possible clue to the hotel-dieu/maison-dieu question

Lots of interesting possibilities here.

I am beginning to think that there is no "hospital" connection at all.

Just in the interests of exploring possibilities, I have been trying to read up a bit more on the Babylonian Captivity:

8 Au septième jour du cinquième mois, la dix-neuvième année du roi Nébucadnetsar, roi de Babylone, Nébuzar-Adan, capitaine des gardes, serviteur du roi de Babylone, entra dans Jérusalem.

9 Il brûla la maison de l'Éternel, la maison royale et toutes les maisons de Jérusalem; il livra aux flammes toutes les grandes maisons.

11 Et Nébuzar-Adan, capitaine des gardes, transporta le reste du peuple, ceux qui étaient demeurés de reste dans la ville, ceux qui venaient se rendre au roi de Babylone, et le reste de la multitude.

http://phiphi.jolie.chez.tiscali.fr/dan2.html

This is from the Book of Daniel. It is about Nebuchadnezzar' s captain going into Jerusalem and burning the "house of the Eternal," the royal house and all the houses [which also means families] of Jerusalem . Then all the rest of the people were transported [to Babylon].

To my mind that fits very well with the card's meaning. One reason I sort of favor a biblical explanation is that given the general zeitgeist of the time when the cards were first created, when a lot of biblical stories were as well known to the populace at large as "Friends" is to us, it seems like a likely source for the imagery.

I also tend to think that the figure of Death on card XIII is simply the Dance of Death that was such a popular image in the late middle ages and Renaissance.

I believe the word "deuil" comes from the same root as "douleur," and our word "dolorous."

la maison diev question

This is an extremely informative series of observations/ considreations. Gettings points out that the circular crown is severed from the four-walled tower-- he notes that crowns did not surmount four-walled towers. What about this observation? Gettings thinks this is a metaphor of modern man's split between mind and emotions/body. Could this be an angle of interpretive truth? Or is it only that pride falls before the Divine Will?
Is the power that brings down the tower from inside or from outside? Centripetal or centifugal? And is this power a purgation or inspiration-- an interpretive schism as to meaning I find.
Finally, is it lightning or a feather? Flame or plume?
Historically and psychologically, what a mix of meanings!
Perhaps it is relevant that the Tower is between Devil and Star, a state of transition between enslavement by the lower self and emancipation by the Higher Self...

The standard explanation for the circular crown on the tower is that the original image was meant to suggest that the King would/should be overthown, a subversive sentiment similar to the anti-Church implications of a card picturing La Papesse. Since the kings claimed to rule by "divine right" the tower holding up the crown might well be seen as the "House of God."
I've finally had a chance to look at the new Huson book more closely (haven't had time to read it yet) and see that among the names for card XVI on early decks was "The Hospital" (there's your Hotel-Dieu confusion) and then goes on to write "...the word Dieu (God) may be a corruption, as one may see if one consults early decks, where Diefel (devil) can appear instead." Huson's discussion of the XVI's imagery in relation to contemporary Mystery plays is a must-read.

Frank Hall said:

Finally, is it lightning or a feather? Flame or plume?

Click to expand...

The Pen is Mightier than the Sword

I think that the Tarot's progenitors were very intelligent,
men and women involved in higher aspects of learning.
"The Tower" does not come crashing down because it is
very well built and has intrinsic social value, but the top,
the Crown, is ~knocked off~ by human enlightenment.
The feather/plume represents the powers of illumination.

Regarding the comment about square and circular Towers (or a round crown upon a square-based tower), I mention, in my description for the Tower card I did for the second Aeclectic Project, a trope of Aenesidemus - as the section from the card description is apt here, I may as well quote the two short paragraphs I wrote thereon:

• 'Fred Gettings, in his 1973 The Book of Tarot, mentions that there is a Tower depiction upon the Reims cathedral. Though he is incorrect - it is likely to be on the Amiens cathedral [I have now confirmed this, by the way] - both his comments and subsequent reflections led me to consider that the Infancy Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, known in late mediaeval Europe, in which the idols of an Egyptian Temple crashed as the Baby Jesus and his mother entered, would probably be assumed to have been somewhat iconographically similar to the believed inevitable fall of minarets in the presence of Christ. The cathedral depiction certainly seems thus.
  
  In the Aenesidemus, the fifth trope mentions 'the various distances and positions which causes the tower to appear round from afar and square close up'. This visual ambiguity would certainly also have been well known to the various Knights who traveled to the Holy land, whatever their reasons. One of the towers they are likely to have seen is the one here represented: a mediaeval minaret in Israel. Interestingly, the very word 'minaret' has etymological connections to 'Fire'.'

La Maison Dieu

Thanks to Fulgour and JMD for their erudite insights. If it's "illumination" breaking off the crown, a kind of feathery lightning, which makes sense, Fulgour, then is it coming into the closed mind and opening it (the tower top is opened thereby) or is it from inside-out, the soul readied for ilumination by casting away pride and fixed learning? Or both?
Interesting that the terrain is desert-like, a prime place for prayer and meditation.
If Huson is correct, the whole scene alludes to the Harrowing of Hell medieval drama, when Jesus Christ descended into hell. But it doesn't look like a release of souls to me. There is no eternal hell-fire here. Possibly limbo.
Is it accidental that the left and right hands and the upper foot form an up-pointing triangle, below the three -window triangle? A fall which is an elevation.
Interesting that the Devil has two prisoners, the Tower shows two fallen ones, the Star pours out waters from two urns. Modern esoteric Tarots go no deeper than these Mysteries.

I've always understood Le Maison Dieu to refer to the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem. When Jesus was crucified, the veil of the Temple was rent in two, and there were other natural disasters manifest like earthquakes and other signs and wonders. (Matthew 27:51-52) Notoriously, church steeples drew lightning strikes, since they were usually the tallest buildings in town.

I have seen a number of woodcuts from the time depicting round crowns capping square towers. It seems to have been an artistic convention, and my guess would be that it was a shorthand way of indicating a royal or noble house, whether an actual one or, symbolically, the house of God.

It would be interesting to know what the other roundels surrounding the falling tower one at Amiens are. Sadly, I have no memory of that particular one, but the entire edifice is so covered with carvings, dating from the original Robert de Luzarches days up to the Renaissance and beyond, that it is hard to find a lot of the smaller images. I am wondering if it is set into a context of Crusade imagery, or in the midst of several Biblical episodes. I do remember a number of the latter. But there are also a large number of roundels depiciting contemporary life, so possibly the Crusades were a topic in a series I never noticed.

3rd Eye

Frank Hall said:

Is it accidental that the left and right hands and the upper foot form an up-pointing triangle, below the three -window triangle? A fall which is an elevation.

Click to expand...

Editions vary, but I have seen where the top window is open and
the bottom two are shuttered closed. A very ancient concept...

The Third Eye:
The frontal eye, the eye of fire, it is the eye of inner perception.
It looks mainly inward, but whenever directed outward, it burns
all that appears before it.

______________________

also see: AYIN
http://www.inner.org/hebleter/ayin.jpg

Physical vision; Color spectrum; A fountain.
The fountain of wisdom and the ability to perceive wisdom.

The sheep looking toward the shepherd;
the shepherd watching over his sheep.

Phoenician Ayin:

• o

Capricornus ~ the year come full circle.