mikeh wrote:
Marco wrote,

The Court Cards are very interesting. I feel rather sure that this is not a Tarot deck, because there are exactly twelve Court Cards: it is unlikely that this is a coincidence. In the suit of Cups, the Page and the King are replaced by a “female page” and a Queen...

I do not understand Marco's reasoning, that if there are twelve courts, i.e. three courts per suit, it is not a tarocchi deck. How do we know that? Say more.

Hello Mike,
I have written that "I feel rather sure that this is not a Tarot deck" and you ask "how do we know that?". Is the difference between "feeling rather sure" and "knowing" unclear?

Anyway, I try to explain the reasoning motivating my feeling of relative confidence in taking these sheets as non-Tarot:

We have twelve court cards, three for every suit. My favourite hypothesis is that this is a common deck of cards, in which the Page and the King of Cups are replaced by two ladies.
According to this hypothesis, all the court cards of the deck are presented on the sheets in an orderly way: the four Pages are followed by the four Knights that are followed by the four "Sovereigns" (I like intellectual order, so possibly this explains why I prefer this theory).


If this is a Tarot deck, we have two problems to solve (I am lazy, so I tend to dismiss the problems that I can easily avoid):

1) we must explain the order in which the court cards are presented (why does the Queen of Cups appears after the King of Coins? should we conclude that the King of Cups appears in the middle of the other three Queens?)

2) we have a mysterious "female Page of Cups". Do we accept the idea that she replaces the standard male page? If we do, why do we reject the idea that the Queen of Cups replaces the King of Cups? If we do not, than this is not strictly Tarot anyway, because we have (at least) 5 Court Cards per suit (male Page, female Page, Knight, Queen, King).

marco wrote:[
We have twelve court cards, three for every suit. My favourite hypothesis is that this is a common deck of cards, in which the Page and the King of Cups are replaced by two ladies.

If the page and king of coins were also replaced by two ladies I would be more inclined to agree, as this would fit other known patterns that divide the four suits into two feminine and two masculine; do we have other examples where only the suit of cups is feminine? I see no particular problems in their being five or even six (as in the CY) court cards to each suit with the rest being missing, however on the other hand I agree the logic of the sheets layout (four pages, four knights, four soveriegns) favours there being only the 12 courts.

Love the cock riding knights, sure I have seen them before but can't remember where at the moment.

Some images and information on line that include cock riding knights:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=homJ ... &q&f=false

http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2008/0 ... tires.html

A symbol of France and of the Christian faith some images of cock riding knights have been interpreted as reprenting Philip the Fair.

Although too late (latter half rather than first half of the 16th century) for a connection to our sheets(allowing that the dating of the sheets is accurate), here is some connection with knights riding cockerels in relation to the persecution of the Huegenots:

Prior to the Massacre of St.Batholomew the Huegonets were invited to Paris in gathering for the marriage of a HJuegonet prince, and the trap set for them included many entertainments put on before the massacre. One of these entertainment was put on by the Queen Mother at the Tuilleries four days before the massacre, in a play/ballet composed by the singer Etienne le Roi. Part of it included the figures of Cupid and Mercury descending from heaven each riding on a Cock. “Mercury was represented by Etienne le Roi, the famous singer, who, having reached the earth, presented himself to the three knights, sang a melodious sond, deliveded an harangue, and then ascended back to heaven, still singing as he mounted.”

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=L50L ... ck&f=false

The same account here (somewhat more easier to read) :
http://books.google.co.uk/books?pg=PA17 ... &q&f=false

(Two of the leading members of the French Chambre Ardent (quote: In 1547 a commission — the famous Chambre Ardente — was created in the Parliament of Paris for the special purpose of trying heretics; then in June, 1551, the Châteaubriant Edict codified all the measures which had previously been enacted for the defence of the Faith. This legislation was enforced by the parliaments in all its rigour. It resulted in the execution of many Protestants at Paris, Bordeaux, Lyons, Rouen, and Chambéry, and drove the rest to exasperation.) were one Nicholas Chevalier and one Antoine le Coq! Knight and Cock together against the heretical protestants. The signal for the beginning of the massacre was the bells of matin, long associated with cock-crow:

I have a gentil cock
croweth me day
he doth me risen early
my matins for to say
...
his eyes are of crystal
locked all in amber
and every night he pertcheth him
in my lady`s chamber

(The massacre was derided by the Huegenots and celebrated by Italian catholic writers as a 'macchiavelen' Italian catholic plot, implemented by the Queen Mother Catherine de Medici and her Italian courtiers and advisors.)

SteveM wrote: http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2008/0 ... tires.html

This somehow relates to "Wickrams Losbuch" (lot book by Jörg Wickram) from 1539, though this edition seems to be from 1550 and is possibly a variation.

The original of 1550 is here:
http://mdz10.bib-bvb.de/~db/0002/bsb000 ... =1&seite=1

a not complete modern version of the 1539 edition is here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=D01vh0 ... &q&f=false

Some motifs are very near to other motifs in German playing cards.

Marco wrote,

Hello Mike,
I have written that "I feel rather sure that this is not a Tarot deck" and you ask "how do we know that?". Is the difference between "feeling rather sure" and "knowing" unclear?

Yes, clear. I should have asked, "Why do you feel rather sure that this is not a Tarot deck?" Thanks for answering that question.

Marco wrote,

If this is a Tarot deck, we have two problems to solve (I am lazy, so I tend to dismiss the problems that I can easily avoid):

1) we must explain the order in which the court cards are presented (why does the Queen of Cups appears after the King of Coins? should we conclude that the King of Cups appears in the middle of the other three Queens?)

2) we have a mysterious "female Page of Cups". Do we accept the idea that she replaces the standard male page? If we do, why do we reject the idea that the Queen of Cups replaces the King of Cups? If we do not, than this is not strictly Tarot anyway, because we have (at least) 5 Court Cards per suit (male Page, female Page, Knight, Queen, King).

I have two sets of answers. These are not the same answers as I attempted to give earlier. I am a bit lazy in my thinking sometimes.

One set of answers: let us assume that you are right, and it is a standard deck without trumps and 13 cards per suit. How can it be a standard deck, with no queens in three suits, and no king in the other? I thought a standard deck had queens but replaced pages plus knights with jacks.

You say that it is not odd, that "...the suit of Cups could already be interpreted as feminine during the Renaissance." Well, if not odd in a standard deck, then not odd in a tarot, as I shall demonstrate.

(1) The woodblock cutter, working from our left to our right in the bottom row, was following the lead of the previous row. He did a male sovereign of swords, corresponding to the male page of swords above it; then a male sovereign of staves, corresponding to the male page of staves above it; then a male sovereign of coins, corresponding to the nearest other page in the row above; and finally, the female sovereign of cups, corresponding to the female page of cups to our left of the page of coins. Then, since he had run out of room, he put the male sovereign of cups wherever he could, probably with the queens. It didn't matter, since the sheet was going to be cut up anyway. There is no male page of cups, in that suit only, which is confusing to our poor cutter.

(2) (a) We accept the idea that the female page of cups replaces the standard male page. (b) We reject the idea that the Queen of Cups replaces the King of Cups. Explanation: Cups is the suit of the heart, like hearts in the French standard deck. Here, unlike the others, men and women should be represented equally, but the male rules over the female (knights and kings over pages and queens). The other suits, in this deck, are masculine, with queens only by marriage.

So the deck could just as well be a tarot with 16 courts as a non-tarot with 12 courts. It is for us an unusual deck no matter what the rest of the cards are. It may have been unusual then as well, resulting in the cutter's disorderly placement of the king of cups.