mmfilesi wrote:Its interest...
a) We have a very, very, quickly expansion of the cards... As you know:
1340 / 1354, Bohemia (¿?)...
and then 1371, Cataluña. 1377, Firenze. 1377, París. 1377, Siena... etcetera.
...

... between 1340 - 1370 are 30 years ... this isn't fast.
The development after 1377 is fast. This runs together with a general change in various countries.
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The "somehow central states" in 10 years
1376: England ... The Black Prince (heir) died (very important in England)
1377: England ... King Edward III dies after reigning 50 years
1378: Rome ... Pope Gregory XI died after being pope for 8 years. It follows a schism enduring till 1415
1378: Germany, Bohemia ... Emperor Charles IV dies after 32 years in his position
1378: Milan ... Galeazzo II Visconti of Pavia (Milan) died after 24 years reign with Bernabo ... Giangaleazzo follows
1379: Castilia (in Spain) ... Henry II, the bastard, died 1379, after 10 years reign
1379: Habsburg/Austria ... the reigning 2 rulers since 1365 divide their country (one of them is married to a Bernabo daughter)
1380: France .... French king Charles V died after 15 years reign and some more years as regent
1382: Hungary, Poland ... the long reigning Hungarian (since 1342) and Polish king (since 1370) died
1383: Brabant: Wencelas, duke of Brabant, occasionally regent for half-brother Emperor Charles IV, died after 31 years reign (from him is known, that he had playing cards at his court in the last years 1379-1383 ... first known "playing card court" with evidence)
1385: Milan ... Bernabo is captured (31 years ruling) and killed by Giangaleazzo
At nearly all "central states" a ruler change happened
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a little bit outside (outside of the 10 years or outside of the relevant regions)
1387: Aragon ... Peter IV the Ceremonious, reigning 51 years, died
1371/1404: duke of Burgundy changes in this years
1371/1390: Scotland changes in this years
1375/1387/1397: Denmark/Norwegia changes in this years
1364/1389: Sweden changes in this years
1367/1383/1385: Portugal changes in this years
From these only Aragon and Burgundy give the impression, that they might have been involved in playing card history
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This means, that in nearly all "somehow" relevant countries
It's a general law, that a long reigning king presents political stability and also some stability in the customs.
Also it's a general law, that a new reigning king causes political instability and some change in the customs.
Also it's a general observation in our work of analysis of playing card documents, that playing cards often appeared in connection to young rulers.
The observed "turning point in history" in this dimension (various thrones changed in short time) is very rare, especially when the reigning time before had been often rather long. It's especially dramatic in the years 1376-1380, when the changes in the very central England, Germany and France occured ... precisely in the first "big" playing card years.
Generally one death of one ruler causes in history often the death of another cause of some often unknown causal relations, often the destabilization jumps from one country to the other.
For instance: The abdication of Roman king Wencelas in 1400 surely has some relation to the condition, that a similar abdication happened before in 1399 in England for Richard II. Also the disappearance of one stabilizing factor (especially Emperor Charles IV) might have caused stress through many changes on the reigning heads of other countries. Or the death of the black prince (1376) might have caused the death of his father (1377). Pope Gregory I. might have gotten a premature death by too much trouble etc.. So somehow a chain of events might have been unconsciously triggered and we have difficulties to see the reason.
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The age of the new rulers:
England: Richard II, 10 years old
Germany: Wencelas, co-regent with 14, alone reigning Roman king with 16
France: Charles VI, 10-11 years old
This are the "most central" states ... these new kings had partly even not the age of teenagers.
Hungary: Sigismondo by marriage to the King's daughter since 1387, then 19 years old
Castilia: John I, 21 years old
Milan: Giangaleazzo was 27 in 1378 and 35 in 1385
Brabant: the widow reigned till 1406
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In general playing card research I saw this factor never mentioned.
The destabilized states had troubles.
In Germany revolt the cities. It started already in the last years of Charles IV (1377; Charles wasn't able to punish them, but open war developed occasionally).
In England were social revolts ("Peasants' Revolt" in 1381).
In France we have revolts in Puy, Montpellier, Paris (the Maillotins), Rouen, the cities of Flanders, Amiens, Orleans, Reims and other French towns (1381-82).
In all this the new distributed playing cards (likely not in England, where gambling had been strongly prohibited).
In La nascita del libro, by Lucien Lebvre and Henri-Jean Martin I read:
"Molti naypiers (cartai) son anche cenciaioli" (many card-markers are rag-merchant, the people who take rag to made paper), this means, people connected to the paper industry.
(based in R. Corraze, L'industrie du papier à Tolouse". Contribution à l'histoire de la papeterie en France, II. 1934. pp 95 ss)
And I read too
"Ma via via che si sviluppa un centro di produzione, i cenci diventano più rari e bisogna andarli a cercarli più lontano"
this means, the rag-merchant need travel far to find merchandise.
Do you think the quickly expansion of the cards and the cenciaioli are in relationship?
Well organized paper traders didn't travel themselves to gather rag. But naturally this "organized somehow". Paper traders naturally had a good relation to paper users ... for instance universities. But naturally also to playing card producers. We have a document of 1427, in which a paper trader (cartaio) of Fabriano helps as referee in a conflict between a card producer and another somehow related man in Bologna. The same cartaio appears later in Padova in a university paper business.
We have a collection about early paper-mills at ...
http://trionfi.com/0/p/21/
The dates of playing cards in Bohemia 1340 and 1354 appear in the report of
Hübsch, presented here ...
http://trionfi.com/0/p/95/
Do you have references for your notes (footnotes or something like this ... when? which document?) ?