The Game Of Law?

1
If you take any deck of the Tarot de Marseille styles- Like Noblet or Grimaud one thing has always stood out to me.
Cards 1 through to 10 Look static and cards 11- 21 + 0 look active.
Cards 1-10 look in the main like portraits.
To me, all the cards look like a 'Game of two Halves'
The 2 highest scoring cards seem to depict two different goals,and each using the same tools to achieve those goals.

So in my usual way of exploring new ways to look at Tarot I offer for you.....
The Game of Law For the Unbaptised and Uncivilised (which makes a person of no count)

Card1 Shows a salesman of some sort and would come under a part of Common Law called Lex Mercatoria.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_mercatoria Money through Taxes went to the State.

Card 2. The Popess could show Canon Law without which the Pope cannot act with Prudence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_law_ ... ic_Church)

Card 3 + 4. Roman Law which is called Corpus Juris Civilas or which parts were written in conjunction with Emperor Justinian's wife Empress Theodora (especially womens rights -like inheritence)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Juris_Civilis
Numerous provisions served to secure the status of Christianity as the state religion of the empire, uniting Church and state, and making anyone who was not connected to the Christian church a non-citizen.
Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodora_( ... stinian_I)
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Card 5 The Pope who here is enacting on a Papal Bull in blessing and sending out his Missionaries to preach the Christian Faith. In fact one Papal Bull was called Cum hora undecima (the 11th Hour) blessing pagan preachers to preach to Pagans provided they were baptised.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_bull.
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Card 6 The Lovers The Laws of Consanguitiy (State) and Affinity (Canon Law)
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http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/ATLAS ... stern.html

Card 7.The Chariot -International Law as spoken by King Antichocus -Jus Gentium
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_gentium

Card 8 Allegory of Justice applied as Christian Virtue and State Virtue
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The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts

Re: The Game Of Law?

2
An aspect I have not mentioned in regards to Card 7- The Chariot- has direct relationship to Card 8- Justice.
Here is an excerpt from Justice on Wikipedia. I might add that Wikipedia has better synopsis than I can do from reading about the History of Law in Medieval times.
Justice as Harmony
In his dialogue Republic, Plato uses Socrates to argue for justice that covers both the just person and the just City State. Justice is a proper, harmonious relationship between the warring parts of the person or city. Hence Plato's definition of justice, is that justice is the having and doing of what is one's own. A just man is a man in just the right place, doing his best and giving the precise equivalent of what he has received. This applies both at the individual level and at the universal level. A person's soul has three parts – reason, spirit and desire. Similarly, a city has three parts – Socrates uses the parable of the chariot to illustrate his point: a chariot works as a whole because the two horses’ power is directed by the charioteer. Lovers of wisdom – philosophers, in one sense of the term – should rule because only they understand what is good. If one is ill, one goes to a doctor rather than a psychologist, because the doctor is expert in the subject of health. Similarly, one should trust one's city to an expert in the subject of the good, not to a mere politician who tries to gain power by giving people what they want, rather than what's good for them. Socrates uses the parable of the ship to illustrate this point: the unjust city is like a ship in open ocean, crewed by a powerful but drunken captain (the common people), a group of untrustworthy advisors who try to manipulate the captain into giving them power over the ship's course (the politicians), and a navigator (the philosopher) who is the only one who knows how to get the ship to port. For Socrates, the only way the ship will reach its destination – the good – is if the navigator takes charge.
So who is charge of the Chariot/Justice in Tarot? Is it someone like a Jurist- because they make the Law understandable- they take Roman Law and Canon Law and translate it for lawyers into the vernacular?
Is it someone like Bartolus de Saxoferrato?
Card 9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolus_de_Saxoferrato
Unfortunately he died young-ish so he is not an old Hermit.
How about Irnerius?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irnerius
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The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts

Re: The Game Of Law?

3
If I was to take this theme of the Law- the last card in the first half we call the Wheel of Fortune is really interesting to me. I said all these cards look static- unmoving- Card 10 is also standing still.
The WOF image is common in all manuscripts- and used to convey different meanings. In Books of Prayer I have seen it illustrate time,Fortune, chaos, reign, seasons, providence,astrology, when is Easter?, and quotes from the bible, and if I searched further I am sure I would find more.
So I take the first most obvious- Fortune.
The Roman Goddess Fortuna,blindly turns the wheel and unforseeable stations of chance throw things into possible chaos. Each persons security or prosperity can be at risk- as can be the good fortune of your family,city,health wealth etc.
To control this seems to be out of each persons reach.
Then there is Providence which may seem chaotic, in that we do not know God's plan- so we live by Faith not chance.
Many people make themselves miserable worrying over the future. They should have more trust in Divine Providence. Let them do the best they can, and leave the rest to God, Who cares for them. Our Lord said, "Look at the birds of the air: they do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you of much more value than they? ... Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or, 'What shall we drink?' or, 'What are we to put on?' for your Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things shall be given you besides" (Matt. 6:26-33).
Saint Catherine of Siena wrote of God's Providence Like this......
O dearest daughter, I have determined to show my mercy and loving kindness to the world, and I choose to provide for mankind all that is good. But man, ignorant, turns into a death-giving thing what I gave in order to give him life. Not only ignorant, but cruel: cruel to himself. But still I go on providing. For this reason I want you to know: whatever I give to man, I do it out of my great providence. ‘So it was that when, by my providence, I created man, I looked into myself and fell in love with the beauty of the creature I had made – for it had pleased me, in my providence, to create man in my own image and likeness.
‘Moreover, I gave man memory, to be able to remember the good things I had done for him and to be able to share in my own power, the power of the eternal Father.
‘Moreover, I gave man intellect, so that, seeing the wisdom of my Son, he could recognise and understand my own will; for I am the giver of all graces and I give them with a burning fatherly love.
‘Moreover, I gave man the desire to love, sharing in the tenderness of the Holy Spirit, so that he might love the things that his intellect had understood and seen.
‘But my kind providence did all this solely that man might be able to understand me and enjoy me, rejoicing in my vision for all eternity.
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Then there is the divine Providence or Fortune to rule.
The Greek Patristics were more likely to stress the connection between the logos as a pattern of rationality inherent in the universe and nomos as the law that establishes that pattern. This led in the to a greater hope that the imperial ruler might be an instrument of God's providence. The Western tradition was just as likely to stress what Augustine would call the two cities: "the City of God" and "the City of Man." Augustine himself argued for the need for rulers to act as a just restraint on human sinfulness, while the church's role was to offer mercy and penitence to the remorseful. (Mitchell)
The WOF seems to me, to be none of the above.
I think this wheel shows that Heresy rules. All the Laws that I have mentioned have at their heart, this problem of hersey and how to deal with it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heresy
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Mathew 12:30 He that is not with me is against me - For there are no neuters in this war. Every one must be either with Christ or against him; either a loyal subject or a rebel. And there are none upon earth, who neither promote nor obstruct his kingdom. For he that does not gather souls to God, scatters them from him.

After Card 10 the images appear to speed up-they all appear to be verbs or 'doing' images.Are they about dealing with the Laws of both City of God and City of the World?
The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts

Re: The Game Of Law?

4
Here are some images that go towards the idea that Tarot looks like a curriculum of Law- both Civil and Canon.
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This above is a law Book and Legal Code written in German c. 1220
This site has title pages of Italian Legal statutes.
http://blogs.law.yale.edu/blogs/rareboo ... fault.aspx


There is a book -a medieval manual called De Disciplina Scholarium (google it I cannot post images)

There is this wonderful manuscript called "The Book of Laws of Ancient Kings" made for the Guildhall of London in 1321 full of wonderful illustrations and statutes and ordinances etc.
Scroll down on this site
http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/dig ... index.html
and there are early flyers explaining curriculum for Universities at the Yale Collection- like the first image on this post.

~Lorredan
The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts