@Ross:
Ross Caldwell wrote: 14 May 2022, 10:52
apparent earlier evidence for playing cards in Italy is of doubtful value, […]. Playing cards were frequently written later into pre-existing statutes regulating dice and gambling.
The same holds true for Germany, an often overlooked precise analysis of the dating of the earliest evidence of card playing in Berne (Switzerland) to 1367 is undertaken by Hellmut Rosenfeld in
Rosenfeld, H. (1975). Zur Datierbarkeit früher Spielkarten in Europa und im nahen Orient. Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, 1975, p. 353-371
In this article on pages 355-356, he meticulously analyses on a language level that this early date is impossible and that it comes from a later insertion of cards into a pre-existing statute regulating dice and gambling – the text was written in 1398 by Konrad Justinger. He dates Berne cautiously to 1379 by comparison with St. Gallen, which is clearly 1379. [I can give details, if you wish.]
In later articles, at least to my knowledge and understanding, Kopp does not really give a precise counterargument to Rosenfeld’s precise analysis, Kopp circumvents this and seems not to have a scientific objection on this level. So at least I cannot ignore Rosenfeld’s arguments.
A word on Rosenfeld seems to be appropriate: we all know that Rosenfeld is a problem. He makes bizarre statements from time to time, which have no justification. But we have to differentiate: My observation is that he makes these bizzare statements in shortcut moments, so when he sketches a picture he likes to see. However, whenever he does a detailed text analysis, his way of thinking is really straight and clear in my eyes – no wonder, for this he got a professorship, this was his profession.
Perhaps in this context, it might be of interest that he did at least two more of these often overlooked precise text analyses:
First, in
Rosenfeld, H. (1970). Zur Vor-und Frühgeschichte und Morphogenese von Kartenspiel und Tarock. Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 52(1), p. 65-94.
he analyses on p. 69 carefully on the language level the 1371 appearance in Catalania as an entry “na-ip” in the rhyme dictionary of Jaume March. He shows that it has to stem from the French “na-if” and has nothing to do with cards. [ I can give details, if you wish.]
Second, in his article
Rosenfeld, H. (2012). Johannes von Rheinfelden. Verfasser-Datenbank. De Gruyter.
he first shows that JvR is not from Rheinfelden, but from Freiburg, because JvR himself says in his treatise that he is born in Freiburg (f. 165v, Basel version) and that he very probably never left Freiburg (there is no entry of him in the Dominican abbey in Basel). Rosenfeld really read JvR in Latin, Basel version.
This is important because Rosenfeld says shortly after in his article that Master Ingold quoted JvR verbatim in some parts in his 'Guldîn spil' (1432) , but highlighted only the sins according to his topic. [ I can give details, if you wish.]
Together with the reference of Ingold to the earliest appearance of cards to 1300 within the book he read on this topic,
Als ich gelesen han, so ist es kumen in teutsch land des ersten in dem iar da man zalt von crist geburt, tausend, drühundert iar.
[As I did read, it [the game of playing cards; vh0610] first came to Germany in the year which is counted from Christ’s birth as thousand, [plus] threehundred.]
this yields: it is clear that this book Master Ingold read must be JvR’s book in view of verbatim quotation and that hence the 1300 dating is wrong and should be 1377 [perhaps due to the fact that the 7 could easily be mistaken for a 0, as I already mentioned in this very forum].
Whether Rosenfeld’s statement holds true can only be verified if someone can read the first part of JvR’s book in Latin (Rosenfeld points to the first part) and compare that to the respective paragraphs of Master Ingold: either it is verbatim quotation or not. This statement is checkable, we only need an expert who can do this [sorry, I do not read Latin like I drink water. And I do not at all read easily these manuscripts in view of their writing style].
As a final remark and taking up the discussion of Phaeded and Ross: more and more it seems to me, that 1377 is the first year of verified documentation of playing card appearance in Europe, the year Decker’s “flurry” (Decker, 1989) starts for me (for Decker it starts in 1375). In 1377, we have the interdictions in Florence, Siena and Paris (Rosenfeld (1970), op. cit., p. 75; he cites Schreiber and d’Allemagne and work of himself together with an expert of water marks).
Note that in Rosenfeld (1975), op. cit., p. 354 – 355, he gives the latin text of the two (sic!) interdictions in Florence on two subsequent days 23 and 24. March 1377. Rosenfeld concludes (p.355 ) that
[…] so zeigt doch das umständliche Zeremoniell, wie wichtig man im Florentiner Rat die Frage des Spielverbotes nahm. Das Zahlenverhältnis der Abstimmung: 98 Stimmen für, 25 Stimmen gegen das Verbot, erweist, wie schwerwiegend die Gründe für das unpopuläre Verbot waren, wie groß also die schon nach so kurzer Zeit beobachteten Schäden des neuen Spiels waren, dass man von mala principia sprechen musste, offensichtlich weil das Spielen um Geld sich verheerend auf die Finanzkraft der Bürger auswirkte.
Das Spielkartenverbot […] in Florenz vom 23./24.März 1377 ist das erste in Europa nachweisbare, aber von 1377 an zieht sich eine Kette örtlicher Spielkartenverbote durch ganz Europa, so dass man auf Grund dieser Verbote eine lawinenhafte Ausbreitung des Kartenspieles in ganz Europa feststellen kann.
[[...] so the cumbersome ceremonial shows how important the Florentine Council took the question of the gambling ban. The numerical ratio of the voting: 98 votes for, 25 votes against the ban shows how serious the reasons for the unpopular ban were, i.e. how great the damages of the new game was, which were observed after such a short time, that one had to speak of mala principia , obviously because gambling for money had a devastating effect on the financial power of citizens.
The playing card ban [...] in Florence on March 23/24, 1377 is the first verifiable in Europe, but from 1377 onwards a chain of local playing card bans ran through the whole of Europe, so that due to these bans one can ascertain an avalanche of card games throughout Europe.]
In other words: Decker’s “flurry” from his article in 1989 has a predecessor in 1975: an avalanche [earlier, Rosenfeld even spoke about an invasion of cards, the “Spielkarteninvasion” in Rosenfeld, H. (1960). Das Alter der Spielkarten in Europa und im Orient.]
An avalanche is a disruptive event, it starts suddenly and grows rapidly. In this light, I propose to consider that in 1377 we have three bans (Florence, Siena, Paris), but that JvR in 1377 is not a ban, he says clearly that this is the year in which the cards came to Freiburg. The next respective bans of the Freiburg region are Constance and St. Gallen both in 1379. Note that the cards certainly came the main trading route from the European south, which is the waterway of the Rhine, i.e. over Constance and the Lake of Constance. St. Gallen is not far away from Constance, approx. 45km and also lies more or less at the Lake of Constance. Hence: It takes approximately between 1 and 2 years between appearance of cards and their ban, at least in the Constance/Upper Rhine region including Freiburg.
This can be the basis for a shorter interpolation: it is max. two years between the arrival of cards and a respective ban (under the assumption of the same effects of card playing in Southern and Northern Europe).
Considering now that the ban 1377 in Florence is based on “how great the damages of the new game was, which were observed after such a short time, that one had to speak of
mala principia”, we can also deduce that the Florence ban is undertaken after not too long time of arrival of the cards to Florence. This is probably due to the fact that the novelty of cards is the secret resulting from the two sides of the cards, and its position between chess and dices. This novelty leads to an avalanche, shocklike. Velocity is high in the evolution.
Based on the above arguments: I propose to combine the max. 2 years of the Freiburg region together with the Florence information on 1377 and to conclude: we should date the arrival of cards in Europe as no earlier than 1375, better 1376.
