reconsidering a cathar connection

Debra

Ah, foolish, I had the impression that your analysis of imagery is focused on Marseille-type decks, not the Visconti predecessors.
 

foolish

yes. my assessment of the tarot images in mainly from the conver tdm deck. however, many of the cards from that deck were similar to earlier decks - mainly the visconti-sforza style. what then becomes important to me are the specific changes between the two. why were some images changed? wouldn't it have been easier to leave the deck as it is?

the visconti decks probably predate the french decks by at least fifty years or so. i don't think that the tdm just started up in the 1600's, although i imagine that is when the main card making houses were developed and popularized the cards. i believe that the tarot was introduced to france when the french troops under charles VIII were retreating from their invasion of italy in 1495, after being invited to enter the war by ludovico sforza, who was looking to increase his power in milan and other territories. as the cards were taken to their new home, they took on the symbology of the local culture.

certain images were changed to make the story reflect more of the story being presserved there, as was similarly done in the other areas to which it spread. one of the primary underlying historical messages, of course, was the legacy of the cathars from a few previous generations.
 

Rosanne

I enjoyed your introduction Foolish! I will be a buyer of your book.
Somewhere in the great search engine of Aeclectic is an interesting thread about the Tower and the use of a trebuchet siege machine (a rock throwing device) that had particular effect in the Albigensian Crusade. Looking back over my notes I saw this quote...
Elsewhere these machines were terrifyingly accurate Albigensian 1211
http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=...uchet Medieval rock throwing machines&f=false

page 23. At the time I thought the tower could be explained this way. I still have no true idea what the TdM Tower balls depict. A siege is as good an answer as anything I have yet seen.

~Rosanne
 

foolish

as you can see by the responses i have received on these forums, the cathar influence theory has its opposition. as i have said that i am not out to prove the theory beyond the doubts of all the tarot scholars out there, the interesting (and unique) thing to me is in the interpretation of the cards and their specific images in the historical context of the albigensian crusade and the cathars spiritual beliefs. since you brought up the example of the tower, i can give you a glompse into the card in this context by saying that the tower has several associations:
1) simon montfort, leader of the crusaders, was killed when a stone was thrown from the bell tower of st. sernin during the seige of toulouse, home of raymond VI, who was the crusaders' main target.
2) the tower could also represent the castle at montsegur, which represented the cathars' "last stand" so to speak.
3) also, the towers of toulouse were "reduced to rubble" when the crusaders first entered the city.
4) st. sernin, the largest of the cathedrals in toulouse, was named after the city's patron saint who was martyred for not giving up his heretical views. this could easily have been a symbol of strength and inspiration for the heretics of the 13th and 14th centuries during the siege of their city.

as you can see, the cards can have more than one reference. i dont think this is proof of an ambiguity of interpretation as much as the fact that there could have been many different ways to tell a story which had a lot of information which had to be abridged into a set of 22 images.
 

Teheuti

foolish said:
this is not a closed issue. we can not adhere validity simply to numbers.
It's definitely not a closed issue. I'm sorry if I gave that impression. Historical understanding changes every time a new piece of evidence is found. Theories often lead to evidence, although sometimes it's not the evidence one was hoping for.

BTW, edicts by the church and preaching sermons often appear precisely because a large number of people are doing whatever they are preaching against. It's like the Catholic church's list of banned books, which, when I was in high school, was considered a list of books 'to be read' - similar to other banned books like those by Mark Twain or Lady Chatterley's Lover. I would imagine that a few people got a thrill out of playing a game in which they threw down on the table images of the Pope and Devil (especially when the Devil 'trumped' the Pope).
 

Teheuti

foolish said:
there is ample evidence of fugitives escaping to towns in northern italy, where they were protected by more tollerant groups, including perhaps some cathar communities which existed there. in addition, some of the cathars could have blended in with other "heretical" sects like the humiliati, spiritual francisicans, beguins etc. who remained in existence up through the time the tarot was being introduced.
The largest community of Cathars in Northern Italy and the center of one branch of the faith was in the small town of Concorezzo, just north of Milan (in 1299 it was home to 1,500 Cathars). Concorezzo was only five miles from the Humiliati monastery where Maifreda (or Manfreda) Visconti da Pirovano was abbess. http://marygreer.wordpress.com/2009/11/07/papess-maifreda-visconti-of-the-guglielmites—new-evidence/
 

foolish

good stuff! i'm glad to finally hear someone say that it's not a closed issue. i'll take that as an opportunity to keep my foot in the door.

the problem with facts is that they really don't make much sense until they are processed through a theory. what we all need to be careful of is that we don't fall into the trap of selectively placing information into our theories so that it becomes evidence. and i'm sure i'll be somewhat rightly accused of doing just that. all in all, it makes for an interesting excursion down the road of tarot history.

the preaching point is exactly what i was trying to say (can't remember where) about the significance of the topic of the sermons against the nature of the tarot cards. this must have been a response of the clergy to a general experience in the population.

and yes, thet corcorezzos were one of the groups in italy that continued cathar ideals along with others, which show that even within the cathar community became splintered and evolved.
 

foolish

thanks for the references huck. not sure what the significance of peter martyr is all about but the first one looks interesting. unfortunately, i don't speak italian. is that available in an english translation?
 

Bernice

Is this part of the googlebook pdf relavant, about Stefano and the MIlanese Cathars? (See 2nd paragraph).


Bee :)
 

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