports the possibility, that it was connected to "divination with playing cards".

About the finding of Ross recently (Fernando de la Torre etc.) we cannot say anything in this context, as the informatory state is still a little insecure. If it is confirmed in this quality, then it would be the oldest ... :) ... for the current moment.
 

Ross G Caldwell

prudence said:
I wish I had more to add to this than "Wow!" ...but wow, Ross, I am so thrilled by your ability to bring us valid, extraordinarily well researched fragments from history and piecing together Tarot's past....Now when will there be a new book published on this subject?

Thanks Prudence. I don't think it's ready for a book yet - there is a lot more research to be done, and a lot of translating - and that's before the synthesis, actually writing the history. It might be ready for a chapter in another book though.

Mingbop, I know lots from history is too much to handle, stay well away from historical information regarding that Hanged Man image, it is quite awful.... But, Ross just gave us a huge gift, he is slowly but surely finding the evidence that is still out there that shows us that tarot was used for purposes other than gaming, long before the 1800s, which is what we have been led to believe by the research of others....

This is huge!! Well done, Ross!! :thumbsup:

Please note that the Spanish "witches" aren't using tarot here - they're using the standard Spanish cards, "naipes".

Tarot in Spain is attested sporadically in the 16th century, and never seemed to take hold. Moralists and Inquisitors - where we find it mentioned - thought the trumps sacreligious. They never mention it being used for cartomancy though. Here is my blog post on what I found in Etienvre.

http://ludustriumphorum.blogspot.com/2009/03/tarot-and-minchiate-in-spain-16th.html

Having been under the impression that the only references to Tarot in Spain were late and uninformative (for example see Dummett Game of Tarot p. xxiv), I was pleased to recently find some earlier and more substantial references in a work published over 20 years ago.

Jean-Pierre Etienvre, in Figures du jeu: études Lexico-Semantiques Sur Le Jeu De Cartes En Espagne (XVIe-XVIII siècle) (Casa de Velazquez, 1987), found several references to Tarot being used in southern and central Spain in the 16th century. Here are some excerpts from pages 293-294. I can’t do a very good job at translating the Spanish, but I’ll summarize my best understanding.

1528, Diego del Castillo, Tratado muy util y provechoso en reprobacion de los juegos, mentions a shortened pack of 67 cards, and apparently the Minchiate, of 96 cards [or perhaps it is a doubling of the trumps].

E donde pensé diminuyr los naypes en solo copas y espadas, mostrome vn cauallero vn juego de naypes de ytalia de sesenta i siete cartas, entre los quales esta figurado vn angel y el cielo, el sol i la luna, ciertas estrellas, el mundo i fortuna, el padre sancto con las llaues del cielo, la muerte y la vida, el infierno i demonio, y dende los emperadores, reyes i reynas y grandes señores con mas numero de puntos que jeugan con ellos.

Yo ando por quitar el juego, otros por augmentarlo ; de quarenta y ocho cartas las hizieron sesenta y siete ; mas valiera hazerlas noventa y seys y dobarlas, porque se doblara la pena a quien las hizo.

(Ross’ note – interesting to note that in the first game, of 67 cards, the moralist didn’t notice a Popess, but he does note “Emperors”. Perhaps the pack did have two Emperors and Pope. He also recognizes “Death and Life”, and “Hell and the Devil” – “Hell" may well be “Fire” or the Tower, but what is “Life”? In any case, it represents an otherwise unknown kind of Tarot pack.)

Forty years later, in July 1568, some suspicious cards were seized by the Inquisition in Cuenca (a town and region south-east of Madrid). Here is what is said about them, in the first report to the Supreme Council:

A este Sancto Offiçio se an traido unos naypes hecho en aquellas partes de marca grande en que ay figuras del papa y otra de una mujer con las mesmas ynsignias del papa y una figura de un ángel con una trompeta como forma de llamar al juiçio y otras figuras. Paresçe manera de yrrisión de las cosas de ñtra Religión christiana. La persona que los truxo dize que los hubo en Alicante, que se los dieron unos marineros de la nao llamada Rehusera y que en valencia ha visto dellos e jugar con naypes semejantes a algs ginoveses. En esta çiudad no entendemos que se vendan ni se an visto otros.

(Here the description includes a “Pope and another figure of a woman with the same insignia as the Pope and a figure of an angel with a trumpet in the style of the call to judgment and other figures.” I think he goes on to say that this derides the entire Christian religion. He says there are reports from Alicante that some mariners play them and in Valencia they play with cards similar to “some Genovese” game (or "those of some Genovese"). I think the last line means that "In this city we have not heard who sells them nor have we seen others.”

For the Inquisition, these images were sacreligious. The power of the Inquisition in Spain may help account for the fact that Tarot never became naturalized in that country.)

One month later they report the public sale of these cards in Valencia, and they are called in Italian “Tarroqui” and in Spanish “Taroques”:

[…] annos auisado que en Valençia se venden públicamente y que en esa corte los ay entre los estrangeros y que juegan con ellos. Llámanse en ytaliano tarroqui y en español taroques

In 1588, the Inquisitor of Mallorca denounced the introduction of cards “printed in France”, in which were represented a Pope with a tiara, a Popess, the Angel of the Last Judgment, Death, Cupid, the four Evangelists, the Moon, the stars, etc.

(Ross’ note – from a purely chronological point of view, what is striking about this description is “the four Evangelists.” This must refer to the typical design of the World card in the “Tarot de Marseille”, which therefore already existed by the 1580s in France. This is not really surprising, since the Castello Sforzesco “World” probably dates to circa 1600, but a dated attestation of the style is a comforting find.)

So that's all we know from before the late 18th century, and the mentions refer to them for playing games, nothing about diviners using them.

The Venetian "witches" on the other hand, used at least one card, the Devil, for magical purposes, but there is no record of them using the tarot for divination - at least, not in any of the studies I've read. The divinatory methods they preferred were favomancy (reading how beans fall) and a form of hydromancy (I believe) called l'inghistara.

Ross
 

prudence

Ross G Caldwell said:
Thanks Prudence. I don't think it's ready for a book yet - there is a lot more research to be done, and a lot of translating - and that's before the synthesis, actually writing the history. It might be ready for a chapter in another book though.



Please note that the Spanish "witches" aren't using tarot here - they're using the standard Spanish cards, "naipes".
I understand....sometimes in my excitement I lose all track of detail. :D



I think I am equally excited to know that the cards may have been used for magical purposes (ie the Devil card "spell" that you noted) at that early date, as I am to know they were used for (simple) divination.
 

Debra

Thank you, Ross.
 

nigromancer700

Ross hi,

That's just fantastic stuff on mantic use of cards in Spain which I've only just read, all of it of exceptional interest: I love the Spanish witch incantation you cite:

‘I am fearful and I conjure you,
By Barabbas, by Satan
And by Maria Padilla and all her band,
And by the Lame Devil,
So that it be quicker;
I command and ordain,
So that it tells me the truth.’”

Maria Padilla was a semi-historical figure, powerful sorceress and infamous leader of the witches of Evora - her cult was carried into the New World where she is still supplicated in Brazilian Kimbanda.

All the Best,
Nigel
 

Ross G Caldwell

nigromancer700 said:
Ross hi,

That's just fantastic stuff on mantic use of cards in Spain which I've only just read, all of it of exceptional interest: I love the Spanish witch incantation you cite:

‘I am fearful and I conjure you,
By Barabbas, by Satan
And by Maria Padilla and all her band,
And by the Lame Devil,
So that it be quicker;
I command and ordain,
So that it tells me the truth.’”

Maria Padilla was a semi-historical figure, powerful sorceress and infamous leader of the witches of Evora - her cult was carried into the New World where she is still supplicated in Brazilian Kimbanda.

All the Best,
Nigel

Thanks Nigel. I don't know anything about Maria Padilla, but she appears in studies of Spanish (incl. New World) witchcraft sufficiently that I knew there is a lot to the story.

I've since gotten the relevant parts of Estopañán.

The spell translated above comes from Valérie Molero and Jacques Soubeyroux, “Magie et sorcellerie en Espagne au siècle des lumières”, pp. 225-226.) This is from the testimony of Francisca Romero in 1741:

"J'ai peur et je te conjure
par Barrabas, par Satan
et Maria Padilla et toute sa bande,
et par le Diable Boiteux, pour être plus rapide,
je commande et ordonne
qu'on me dise la vérité."

The same spell in Spanish, as given by María-Helena Sánchez Ortega (“La mujer como fuente del mal; el maleficio” (Manuscrits no. 9, Enero 1991, pp. 41-81), is slightly different:

"Yo tengo miedo y to conjuro
con Barrabás, con Satanás,
y María de Padilla y toda su cuadrilla
y el Diablo Cojuelo,
por ser más ligero,
le mando un pelo
porque se me diga la verdad."

This was translated for me by Enrique Enriquez:

"I am afraid and I conjure you
with Barrabás and Satan,
and with Maria de Padilla and her whole crew
and en Diablo Cojuelo
since he is the swiftest,
I send him a hair
for the truth be told to me.”

Particularly the difference between "je commande et ordonne" and "le mando un pelo" - I have to assume the French text is either a poor translation or a different text entirely.

These texts have made me reconsider how I view the history of cartomancy, and its definition (at least for scientific/historical purposes).

The earliest kind of cartomancy is also the most intuitive and natural - pulling a card out like a lot or sort and taking the message from there. This is as simple as tossing a coin to make a decision or pulling daisy-leaves saying "he loves me, he loves me not." The games played this way are countless and can't be considered to have "begun" at any time - they are timeless. The earliest evidence of this kind of "play-divination" is in the 1450s, with cards with stanzas written on them. They fall into the category of fortune cookies, pulling names out of a hat, letters of the alphabet, charades, whatever (you can see I view divination as a form of play, whether light-hearted or serious) - in my definition, to be "active divination", there has to be a question asked and the answer is expected to reveal the truth. "Passive divination" is like the fortune-cookie - no question asked, but a fortune is given.

This leads to my second historical "requirement" to be true "cartomancy" - there has to be the belief that the supernatural is somehow involved, that God, spirits or destiny somehow guides the answer, and if it is a client-reader relationship, that the reader has prophetic ("mantic") insight somehow that is invisible to the client. Either appeal to spiritual forces or mantic power is sufficient for me to consider it, for historical purposes, cartomancy. Thus in its attenuated form nowadays, even without a prayer or incantation before the reading (which I have never seen done), if the client believes that the reader has mantic power, then it is still cartomancy.

This is what I think is so impressive about the Spanish accounts, which are careful to say a spell or incantation beforehand - there is a direct appeal to the hidden world of the spirits. This kind of thing is explicit even in the Golden Dawn's long method - "serious" occultists taking divination as seriously as the "superstitious" witchcraft methods.

But such methods, and even the belief system of modern sophisticated card-readers has neither appeal to the spirits nor belief in the superior insight of the reader - it is something completely different nowadays, informed by psychology and narratology, where the participants, client and reader, together interpret the art on the cards in a process of making a story that brings insight to the client and perhaps a new perspective. It is therapeutic in other words, but completely divested of the supernatural aspects of traditional cartomancy.

Perhaps the loss of direct appeal to spiritual forces - and/or trust in the mantic powers of the reader - is answered in occultism by appeal to the authority of a fictitious antiquity. This endows the object itself - in this case, Tarot cards - with a numinous aura. Maybe this acquired "numinosity" is a substitute for the direct power of invoked magic.

Ross