mikeh wrote: 21 Feb 2020, 10:29
What about this for as much as can be said, for trumps above the king: some high figures, Emperors, one up to four, and a Pope, plus some low figures, in the sense of disreputible the Karnoffel, one or more? Anything else, like second in commands? Is the Pope secure?
(From memory only)
In the 1546 document the Karnöffel beats all, possibly even a 7 (devil) according some conditions (? possibly even when the 7 is first card in a trick ?). The devil cannot capture the pope, and the pope cannot capture the devil. Beside that the pope captures all other cards.
That might be a protestantic rule only. It's not clear, what the pope-related rules had been in regions with more catholic dominions (central Switzerland, "Kaisern"). The 1546 text is an attack against the pope. And the text is probably not a complete description of the used rules.
(... perhaps it becomes clear, if I have time to study the Karnöffel documents and rules with more patience, for the moment there is too much confusion cause of too much contradicting inputs)
In your response of 12 Feb in the thread Marziano to the Ludus Triumphorum, to my invocation of Karnoffel as a possible predecessor to the Ludus Triumphorum, another thing I get of relefance is that in the later reference, 1540s, the four Emperors included representatives of the four ancient empires, as in John of Rheinfelden. Is that secure, our your theory?
I've quoted the passage, the four empires are mentioned and it looks as if there are 4 emperors (trump 2-5). With some contrast to the identification of the 4 Kaisers to the 4 banners or 10s, as it appears in Kaisern-descriptions (which occasionally also have some relation to the lower trumps 3-5 or so ... that's all a little bit confusing without further studies).
I still don't know how you get from four emperors to eight emperors, other than that "VIII Imperadori" was the name of a game. Would the other four come from the same empires as the first four? Are they low characters, in the sense of ruffians or deceivers or devils? Or could they be low in the sense of second in command, i.e. second highest? Any females?
The most common deck in the JvR description is 4x13, 3 court cards and 10 numbers. Most common court cards are King, Ober and Unter, Ober and Unter being commonly soldiers. JvR knows also as most spectacular deck a 4x15 deck, in which all number cards present professions, Court cards are Kings, Queens, Ober, Jungfrau, Unter.
Filippo Maria Visconti gets a deck (Michelino-deck), which probably has also 4x15 structure. It has 4 Kings and (probably 4x10=40) number cards and 16 trumps, which are given as 4 groups of 4 cards to the 4 suits. Beside Kings there are no other court cards noted. So there it is necessary to make the conclusion, that the Michelino deck is a 4x15-deck and NOT a deck with 4x11+16 structure, although the trumps.
This deck contains ...
1. Kings, which reign in their domain (their suit), but cannot trump in other suits.
2. Other court cards, which are mutated to trumps
3. Number cards with only small chances to win a trick.
4. This deck (1418-1425) is in time close to the Imperatori note with 8 cards (1423).
Meister Ingold describes two unusual decks in 1432. Both have 52 cards with 3 court cards in each suit, but 8 of the 12 court cards motifs are changed against the usual Ober and Unter cards. One has 4 Kings, 4 Queens and 4 Jungfrauen instead, the second has 4 Kings and 8 professions, The professions are arranged in a row and the decscription of the row gives the suspicion, that the row contains a trump hierarchy. This deck contains ...
points 1.-3. as above
4. The deck (1432) is in time close to the Imperatori note with 8 cards (1423)
Back to JvR and the most common deck with the court cards King, Ober and Unter. We have no examples of these decks, but enough of later times. Ober and Unter have usually a military outfit, occasionally clearly shown as foot- (Unter) and horse-soldier (Ober). "Ober" means "up" or "top" and Unter means "down"or "bottom". The Unter had the suit sign at bottom, the Ober at top and occasionally with a horse to present the idea "high, up, top". So there are optical signs on the cards, which describe the function of them. One of the optical signs is the condition, that the both lower courts are soldiers, which can in trick-taking games be interpreted with "aggressive" cards, in other words, "they can trump". With that we have ...
points 1.-3. as above
4. The deck type (in 1377 mentioned by JvR) is in time not so close to the Imperatori note with 8 cards (1423), but it somehow is part of the base of all trumping systems.
.... will proceed