Is Tarot Pagan?

BrightEye

Rosanne said:
I was always taught that Sunday was a day of rest- but I never figured out what you rested from exactly as we worked like Trojans on a Sunday.
LOL - that's so funny!
 

Rosanne

BrightEye said:
Which deck would Northbrooke have had in mind? Playing cards without Trumps?

As for Plato's texts being burned, I doubt it. The Mantegna deck from 14-- (the eact date escapes me now) depicts a neo-Platonic world, no?

I do not know what cards he was ranting about- I presume playing cards- but it is possible that he had seen either a TdM or the Sola Busca- but there is no way to know.
The Mantegna Cards are thought to be other than playing cards or Tarot or any game really- they are thought to be model cards maybe (I forget the term)

Neo platonic is aphilosophical system developed at Alexandria in the third century a.d. by Plotinus and his successors. It is based on Platonism with elements of mysticism and some Judaic and Christian concepts and posits a single source from which all existence emanates and with which an individual soul can be mystically united. (from Encyclopedia)
No I meant Greek Myth and Legend - non christian models of the Gods and Mortals.
~Rosanne
 

BrightEye

I think what you need to do is archive work. You'll have to go to a playing card museum and look at decks from that period. If the source you cite is the only written one, then hands-on research is 'all' you can do. Unless there is a forum member here who happens to own a deck from that period...
 

ihcoyc

The treatment of sixteenth and seventeenth century texts condemning "paganism" and "idolatry" is an interesting subject in itself.

Basically, during the period of the Puritan controversies in England, there was a great deal of fuss and bother about finding and condemning alleged relics of paganism and idolatry. The true targets were not actual pagans, but High Church Anglicans and Roman Catholics. The idea was to reform the church along Calvinistic / Presbyterian lines, and to abolish images, religious practices, and festivals that were not specifically authorized by Scripture.

So for "pagan", read "Catholic." It was all the same to those writers.

The condemnation of playing cards was likely actually motivated by a similar animus: they were used by aristocrats and gamblers and other supporters of the established high church. No real proof is given that the court cards were ever actually worshipped as pagan gods, although the tradition of naming them after Lancelot, Hector, Judith, and so forth was apparently known to the author. These cards were French: therefore Catholic; therefore pagan.

These seventeenth century tracts were misinterpreted and accepted at face value by nineteenth century folklorists. Their concerns were totally different: they were looking for evidence of "pagan survivals". The fact that the seventeenth century Puritans had an extremely broad reading of "paganism" escaped them; they just heard that maypoles were being cut down as relics of "paganism," so they must actually be pagan survivals. The actual "pagan" survivals were actually Catholic practices preserved in folk religion. If there's any historic paganism (in our sense) in them, it's hard to identify at this remove.

Ronald Hutton has written some excellent books that outline the whole process, and I recommend them if you are interested in how it all came to pass.

The Tarot itself, with its images of popes and angels and the Last Judgment, is fairly obviously Christian in origin.
 

mjhurst

Hi, Rosanne,

Rosanne said:
If John Northbrooke felt that Tarot was Non- pagan (that would mean Christian at that time)...
Who reported that Northbrooke wrote about Tarot?

I've read about Northbrooke's sermon in multiple books but I don't recall anyone citing him as evidence of Tarot in 16th-century England. Who wrote that he was talking about Tarot, and what evidence did they cite?

Rosanne said:
...why would he think it would bring Idolatry as a tool of the Devil?
Because he was a Christian preacher, familiar with the traditional themes of Christian preaching. Northbrooke explicitly cited the 3rd-century pseudo-Cyprian as his source for this. As Benham reports the story:

John Northbrooke of Bristol, who preached and wrote against plays and dramatic performances, was also vehement against card-playing… [He] asserted that"Dice playing is the mother and Carde playing is the daughter," and both "drawe to ydelness, loitering, blasphemy, misery, infamie, shame, penury, and confusions." He proceeds: "I say with good Father Saint Cyprian: The playe at Cardes is an invention of the Deuill, which he founde out that he might the easier bring in Ydolatrie amongst men. For the Kings and Coate cardes that we use nowe were in olde time the ymages of Idols and false Gods: which since they that would seeme Christians have changed into Charlemane, Launcelot, Hector, and such like names, because they woule not seeme to imitate their ydolatrie herein, and yet maintaine the playe it self, the very inuention of Satan, the Deuill, and would disguise this mischief under the cloake of such gaye names."
(W. Gurney Benham's Playing Cards: History of the Pack and Explanations of its Many Secrets, 1931.
Given this description, it is clear that the British were using French-suited cards.

As for the source, the online Catholic Encyclopedia describes "a homily (the famous De Aleatoribus) long ascribed to St. Cyprian, but by modern scholars variously attributed to Popes Victor I, Callistus I, and Melchiades, and which undoubtedly is a very early and interesting monument of Christian antiquity, is a vigorous denunciation of gambling." The title refers to dice, but by extension it includes all games of chance. (Even chess, a generally respectable game not based on chance, was included by some writers.) Pseudo-Cyprian's complaint included two significant statements about games of chance, calling dice a snare of the Devil (Zabulus, i.e., Diabolus), and comparing it with idolatry. These ideas would be repeated with respect to regular playing cards in 1576 by Northbrooke and in 1599 by Pierre de la Primaudaye. A 1423 sermon by St. Bernardine refers to regular playing cards (again, not Tarot) as the Devil's breviary, and the 1500 Steele Sermon also suggests that dice, cards, and Tarot are tools of the Devil. The idea was apparently a commonplace.

Best regards,
Michael
 

Ross G Caldwell

mjhurst said:
As for the source, the online Catholic Encyclopedia describes "a homily (the famous De Aleatoribus) long ascribed to St. Cyprian, but by modern scholars variously attributed to Popes Victor I, Callistus I, and Melchiades, and which undoubtedly is a very early and interesting monument of Christian antiquity, is a vigorous denunciation of gambling." The title refers to dice, but by extension it includes all games of chance. (Even chess, a generally respectable game not based on chance, was included by some writers.) Pseudo-Cyprian's complaint included two significant statements about games of chance, calling dice a snare of the Devil (Zabulus, i.e., Diabolus), and comparing it with idolatry. These ideas would be repeated with respect to regular playing cards in 1576 by Northbrooke and in 1599 by Pierre de la Primaudaye. A 1423 sermon by St. Bernardine refers to regular playing cards (again, not Tarot) as the Devil's breviary, and the 1500 Steele Sermon also suggests that dice, cards, and Tarot are tools of the Devil. The idea was apparently a commonplace.

It's true that the idea was a commonplace with a certain kind of religious reformer. Among Catholics, from Bernardino to Savonarola at least (I recall an early 16th century itinerant saying the same thing, but can't recall where), it appears limited to the 15th century, and to have died out some time before the Council of Trent. Among some Protestants, it continues to this day (principally Calvinist-influenced or sects like the Mormons).

Speaking of Northbrooke and Pierre de la Primaudaye, both must have been influenced by Lambert Daneau (also a Calvinist), who first translated (it was really more of a paraphrase, from what I can see) Pseudo-Cyprian into French, in 1566.

I found a passage from Daneau's 1566 translation in a 1964 article (if you can call it that) by H. Coumet (historian of mathematics) on line -
http://archive.numdam.org/ARCHIVE/MSH/MSH_1964__6_/MSH_1964__6__23_0/MSH_1964__6__23_0.pdf

page 3.

What is most interesting to me is that Daneau translates ps.-Cyprian's phrase "alea tabulam" as "cartes", and the simple word "tabulam" in a longer phrase as "cards and dice", viz:

Ps.-Cyprian: "ita ut qui vellet studio eius adhaerere, non ante manum in tabulam porrigeret, nisi auctori huius prius sacrificasset."

(thus anyone who would be involved with his invention, could not put his hand before the table, unless he had first sacrificed to the inventor of it).

Daneau: "tellement que quiconque aujourd'huy veut jouer, n'ose mettre la main ni à carte ni à dé, que premierement il n'ait sacrifié & fait hommage à l'autheur."

(so that whoever today would play, dares not place hand on card nor die, unless he has not firstly sacrificed and made homage to the inventor.)

Interestingly enough, Daneau *did* mention tarot in his "translation" of Ps.-Cyprian, although I am not sure in what context. As quoted by Thierry Depaulis, "les premieres cartes estoyent figurées comme sont celles du tarot" (the first cards were figured as are those of the tarot).

As far as I know, Daneau never says "The Devil invented tarot", but since he holds that the Devil invented cards, and the first cards were tarots, it follows that the Devil invented tarot.

I'd really like to see Daneau's whole translation.

Ross
 

Rosanne

ihcoyc said:
The treatment of sixteenth and seventeenth century texts condemning "paganism" and "idolatry" is an interesting subject in itself.
Yes it is.

Basically, during the period of the Puritan controversies in England, there was a great deal of fuss and bother about finding and condemning alleged relics of paganism and idolatry. The true targets were not actual pagans, but High Church Anglicans and Roman Catholics. The idea was to reform the church along Calvinistic / Presbyterian lines, and to abolish images, religious practices, and festivals that were not specifically authorized by Scripture.
So for "pagan", read "Catholic." It was all the same to those writers.

So the term 'idolatry' was really aimed at Papist practice? That makes sense.
Everything Papist was abhorred.

The condemnation of playing cards was likely actually motivated by a similar animus: they were used by aristocrats and gamblers and other supporters of the established high church. No real proof is given that the court cards were ever actually worshipped as pagan gods, although the tradition of naming them after Lancelot, Hector, Judith, and so forth was apparently known to the author. These cards were French: therefore Catholic; therefore pagan.
I was not concerned about playing cards as how Puritans saw statues in the church-as worshiped articles or icons, but that they were Pagan as in Greek Myth and Legend- they recognised (even though the dress of the Courts was of their times) the image behind the clothing. When Major Tom made his TdM he dressed the figures in Modern clothes- but I still see the Renaissance figure of Traditional TdM under the modern clothes :D

These seventeenth century tracts were misinterpreted and accepted at face value by nineteenth century folklorists. Their concerns were totally different: they were looking for evidence of "pagan survivals". The fact that the seventeenth century Puritans had an extremely broad reading of "paganism" escaped them; they just heard that maypoles were being cut down as relics of "paganism," so they must actually be pagan survivals. The actual "pagan" survivals were actually Catholic practices preserved in folk religion. If there's any historic paganism (in our sense) in them, it's hard to identify at this remove.
That is excellent Ihcoyc! Thank you very much for your informative post and I will seek out books by Ronald Hutton.

The Tarot itself, with its images of popes and angels and the Last Judgment, is fairly obviously Christian in origin.
That and more I always thought but now I am not so sure. I think Tarot may be a bit like the Easter Egg. But I will continue to search. Many thanks.
~Rosanne
 

Rosanne

Ross G Caldwell said:
Speaking of Northbrooke and Pierre de la Primaudaye, both must have been influenced by Lambert Daneau (also a Calvinist), who first translated (it was really more of a paraphrase, from what I can see) Pseudo-Cyprian into French, in 1566.

I found a passage from Daneau's 1566 translation in a 1964 article (if you can call it that) by H. Coumet (historian of mathematics) on line -
http://archive.numdam.org/ARCHIVE/MSH/MSH_1964__6_/MSH_1964__6__23_0/MSH_1964__6__23_0.pdf

page 3.

What is most interesting to me is that Daneau translates ps.-Cyprian's phrase "alea tabulam" as "cartes", and the simple word "tabulam" in a longer phrase as "cards and dice", viz:

Ps.-Cyprian: "ita ut qui vellet studio eius adhaerere, non ante manum in tabulam porrigeret, nisi auctori huius prius sacrificasset."

(thus anyone who would be involved with his invention, could not put his hand before the table, unless he had first sacrificed to the inventor of it).

Daneau: "tellement que quiconque aujourd'huy veut jouer, n'ose mettre la main ni à carte ni à dé, que premierement il n'ait sacrifié & fait hommage à l'autheur."

(so that whoever today would play, dares not place hand on card nor die, unless he has not firstly sacrificed and made homage to the inventor.)

Interestingly enough, Daneau *did* mention tarot in his "translation" of Ps.-Cyprian, although I am not sure in what context. As quoted by Thierry Depaulis, "les premieres cartes estoyent figurées comme sont celles du tarot" (the first cards were figured as are those of the tarot).

As far as I know, Daneau never says "The Devil invented tarot", but since he holds that the Devil invented cards, and the first cards were tarots, it follows that the Devil invented tarot.
I found this very interesting- thank you Ross. It is strange but in Italy, when I had the chance to sit with some older village men and watch them play Tarochino- they did this strange wee ritual to the cards before they played. I was amused to see one gentleman throw a pinch of salt on the table as well.
It is an odd thing to try and see through writing- what someone like Northbrooke actually saw in whatever he saw. Maybe it was just titles on the playing cards like Charlemagne or Hector that made him say Idolatry. Maybe it was that they were French Cards and Papist in his eyes as Ihcoyc explains.
Maybe it was the playing on Sundays, that was his main beef.
I am trying to ascertain, if anyone saw Tarot as a modern interpretation of Greek Myth and Legend, back then. So I will go read so Calvanist and Puritan iinformation to try and suss out what was meant by 'creation of the Devil' in regards to cards. As you say it was a common thought as Richard Cavendish says in his book on Tarot.
~Rosanne
 

Rosanne

Thank you Ross- 'Good Companion and Shopfellow" (one who sits all day and night at cards and Dice).

Northbrooke would have hated Botticelli's Primavera and his 'strumpet like Goddess Flora' a 'abominable Idolatry'!!
I found it interesting that in the pages before the famous quote on cards and dicing he talks of "Jugglings and false sleights, witchcraft, speculations,divinations and fortune telling" as forbidden by Paul.
He uses Aristotle to give a negative view and Saint Augustine to give the Christian view. He also seems to differentiate between Heathens and Pagans.
I will print the document out and peruse more carefully- so thank you for the link.
The prologue also gives other names to search for like Thomas Newton of Chester who railed against gaming also.
Northbrooke knew his classics and had a great deal of quotes at his disposal.
His tirade of 'Lewd' plays seemed to be about the Greek ones. Very interesting!