Huck

The following is in context to the thread to Jacob Faber Stapulensis, also called Jacques Lefèvre d'Etaples, recently.

It was already posted in TarotL, where in the moment an interesting discussion to various details of Tarot development in 15th century takes place. So parts of the text relate to topics discussed there, perhaps they are not understood in this context here:

"Lothar begged me to write something about my recent studies to German
playing cards. They touch the theme "playing cards used for
didactical interests", so somehow also the arguments to memory that
you composed recently.

One first point: Many playing card documents, which form our picture
from 15th century card playing directly relate to very young persons
or children. See an overview (maybe not totally uptodate to our
researches):

http://trionfi.com/0/e1/12/

From this we conclude, that playing cards as social phenomen were
considered senseful for "for the young public" (in another often used
contexts it appears, that playing cards were for women and for
matters of love, as card-playing offered an opportunity, when men and
women could be near to each other in a social manner, somehow working
in a similar way as dancing). The grown-up accepted man prefered
chess, at least in the higher classes. This stayed active till early
17th century, when an English king declared, that he prefered cards
and didn't see, why this preference should endure any longer (the
change in the evaluation of games might have happened earlier at othe
places, England developed late an interest in playing cards).

The nearness between playing cards and young people might have
induced early ways to use cards for didactical interests. Indeed
already Johannes of Rheinfelden expresses this view in 1377, that is
the very begin of card-playing in Europe.

http://trionfi.com/0/c/01/

Tarot cards, that is "Trionfi cards", developed with high security at
the court of Ferrara around 1440 in a social situation, when many
young persons were present at the court and when the local time was
dominated by a sort of very modern didactical experiment, created by
the presence of Guarino, first teacher for the heir Leonello and a
greater group of other persons with great interest (mostly grown-ups)
and then as teacher in the university, which increased the number of
students from about 30 in the 1430ies to 300 in the late 1440ies.
This special situation might help the imagination, that these Trionfi
cards incorporated didactical messages and contents, however, a
nearer view to the existent documents comes to the conclusion, that

a. there were not much Trionfi cards noted and probably there were
not much
b. when they are noted, then there is in nearly each case
a "triumphal festivity" near to the same date, so that it seems, that
these decks were related to these events - these cards had probably a
function as part of the festivities, as didactical ecxperiments they
were much too expensive. And they are called "Trionfi-cards", they
are not called "didactical cards" for instance.

The first cards - or pictures - which might be assumed to have an
didactical worth - and also a memory function -, are the socalled
Mantegna Tarocchi, perhaps from ca. 1470

One might argument, that these Trionfi decks before had also an
didactical worth, and they've, mostly they were filled with heraldic
devices and they taught, this or that family is the chief in the
country. But, this is, as far we can perceive their role, not the
main function, the main function was to stabilize by a triumphal
festivity the reignment in a specific region.

One might argument, that beside these Trionfi cards for the higher
courts, existed other, cheaper decks and that these were the
didactical cards. Well, but they wouldn't be called "trionfi decks"
and we're searching for the words that in these cases should have
been used and don't find them.

Generally, card playing, as it is, has didactical aspects. There are
lots of rules, in which you've to count. If you've young children and
you teach them card-playing, you'll learn, that thy become better in
calculating numbers. And many decks of the later time were
constructed for didactical interests, they taught geography, lists of
kings and other persons, fighting techniques and who from the Iraki
people should be captured. There are many examples, and we cannot
exclude, that such things existed in 15th century, but we don't know
them (if we come to the conclusion, that the Hofämterspiel isn't
didactical, it comes this interest most near in its appearance).

Let's advance to the deck, which is called occasionally "the first
didactical deck", the cards of Thomas Murner in 1507. The attribution
as the "first didactical deck" is wrong, as you can learn now. But
one specific detail is very interesting:
Thomas Murner was accused to be a sorcerer cause the invention of the
deck. A longer debate in the university of Krakow cleared up the
case, that this deck was invented for didactical interests and not
for sorcery.
Krakow, southern of Warschau, and a lot of distance east of Prague,
although far in the East, was not out of the world.

http://www.krakow-info.com/history.htm

It had - for instance - an university. In the case, that Italy was
filled with didactical decks since already longer time, then this
news should have reached Krakow, logically Thomas Murner with his
innocent didactical attempt wouldn't had been attacked with a
sorcerer-accusation, which was serious and could have had bad follow-
up situations.
So this - somehow - indirectly tells us, that ideas to use cards in
didactical ways might have existed in small number in Italy - as for
instance the Mantegna-Tarocchi - but not in great number, this seems
impossible.
Now let's tell the story of the Murner deck and the decks, which were
before and around this. We know of four, and they all are related to
each other.

In this context we shall mention something, which I would call with
some humour the German "Golden Dawn", as it refers to a group of
people, which became rather influential in German and European
history and development, gaining later much historical importance
especially by personal influences on the reformation, also the
Reuchlin-Pfefferkorn-case and the socalled "Dunkelmaennerbriefe" and
somehow also on "Christian Kabbala". Normally they are seen as part
of the German Renaissance Humanism, but I call them "Golden Dawn", as
they also wrote a piece of playing card history, that is the story of
the "didactical decks".
The somehow most important birthplace of this Golden Dawn was a Basic
School in nowadays a small town with about 17.000 inhabitants called
earlier German "Schlettstadt" and nowadays French "Selestat", the
political situation changed with the time and caused the name
difference. It's located between Colmar and Strasbourg, in the heart
of the Alsace, Freiburg is near and Basel not too far away.
The pupils, which went through this school and later became
successful called it in their humour the "trojan horse, which gave
birth to more and more Greek heroes". The first pupil of some name
was Wimpheling, called later "the schoolmaster of Germany", as he
successfully published some schoolbooks and also engaged to defend
Germanic interest against French interest in an exaggerated manner. A
rather difficult man, and his trouble with Thomas Murner, another man
of very difficult character, became famous (1502/1503). Later (1505)
Ringmann, pupil of Wimpheling, and Jacob Locher, poetus laureatus,
friend of Emperor Maximilian and Thomas Murner, discussed the matter
with their feasts still.

The story, which knows lots of political and intersting details is -
in a short way, concentrated on the playing cards aspects - like this:

Sebastian Brant was active in Basel till 1499/1501, then left to
Strasbourg. In 1494 he composed a bestselling book, the "Ship of
Fools", in which he composed a poem together with Fool-pictures,
which mostly were engraved by the young Duerer. The book became
immediately a great success, and in the course of time the greatest
German literal success before Goethes "Werther" (1776), translated
also immediately and very quick in various other languages.

Jacob Locher was the pupil of Sebastian Brant and teacher and friend
to Thomas Murner (1495 - 1497). He translated the ship of Fools in
Latin (1497) and gave reason to Emperor Maximilian to make him poetus
laureatus the same year.

Emperor Maximilian short before (1493/1494) had married Bianca Maria
Sforza, daughter of Galeazzo Maria, and this girl came with Italian
playing cards (= Tarot cards) from Italy and it is told, that they in
the wedding night took an greater amusement in these cards.
In 1496 Maximilian married his children from first marriage to
children of the Spanish court and at this opportunity a sort
of "marriage-event-deck" (similar to the usual Trionfi-customs)
wandered from the production place (Oberrhein, that's the region of
Strasbourg) to Spain and it has survived.

Thomas Murner left the scene (1497) to study in Paris and there he
got contact to Jacob Faber Stapulensis, also called Jacques Lefèvre
d'Etaples, which, as an older German biographical dictionary notes,
had experimented with a didactical card play to teach mathematic -
before Thomas Murner made other didactical decks. We've to this deck
of Jacob Faber only this information, not more (at least for the
moment). Jacob Faber is later also the first address in Paris for
other pupils of the Alsace region, at least Ringmann took nearer
contact, and got an important name in the development of French
humanism.
Murner made after Paris his journey to other places and returned 1501
to Strasbourg. In the meantime the prominent Geiler von Kaiserberg
(same region), with contact to Sebastian Brant, had made some famous
preachings according Brant's "Ship of the Fools", in which he -
playing card research has to thank him - left a few notes to card
playing generally and also the mysterious game Karnöffel. Murner, who
just has made a first didactical deck (not that of Krakow, another
one), felt personally attacked and demanded an excuse from Geiler.
Instead of Geiler Wimpheling replied in an arrogant manner and soon
we've a wonderful humanistic letter exchange full of subtile arttacks
and accusations, very similar to these flaming posts in early
internet time. The fight is hard, and Wimpheling has a lot of friends
and pupils in the region, which also attack Murner in a serious way,
somehow they get it, that Murner is not allowed to publish (and
Murner gets his enduring nick-name Mur-Narr - a combination of
German "murren" = action of verbal opposition and "Narr" = Fool. But
soon others also realise, that Wimpheling is difficult, and
Wimpheling soon gets experiences of isolation, especially as emperor
Maximilian interferes and also Locher. A wonderful crash, probably
rather simlar to that, what happened in the hot times of Golden Dawn,
just - politically - a little higher located.
Ringmann is involved by his defend of Wimpheling (he belongs also to
the "Trojan-horse group") and in a strange accident he personally
caused, that "America" was called "America".
In 1509 he published a didactical deck for learning Latin grammar,
after Thomas Murner had invented in 1507 in Krakow his second
didactical deck. Ringmann died relatively soon, but Murner proceeds
with the production of his invention at least till 1518 - in the
reformation he engages strongly against Luther. Wimpheling retires -
more or less - and is finally in Schlettstadt again. He is still
mentioned in the Dunkelmaennerbriefe.

Overview: In this report we've 6 card decks noted, one major text
with strong influence on the general Fools-iconography (using a lot
of other Tarot-motifs and presenting two playing card pictures) and
one document of importance to playing card informations (Geiler von
Kaiserberg):

1493/94: deck of Bianca Maria Sforza: lost

1494: Sebastian Brant: "Ship of Fools"
http://www.fh-
augsburg.de/~harsch/germanica/Chronologie/15Jh/Brant/bra_n000.html

1496: marriage deck Maximilian's children
http://wopc.co.uk/germany/sge.html

1498: didactical deck of Jacob Faber: unknown

1498: Geiler von Kaiserberg, preachings
http://www.trionfi.com/0/e1/07/

1502: didactical first deck of Thomas Murner
1507: didactical second deck of Thomas Murner
http://trionfi.com/0/j/d/murner/index.html

1509: didactical deck of Ringmann
Old, not updated version
http://www.geocities.com/tarocchi7/ringmann.html
New, not totally updated version
http://trionfi.com/0/c/09/


The overall context seems to indicate, that didactical decks in Italy
didn't exist in great numbers. The Mantegna Tarocchi might be
interpreted this way, but actually the evidence is missing, that
these cards were ever used as playing cards.
The informative context of the German "Golden Dawn" is dense, if
Murner had followed older Italian concepts, it somehow should have
come to the surface, I guess.

So long, probably we will - after some study of the deeper contexts -
put these informations at an internet page."

__________________
Huck

"getting it home to the writing desk"

jmd

I look forward to your one day putting this and other information in an inclusive printed booklet, Huck...

Of interest (perhaps) is that amongst the earliest recordings of freemasonic activities is precisely also in the same Alsace-Lorraine area in the region of Basle and Selestat (I now do not recall, but as soon as I read 'Selestat', freemasonic earlier research notes jumped to memory). I am not of course suggesting that the two are explicitly connected.