French Queens

1
Hi friends!

In german decks we have 3 men (könig, ober, unter). In Italian, 3 men (re, cavallo, fante). In spanish too (rey, caballo, sota). But in french decks exist 1 woman (roi, dame, valet).

As Dummett said, all tarot decks we know have a queen.

Do you think that the French cards included a queen through the influence of tarot?
When a man has a theory // Can’t keep his mind on nothing else (By Ross)

Re: French Queens

2
mmfilesi wrote:Hi friends!

In german decks we have 3 men (könig, ober, unter). In Italian, 3 men (re, cavallo, fante). In spanish too (rey, caballo, sota). But in french decks exist 1 woman (roi, dame, valet).

As Dummett said, all tarot decks we know have a queen.

Do you think that the French cards included a queen through the influence of tarot?
The decks, which were known to Johannes of Rheinfelden (1377), knew already a queen. The earliest German decks (somehow recognizable as "court decks", beginning 1427) did know a queen, others in 15th century followed. However, it has to be observed, that perhaps 7/8 of the observable German normal production in 16th/17th century followed the 3-male composition, which seems to say, that the German decks normally operated without queens.

Generally it's observable, that "French women" were dominant in France in the period of French king Charles VI. (1380) and also in the begin of Charles VII (1429 - 1461). Christine de Pizan became the "first feminist" around 1400. Somehow the terminus "Dame France" formed c. 1420, somehow possibly connected to Alain Cartier, who made a poem about "4 ladies". Similar signs of women liberation somehow are missing elsewhere, although it seems true, that Southern European countries (Spain, Italy) are Macho countries and rights for women were better developed in Northern countries).
This might have corresponded to Queens in early normal decks in France, whereby it seems likely, that the common usual normal German deck had more 3-male structure - although als queens are known in cheap decks. Court decks probably were more or less everywhere "with Queen".

Compare: http://trionfi.com/0/p/25/

Ingold knew a deck with kings and two female court cards and found that disgusting.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: French Queens

3
Yes, Huck. Perfect, thanks (again).

Some doubts:

There was also a feminist literature in Italy. See, for example, De claris mulieribus, of Boccaccio (inspired in Petrarch and in Ovid's Heroides). In Spain, despite being a country "Macho", there was queen Elizabeth, which led the movement of the "strong queen" in chess. Pizan write her City of Ladies as reaction a very strong misogyny in the literature of his time (as the Roman de la Rose)...

However, only France has queens in the normal cards and only in the tarot's deck is queens outside France. I don't know, but maybe in France left the queens under the influence of tarot.

Do we know any normal deck France made before c. 1450?
When a man has a theory // Can’t keep his mind on nothing else (By Ross)

Re: French Queens

4
mmfilesi wrote:Yes, Huck. Perfect, thanks (again).

Some doubts:

There was also a feminist literature in Italy. See, for example, De claris mulieribus, of Boccaccio (inspired in Petrarch and in Ovid's Heroides). In Spain, despite being a country "Macho", there was queen Elizabeth, which led the movement of the "strong queen" in chess. Pizan write her City of Ladies as reaction a very strong misogyny in the literature of his time (as the Roman de la Rose)...

However, only France has queens in the normal cards and only in the tarot's deck is queens outside France. I don't know, but maybe in France left the queens under the influence of tarot.

Do we know any normal deck France made before c. 1450?
We had in France the concrete development, that Isabelle and Valentine filled the vacuum, which was created by the sick king Charles VI. This was time of social change,
Much earlier we had the development, that the rather free thinking Eleanor of Aquitaine exchanged her French husband against an English. Later the English husband set her in prison, but she survived him and kept some influence. The English approach to the French throne, which did lead to the 100-years-war, was based on a female succession, developing with the situation of 1328, when the old French line of kings died off.
So it seems plausible, that for this early time England had more rights for women than France. Later in 16th century it was possible, that Queens reigned in England, which was never possible in France, although occasionally they had female regents.

In Germany poetry took a strong aspect of Minne, which strengthened the female role.

In Spain and Italy we observe, that women were killed in processes of adultery (Parisina, Beatrice de Tender, and others). Pero Tafur, a Spanish traveller around 1435, called this rule and behavior "excellent" in Genua, and admired this.
Generally European chess had a queen, which didn't appear in Asiatic countries ... some sign of more rights for women. But the queen was a weak figure.

Who is queen Elizabeth? Queen Isabella? Well, she's late.
Italy took a strong development during 15th century. Italy produced a dominant woman in Isabella d'Este then.

When Boccaccio wrote, we had Anjou on the throne in Naples and Naples got a Johanna I. and a Johanna II. at the throne, both for a longer period ... and Naples had Hungarian influences (where also the Anjou reigned).

No, we're rather blind about early French cards. But we have concrete figures (LaHire, Jeanne d'Arc) of the 1430's period in the French court card system, so it might be assumed, that this system was born then, though surviving cards seem to be younger.

The "neuf preux" appeared first in the region Luxembourg and Brabant (1312), likely for the German Emperor Henry VII of Luxembourg, they developed in Germany with Emperor Charles IV (grandon of Henry; earlier) and in the region of Northern France (around late 14th century). Likely in France they got a female counter, the "neuf preuse" ... and it might be called popular in the youth of French king Charles VI. It seems relative obvious, that this system influenced the French court card system. Well, "with Queens", and somehow the early relevant female persons had the names Isabeaux of Bavaria and Valentina Visconti.

The later emperor Sigismondo got the Hungary kingdom as son of Charles IV ... but by the marriage with an Anjou princess. Sigismondo's second wife Barbara of Cillin ...

Image


... was a strong woman, who often reigned in Hungary in the absence of her husband and who had a solid background in her relations to local rulers, which helped the "foreign king" Sigismondo.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: French Queens

5
Yes, Huck. Great post

Also, for France, I think we should take into account the tradition of courtly love (born in Aquitaine). In some sense, is a revaluation of women.

The general situation is also explained by historical tradition. In Spain, the Arab presence influenced in the bad consideration of women. In northern Europe influenced by the Viking culture (very feminist, at least for the time), we have a better situation.

In Italy we have some idea of matriarchy since Roman times, although its very relative. In any case, figures like Petrarch's Laura and Dante's Beatrice also speak of the women " whit power".

****

In any case, although the French deck have queens for their own development, is likely they have been lost, as succeeded in German deck, if the tarot don't exist.
When a man has a theory // Can’t keep his mind on nothing else (By Ross)

Re: French Queens

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Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:There is also Isabelle of Lorraine, wife of René d'Anjou, who ruled Naples as Queen in René's absence (he was being kept prisoner) from 1435-1438.

I am relating this from memory, so the details may not be exactly correct.
Renee's mother had been an important female person, especially for Charles VII. Renee's wife is a generation later, and I would think, that the dominant role of French women developed earlier (when the official male rulers were in a bad state). This social movement (since Christine de Pizan in ca. 1402) was crowned with Jeanne d'Arc in 1429 ... after her it seems, that the "normal situation" (male dominance) had been reestablished, the king was strong again.

Female dominance we find then in Savoy, where the male part is weak, and a princess from Cyprus had the last word in important matters. This period led to a Savoy wife for Louis XI and Bona of Savoy in Milan, both in her person not so strong examples, though Bona was for some a weak reigning duchess in Milan.

This earlier strong women from Savoy repeated later in the ladies peace of Cambrai 1529 with another strong Savoy woman participating ... then Francois I of France was rather weak, and the Savoy princess was his mother).
Earlier Anne de Beaujeu (grand daughter of princess of Cyprus) became French regent for some time, Bianca Maria Sforza (another grand daughter) became a weak empress.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: French Queens

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The neuf preuses (wikipedia)
In the late 14th century, groups of female Worthies are sometimes seen, but usually not individualized, and all shown as Amazon-type warriors.

Eustache Deschamps to the neuf preux adds neuf preuses (women), including Penthesilea, Tomyris and Semiramis. Together with their male counterparts, they precede Henry VI as he enters Paris in 1431, and figure in Le Jouvencel (1466). The list of preuses was however less fixed, and not always structured in pagan, Jewish and Christian triads. Thomas III of Saluzzo[3] has: Deiphille, Iynoppe, Hippolyte, Menalyppe, Semiramis, Lampetho, Thamarys, Theuca, Penthésilée.

A very fine set of Siennese 15th century panel paintings, attributed to the Master of the Griselda Legend and others, now incomplete and widely dispersed, showed male and female worthies - the remaining paintings were reunited in a 2007 exhibition at the National Gallery, London.[4]

In the German Renaissance, there was an attempt by Hans Burgkmair to establish a set of female worthies grouped like their male counterparts. He made a set of six woodcuts, each showing three of the "Eighteen Worthies". In addition to the usual males, his prints showed:

* Pagan: Lucretia, Veturia and Virginia
* Jewish: Esther, Judith and Jael
* Christian: Saints Helena, Bridget of Sweden and Elizabeth of Hungary

Burgkmair was in touch with Augsburg Renaissance Humanist circles, who may have helped choose the group. Apart from Veturia, mother of Coriolanus, who tried to save Rome from defeat by her son, the other pagan two were examples of chastity, responsible for no heroic acts except their defence of their own virtue. In contrast, two of the Jewish women, Judith and Jael, are known for their personal assassination of leaders opposed to Israel. Judith carries a sword in one hand and Holofernes's severed head in the other, and Jael carries the mallet with which she hammered a peg in the head of Sisera. The "Power of Women" and female violence was an interest of German artists at the time, and both Lucas van Leyden and Albrecht Altdorfer made prints of Jael in the act.

The Christian trio of saints, all very popular in Germany at the time, are all women who had been married - Bridget became an abbess as a widow. In addition, like three of the male Worthies, Elizabeth of Hungary was an ancestor of Burgkmair's patron Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, and Helena was a Roman Empress. Unlike the other two groups, who all face each other, apparently in conversation, these three all look down, and may illustrate the female virtue of silence.[5] Burgkmair's conception was not very widely followed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Worth ... e_Worthies

Bonus:
MaestroManta_ProdiEroine_Manta.jpg MaestroManta_ProdiEroine_Manta.jpg Viewed 10587 times 83.08 KiB
MaestroManta ProdiEroine Manta.jpg
A fresco from the Baronial Hall of the Castello della Manta in Northern Italy, whose frescoes were painted by an anonymous master craftsmen and finished shortly after 1420
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Ma ... _Manta.jpg
When a man has a theory // Can’t keep his mind on nothing else (By Ross)

Re: French Queens

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The oldest known neuf preux are here in Cologne, possibly between 1350-70, possibly earlier. In the city council.



Cologne was important for emperor Charles IV, that's the reason. As a Luxemburger Charles IV (though mainly in Prague) had close relation to the Northern France region, which itself had close nearness to the Brabant region.
That's the region, where the Neuf preux spread. Cologne - Netherlands, that are about 80 km, not more.

From the 7 Kurfürsten with the right to chose the Roman king, three were the arch bishops of Cologne, Mainz and Trier. These 3 cities are close to each other (look at a map), actually they are only a small region of that, what is now and earlier understood as "Germany". Cologne and Trier had been the most important Roman cities. Chlodwig had fought a major battle in Zülpich, that is maybe 25 km distance to Cologne. Charlemain had his center in Aachen, which is about 75 km from Cologne, another in Ingelheim , which is near to Mainz. This all had been a powerful region, thanks to the river Rhein, where all the trade took place, and very good agriculture possibilities around Cologne, where the region more or less is flat. The center of Luxembourg is very near to Trier.

A powerful center in the past: The Romans reigned in their German region often from Cologne. From here the German empire expanded towards the East. In the development the emperor took his seat in the East at various locations, mainly in Bohemia and Austria, much later in Berlin, but the old center had been here. After WWII the center dropped for some time back near to Cologne, to Bonn (25 km distance from Cologne).

So Emperor Charles VI had from the older connections a clear interest in the region, when he started to be an emperor.

Well, his grand-grandfather had died in the battle of Worringen (1288), that's here, near to Cologne, when the current Cologne arch bishop had trouble with the Cologne citizens. The grand-grandfather had an error and fought on the wrong side (against the citizens, with the arch bishop), so he was dead after the battle and the citizens reached some independence (and the arch bishop was disallowed to enter the city mostly).

His grandfather became surprisingly German king (1308) and emperor (1312) and died (1313) in Italy. It seems likely, that the work of Jacques de Longuyon of Lorraine, Les Voeux du paon (The Vows of the Peacock), written for Thibaut de Bar, bishop of Liège in 1312, actually were done for the crowning ceremony in Rome. Thibaut of Bar died there, too, in 1312 already.
"Les Voeux du paon" is the origin of the nine worthies. Actually the poet was unlucky, cause his sponsor died, but later (in the 1330's till 1340's) Baldouin from Luxembourg, arch bishop of Trier, engaged strongly for the Luxembourg dynasty in Bohemia and caused to a good part, that Charles IV became emperor against a still existing, but often disputed emperor, Ludwig IV. of Bavaria. It seems, that the new popularity of the "Les Voeux du paon" played its certain role around this time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin_of_Luxembourg

One has to remember, that one of the 9 figures of the neuf preux, Godfrey of Bouillon, was from the perspective of a bishop of Liege a "local hero", similar Charlemain had been chosen from the "neighborhood" (the distance Aachen - Liege is short)

The idea of the neuf preux was political propaganda for a new emperor (partly Henry VII, partly Charles IV.), and this new man was backed up with the proud background of famous other examples.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: French Queens

10
Do you know, I like the courtly love theory. All that French chivalric impetus--what better way to incorporate it into more mundane matters and symbols than Queens on cards?

Perhaps I am too romantic (or simplistic), but I thought that made the most sense since this sensibility also enveloped the art and literature of the time.
cron