Collection John of Rheinfelden
Posted: 29 May 2016, 10:26
An early contribution (2003) to the JvR theme was ...
http://trionfi.com/0/p/10/
... based on the article of Arne Jönssen in Schweizer Spielkarten (1998), Die Anfänge im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert
https://books.google.de/books?id=65UkAQ ... UQ6AEIQjAE
Michael J. Hurst (2012) added ...
http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.de/2012/03/ ... ribus.html
In 2015 one of the JvR-copies was detected online. This led to some discussions:
From viewtopic.php?f=11&t=345&hilit=rheinfel ... 250#p16440
http://trionfi.com/0/p/10/
... based on the article of Arne Jönssen in Schweizer Spielkarten (1998), Die Anfänge im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert
https://books.google.de/books?id=65UkAQ ... UQ6AEIQjAE
Michael J. Hurst (2012) added ...
http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.de/2012/03/ ... ribus.html
In 2015 one of the JvR-copies was detected online. This led to some discussions:
From viewtopic.php?f=11&t=345&hilit=rheinfel ... 250#p16440
From viewtopic.php?f=11&t=345&hilit=rheinfel ... 250#p16442Huck wrote:John of Rheinfelden's text is online in the Basel edition of 1429. "Online since 06/25/2015".
http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/one/ubb/F-IV-0043
According ...F IV 43
Manuscript Title:
Johannes von Rheinfelden, Tractatus de moribus et disciplina humanae conversationis: id est ludus cartularum moralisatus
Caption: Paper · 190 ff. · 21 x 15 cm · Basel · 1429
[190 Folio pages]
Language: Latin
Manuscript Summary: In his extensive Tractatus de moribus et disciplina humanae conversationis, the oldest description of playing cards known in Europe, Johannes von Rheinfelden explains not only the rules of play, but in addition he explicates the characters of the figures as well as the entire social order, based on the relation of the cards to one another. Konrad Schlatter, since 1428 confessor and later prior of the cloister of the Dominican nuns St. Maria Magdalena “in den Steinen”, left this treatise to the sisters for their moral edification. (gam/flr)
http://www.altbasel.ch/dossier/prostitution.html
... the cloister of the Dominican nuns St. Maria Magdalena “in den Steinen” had been an installation for earlier prostitutes (at least in the beginning of the order).
Rudolf of Worms got the allowance to build the Order of the Magdalenarinnen in the year 1227. Short after this the cloister in Basel was founded.Die Frauen klagten ihm [Rudolf of Worms] ihre Not und versicherte, dass sie nicht aus Bosheit sondern aus Not diesem Broterwerb nachgingen. Gäbe er ihnen Obdach und Nahrung, dann wären sie gerne bereit sich nicht länger als Prostituierte zu verdingen. [1] Er war nicht der erste Geistliche der sich dieser Thematik annahm. Bereits der Gründer des Ordens der Prediger, der heilige Dominikus (eigentlich Domingo de Guzmán, ca 1170-1221), hatte 1215 ein Reuerinnenkloster gegründet.
In diesem bald wieder aufgelösten Frauenkonvent sollten bekehrte Dirnen unter der Aufsicht der Dominikaner ein gottgefälliges Leben führen. Diesem Gedanken folgend, gründete Rudolf den Orden der Magdalenerinnen, der im [b]Juni 1227[/b] den Segen von Papst Gregor IX. (ca 1167-1241) erhielt. [2] Die Patronin des Ordens war die heilige Maria Magdalena, die bekehrte Sünderin aus dem neuen Testament. Kurze Zeit später wurde in Basel ein Kloster dieses Ordens gegründet.
German Wiki states, that Rudolf founded the order in Worms first. The article says, that this happened in the year 1224. Strassburg followed 1225, Basel is noted for 1230.
An interesting detail in the article:The pimps ["Frauenwirte"] in Basel got the duty to carry a yellow "Kugelhut" (ball-hat or globe-hat). The hat was decorated with 3 dice (? pictures of dice or real dice). This was ruled (likely) in 1417.Die Frauenwirte könnten wegen ihrer Vermögen vornehm auftreten. Niemand könne äusserlich erkennen was für Leute sie wirklich seien. Der Rat beschloss daher, das innerhalb von zwei Wochen jeder diese Herren einen gelben Kugelhut mit drei aufgenähten Spielwürfeln zu tragen hätten. Wer sich dem widersetzte, sollte der Stadt verwiesen werden. [53] Die Kennzeichnung von Randgruppen über verordnete Kleidung war im Mittelalter üblich, wie auch das Beispiel der Juden belegt.
The person of Konrad Schlatter is described here:
http://www.hls-dhs-dss.ch/textes/d/D12949.php?topdf=1***************Schlatter, Konrad
Died 1458 Basel, Kloster St. Maria Magdalena an den Steinen in Basel, vermutlich von Basel. S. ist
wahrscheinlich identisch mit dem 1393 erw. Dominikaner Conrad Slader aus dem observanten Colmarer
Predigerkonvent und nicht mit dem gleichnamigen, 1424 bezeugten Kaplan am Basler Münster. Eine
Schwester von S. war Nonne im reformierten Kloster an den Steinen, wo S. ab 1428 als Beichtvater, ab 1433
als Vikar wirkte. S. beteiligte sich 1429 an der Reform des Predigerkonvents in Basel und 1439 an jener des
Berner Dominikanerinnenklosters St. Michael in der Insel. Er war 1435-36, 1439, 1443, 1445, 1447-48 und
1454 Prior des Basler Konvents. Mehrere Predigten von S. sind überliefert.
The text of the online edition is difficult to read, I would say.
From viewtopic.php?f=11&t=345&hilit=rheinfelden&start=260Huck wrote:Jönssen has only quotes, no page numbers. So the search might be difficult.Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:Thank you very much for this notice, Huck.
It is a pity that the book cannot be downloaded entirely - only one page at a time.
Yes, it is difficult to read. I am impatient for Arne Jönsson's edition. Perhaps in the meantime we can use his notes in Schweizer Spielkarten I to find images of the pages he refers to.
I've looked up the pages, which look unusual, either for red starting letters, paintings or free place ...
176r
171r
167r
160v
157v
153v
145r
134r
120r
117v
117r
104v
81v
65r
38r
28v
28r
27v
25v
16r
12v
10r
7v
4r
3r
1r
Perhaps it's possible to realize a sort of "content". John was translated by Bond ...
Maybe there are 3 parts, and the first has six chapters. The last of these 6 chapters treats the number 60 ... at 28v, 28r and 27v are curious paintings, which look, as if he talks there about the number 60.And in this treatise I propose to do three things: first, to describe the game of cards in itself, as to the matter and mode of playing it; second, to moralize the game, or teach noblemen the rule of life; and third, to instruct the people themselves, or inform them of the way of labouring virtuously. Wherefore it seemed to me that the present treatise ought to be entitled 'De Moribus et Disciplina Humane Conversationis.' For the first part will have six chapters. In the first will be stated the subject of the game and the diversity of instruments. In the second will be set forth that in this game there is a moral action of virtues and vices. In the third it will be suggested that it is of service for mental relief and rest to the tired. In the fourth it will be shown that it is useful for idle persons, and may be a comfort to them. In the fifth will be treated the state of the world, as it is, in respect to morals. In the sixth will be demonstrated the aliquot parts of the number sixty, and the properties of numbers.
Bond notes in this context ...This sentence " de materia .." appears at 3r in red.The first chapter treats "de materia ludi et de diversitate instrutnentorum," and contains all that directly bears upon the game. It is as follows:
Michael's presentations to the text ...
Michael J. Hurst
Brother John's Tractatus de Moribus
http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.de/2012/03/ ... ribus.html
also at bottom of page (February 6, 2010 Addendum: History of Playing-Cards; original article of E.A. Bond)
http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.de/2009/01/ ... death.html
From viewtopic.php?f=11&t=345&hilit=rheinfel ... 260#p16458Huck wrote:I've collected the quotes, which are used by Joenssen. In the text they are given as footnotes.
*********
for the title etc.
**********
**********
*********
**********
The passage gives additionally the very interesting note, that the 5 court cards in the 60-cards-deck are connected to the numbers 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15.
The third quote contains the word triumphum.
**********
**********
**********
a poem mentioned in the text
**********
Three other passages are of special interest.
1.
Joenssen speaks of card decks with 52, 60 and 72 cards.
However in the opening of the text (as translated by Bond) there is spoken of various decks with 52 cards, of a deck with cards and of the possibility to play with 5 kings or 6 kings. 5 kings would lead 5x13 cards, so totally 65, 6 kings to 6x13 cards, so totally 78.
It's not clear, where Joenssen got his 72 cards from.
2.
Joenssen (likely in the context of the 60 card decks, but possibly of all the cards, that Johannes knew) notes 4 kingdoms, Babylonia, Persia, Macedonia-Greece and the Roman Empire.
Babylonia has the head of a man as symbol (possibly the well known suit-sign Coins), the Greek has bells (a known suit sign in German-Swiss decks), the Roman king has an eagle (possibly the suit sign Shields, also known in Switzerland). The fourth sign Johannes cannot recognize, he points to a picture, which is only documented by a "free place".
So possibly one finds the passage close to a "free place" in the Basel edition.
It isn't clear to me, if these specified kings (inclusive therei suit signs) appeared in all decks, or only in the 60-cards-deck.
The Liechtenstein'sche Spiel had probably 5 suits: Swords, Polo-Sticks, Cups, Coins, Shields. Polo-Sticks might have been difficult to identify, cause the game Polo possibly wasn't known very well in the region of Johannes. Possibly this was the 4th suit sign.
3.
That's the passage with the professions, which seems to be discussed intensively by Johannes. Joenssen doesn't clearly say, that the cards presented the professions on the cards, but a plausible solution would be, that Johannes knew professions from the 60-cards-deck and transported the idea to the normal card decks with only multiplied suit signs.
Johannes - according Joenssen - presented the professions in groups, so the baker was connected to the miller and the farmer. The logical idea would be, that there were groups of 4, but Joenssen doesn't say so. He speaks of "nearly 40 professions" and that's confusing, cause it should be precisely 40 professions (or some professions appeared "doubled", as it is the case in the Hofämterspiel.
Anyway, John of Rheinfelden might have "created the profession deck" by his consideration instead describing a deck with professions ... I don't know. Joenssen is not clear in this point.
mikeh wrote:Huck wrote:Here is John, as translated by Bond (http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.de/2012/03/ ... ribus.html)Joenssen speaks of card decks with 52, 60 and 72 cards.
However in the opening of the text (as translated by Bond) there is spoken of various decks with 52 cards, of a deck with cards and of the possibility to play with 5 kings or 6 kings. 5 kings would lead 5x13 cards, so totally 65, 6 kings to 6x13 cards, so totally 78.
It's not clear, where Joenssen got his 72 cards from.I think that with five kings, each with his marshall (and no other court cards) we have 5x12 = 60 cards total.There are also others who so dispose the cards or the game that there are two kings, with their ' marschalli' and other cards, and two queens with theirs in the same manner. Again, some take five, others six kings, each with his 'marschalli' and his other cards, according as it pleases them, and thus the game is varied in form by many. Also, there are some who make the game with four kings and eight ' marschalli' and the other common cards, and add besides four queens with four attendants, so that each of those four kings, with all the family of the whole kingdom, speaking of the chief persons, is there, and the number of the cards will then be sixty.
With six kings, we have 6x12=72 cards total.
The last deck described is 4 suits, each with 1 king, 2 'marschalli", 1 queen, and 1 queen's attendant = 15 cards per suit, and 15x4=60.
Huck wrote:The Bond translation speaks of decks with 13 cards for each suit, not of decks with 12 cards for each suit. The only exception is the 60-cards-deck, which has 5 court cards for each suit, so a 4x15 deck, not a 5x12 deck as you suggested. "four kings and eight ' marschalli'" tells, that there were two marshalls in each suit, not one.mikeh wrote: I think that with five kings, each with his marshall (and no other court cards) we have 5x12 = 60 cards total.
With six kings, we have 6x12=72 cards total.
The last deck described is 4 suits, each with 1 king, 2 'marschalli", 1 queen, and 1 queen's attendant = 15 cards per suit, and 15x4=60.
Joenssen couldn't have his 72-card deck from the opening, which was translated by Bond. Perhaps it appears in the later text.
mikeh wrote:Huck wroteHere is the Bond quote again, broken down into parts:The Bond translation speaks of decks with 13 cards for each suit, not of decks with 12 cards for each suit. The only exception is the 60-cards-deck, which has 5 court cards for each suit, so a 4x15 deck, not a 5x12 deck as you suggested. "four kings and eight ' marschalli'" tells, that there were two marshalls in each suit, not one.This would be a deck with four suits, each with 2 court cards, i.e. 12 cards in a suit, for 48 cards total. Two of the suits have 1 king and one marschall, the other two have 1 queen and one marschall. If the kings had had two marschalls, John would have said so, as he does later.There are also others who so dispose the cards or the game that there are two kings, with their ' marschalli' and other cards, and two queens with theirs in the same manner.These would be 5 or 6 suits, each with 2 court cards, so 12 cards in a suit, for 60 or 72 cards total.Again, some take five, others six kings, each with his 'marschalli' and his other cards, according as it pleases them, and thus the game is varied in form by many.
Here is where he talks about 2 marshalls per king. He makes it explicit because it is different from his previous cases. This deck, as we agree, would be 4 suits with 15 cards per suit, and 60 cards total.Also, there are some who make the game with four kings and eight ' marschalli' and the other common cards, and add besides four queens with four attendants, so that each of those four kings, with all the family of the whole kingdom, speaking of the chief persons, is there, and the number of the cards will then be sixty.
The "four kings and eight 'marschalli'" phrase only goes with the one deck, the last one, the one with 15 cards per suit. At least that's how I expect that Joenssen read it, and it is the natural way to read it, if you read carefully. Unless of course it is Bond who wasn't careful, and he mistranslated.
Admittedly, Dummett in Game of Tarot did not read John that way. Assuming Bond is accurate, it seems that he imposed his own idea of what a German deck should look like (and before that, a Mamluk deck) onto the text, if I may be so bold as to say so. I think that Joenssen is pretty careful, if he's preparing a critical edtion, and I suspect that this is where he gets his 72 card deck from; it's just that Brother John didn't anticipate our 20th and 21s5 century misinterpretations. But if you find 72 card decks later in Joenssen's edition, please tell us.
According to Hurst (http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.de/2012/03/ ... ribus.html), who says his source is trionfi.com, Joennsen notices details in the text that show fairly conclusively that the date is authentically 1377, If so, Dummett's argument about the multiplicity of variations tends to support your claim that playing cards were introduced into Europe, or at least the German lands and elsewhere in central Europe, considerably before 1377, because, according to Hurst, Dummett concludes that it is not believable “that such a range of variations on the original form should have developed within a year or two of the introduction or invention of the playing-card pack.” Also, if Mamluk decks really did have two marshalls per suit in the 14th century (as opposed to what is in the 16th century deck in Istanbul), it suggests that Brother John's decks ,au mpt have derived from the Mamluks'.
Huck wrote:There is a passage before, which doesn't relate to the 60-cards-deck (the 60 card wasn't mentioned there). "Two marschalli" for each king, described with the later relative common design, that one has the suit symbol at the top and the other below.In the game which men call the game of cards, they paint the cards in different manners, and they play with them in one way and another. The common form, as it first came to us, is thus: Four kings are depicted on four cards, each of whom sits on a royal throne. And each one holds a certain sign in his hand, of which signs some are reputed good and others signify evil. Under the kings are two marschalli, the first of whom holds the sign upwards in his hand, in the same manner as the king; but the other holds the same sign downward in his hand.
13 cards, not 12, for each suit. 52 cards with 4 suits, 65 with 5 and 78 with 6.
All this was before 2016.mikeh wrote:I see your point. Although the part you quote was for a different deck, in the flow of the narrative, since he doesn't say otherwise, it would seem that there are indeed two marschalli for each king. When he says "two kings, with their ' marschalli'", unless he explains otherwise, he means the same number of marschalli for each king as he said before. It is a little odd that he doesn't use the same type of phrase later ("four kings, with their marschalli", instead of "four kings, and eight marschalli"); but perhaps by then, since there are other court cards in that deck, he feels the need to be more specific.
It still may be that Joenssen reads the "two kings, with their 'marschalli" in the way I was interpreting it, since the numbers then come out in Joenssen's way. That's all I know, that the numbers work. Perhaps Joenssen has more of an explanation somewhere, in relation to that text. After all, we are dealing with a copy, not the original. A "critical edition" might have revealed something about redactions in this specific part, (about the "two kings and their marschalli", not anything else). Also, I haven't seen the Latin (not that I know that language!). Or indeed, as you say, he is referring to another passage, later, that we don't know about. It would be good to know what Joenssen's reference is to, and what his "critical edition" says about the passage in question. Quite bit hinges on interpolations, in these 15th century copies of earlier accounts.
Bond's whole article is worth reading in its entirety (as you no doubt have). It is in the Jan. 19, 1878, issue of the Athenaeum, pp. 87-88, at
https://books.google.com/books?id=DWJIA ... us&f=false
I give that link because Hurst's doesn't get you to the page. You have to think of a good search word, such as "moribus", that doesn't bring up mostly irrelevancies, or else have Game of Tarot at hand to look in. In the article, Bond has a good defense of why even though what we have is a 15th century copy, the 1377 date is accurate. Dummett doesn't mention this defense, essentially the same as Joenssen's.
I still think that one thing in particular that Dummett says is worth thinking about. that if the date 1377 is correct--as it certainly seems to be--hen these multitudinous variations suggest that playing cards weren't introduced just a little before that. but a decade or so before. In the next paragraph, admittedly, he argues against that suggestion, noting that John says,The "as it first came to us" implies that the variations didn't come to John's region until after the "common form" came, and earlier he says that cards came to his region only within the same year. So this seems to imply, for Dummett, that the variations were in fact all developed in the space of one year, as dubious as this might seem. However it seems to me that this implication is not necessarily there. John might be meaning that the "common form" came first, and then, after the game proved popular, the variations, all from some other region. Dummett also objects that it is strange that we wouldn't hear anything of these missing two decades, when the documents are plentiful enough afterwards. If the documents are from a different region, however, it is not so strange. Other regions suffered more greatly from the ravages of war over the next few centuries than those from which we have reports. and perhaps were less concerned about recording the presence of playing cards.. Anyway, now we have Hubsch, and the other references you found. It is understandable that these can't be confirmed by accounts at the time. We don't even have the original of John.For the common form and as it first came to us is thus, viz. four kings are depicted on four cards, each of whom sits on a royal throne. And each one holds a certain sign in his hand, of which signs some are reputed good, but others signify evil. Under which kings are two ' marschalli,'..."
It seems to me worth copying the entire passage on John from Dummett, since its arguments are all probably affected by Joenssen's recent work and your own. You probably have it already, but this is so our readers, if there are any, will be privy to the same information. Here it is (Game of Tarot pp. 11-12). It is rather long. If you would prefer it in the "Bohemia" thread, let me know and I will move it.Most of these early references tell us no more than that card playing occurred in the given area at the time in question; some record the purchase of a pack or the playing of a game, and many are city ordinances banning the playing of various games, particularly dice and cards. One of the earliest, however, the celebrated treatise Tractatus de moribus el disciplina humanae conversationis, written in Basle in 1377 by a Dominican friar by the name of John (usually known, probably wrongly, as John of Rheinfelden), gives an actual description of the pack as known to its author, though not of any of the games played with it. From this we learn that the structure of the pack was essentially what it is now. There were four suits, each with its own suit-sign; each suit consisted of 13 cards, divided into ten numeral cards and three court cards. The numeral cards were distinguished, just as now, by the number of repetitions of the suit-sign. The court cards consisted of a seated King and a higher and lower ‘Marshal’, each holding his suit-sign in his hand. (This last detail tallies with the practice in many of the earliest surviving packs, and in some of the later ones). The two Marshals were distinguished by the fact that the "higher one held his suit-sign aloft, w'hile the lower one held it hanging down from his hand: these were, evidently, then, the Swiss or German Ober and Unter. Brother John unfortunately does not indicate what suit-signs were used. These cards would, of course, have been single-headed: double-headed ones did not come in until the eighteenth century, and were adopted, for various standard patterns, only very slowly (for the Anglo-American one, only after 1850); indeed, some standard patterns use single-headed cards to this day. They would also have lacked indices: these appeared haphazardly as early as the fifteenth century, but were never placed in the corners, and were seldom used systematically, until the modern practice was [start of right column] introduced by American card manufacturers in the 1870s; it, too, has yet to spread to all standard patterns. But, in essentials, save for the use of Ober and Unter instead of Queen and Jack, and, wc can be sure, save also for the suitsigns, the pack described by John of Rheinfelden in the earliest year from which wc have any mention of playing cards in Europe was exactly the same as our modern English pack. (2)
The evidence thus strongly suggests that there was no long period of evolution at the end of which the playing-card pack as wc know it emerged, but, on the contrary, that, a matter of at most a very few years before 1377, the pack was either invented or introduced from elsewhere, in a fully developed form, and immediately spread over a wide area of Europe. This impression is reinforced by the fact that two of the very early sources - John of Rheinfelden writing in 1377 and the Chronicles of Viterbo referring to the year 1379 - explicitly state that playing cards had been introduced into their areas in the very year in question, while the Valencia edict of 1384 refers to them as ‘a new game’, and the earliest reference of all, the Florentine edict of 1377, speaks of them as ‘newly introduced in these parts’.(3) There are also well-known arguments from silence. Petrarch’s De remediis utriusque fortunae (1366) discusses a number of games but says nothing about playing cards; a Paris ordinance of 1369 forbids numerous games, but does not mention card games, although one of 1377 was to forbid cards to be played on work days; similarly, a St Gallen ordinance of 1364 forbade dice games, and allowed board games, but left cards unmentioned, although an ordinance of 1379 prohibited them as well.
This is not to say that no problems arise. Dr Peter Kopp had claimed the discovery of a yet earlier reference to card playing, from an ordinance of the city of Berne in 1367. (4) (Mr Lex Rijnen has reported an earlier one still, from the neighbourhood of Amsterdam in about 1365, but
_____________________
2. See E.A. Bond, ‘The history of playing-cards’, Athenaeum, no. 262l, l9 Jan. 1878, p. 7, col.3-p. 88, coL2.
3. Mr George Beal, in Discovering Playing-Cards and Tarots, Aylesbury, 1972. p. 4, states that a manuscript of 1384 from Nuremberg speaks of the ‘widespread adoption of the new game throughout Europe’, but I have been unable to find any confirmation of this.
4. ‘Die fruhesten Spielkarten in der Schweiz’, Zeitschrift fur Schweizerische Archaeologie und Kunstgeschichte, vol. 30, 1973, pp. 130-45.
12
this as yet remains unconfirmed.(5). A shift of ten years in the chronology is in itself of minor importance; but if a decade elapsed between the first known reference and the second, then perhaps playing cards had been in use in some localities for ten or even twenty years before the first reference occurred, and the many references from 1377 onwards are evidence only of their wider diffusion rather than of their invention or
introduction.
Dr Hellmut Rosenfeld has controverted Dr Kopp’s claim:(6) we have only a copy of the 1367 ordinance from a compilation made in 1398, and Dr Rosenfeld gives detailed grounds for thinking the mention of card playing to be an insertion at a later date. On this he seems to have the better of the argument; but there is a point about the Tractatus de moribus itself which is more uncertain. After giving the description cited above of the playing-card pack in what it calls its ‘common form, and that in which it first reached us’, the text goes on to list a number of variants; one in which all the Kings are replaced by Queens; one in which two of the suits have Kings and the other two Queens; one with five suits; another with six; and, finally, one with four suits, but with five court cards in each suit (King, Queen, the two Marshals and a Maid), making 60 cards in all. Now we have no cards surviving from the fourteenth century', but we do have a considerable number from the fifteenth century, and among them are German packs showing variations of this kind, including ones with five suits, one in which the court figures are all male in two of the suits and all female in the other two, ones with female Unters and ones with four court cards per suit, so, although we do not have representatives of all the variants mentioned in the Tractatus, it is very plausible that there should have been such variants. What is not credible, however, is that such a range of variations on the original form should have developed within a year or two of the introduction or invention of the playing-card pack.
For this, two rival explanations have been [beginning of right column]
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5. ‘Makers of playing-cards in the Netherlands’, Journal of the Playing-Card Society, vol. IV, no. 2, 1975, pp.34-7.
6. In ‘Zu den fruhesten Spielkarten in der Schweiz: eine Entgegnung', Zeitschrift fur Schweizerische Archaeologie und Kunstgeschichte, vol. 32, 1975, pp. 179-80, and, in a more general context, in ‘Zur Datierbarkeit fruher Spielkarten in Europe und im nahen Orient’. Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, 1975, pp. 353-71.
offered. Dr Kopp believes that, by the time John of Rheinfelden became acquainted with them, playing cards had already been known for long enough (presumably about two decades or more) for variants to have been invented. Against this it must be said that it would be strange for Brother John to have written, ‘the form in which they first reached us’, if, in the course of that same year, he had encountered five other forms. It would also be puzzling that, from a period of twenty years or so, only one or two references to playing cards should have come down to us, given that they cluster so thickly thereafter. Dr Rosenfeld’s explanation is that the account of the variant forms is an addition by a later copyist. This is, perhaps, more plausible, but has its own difficulties. We do not have the original manuscript of the Tractatus (which, as Dr Kopp has observed, may have been destroyed in the Franco-Prussian War); we have one MS. of 1429 and three, made by different copyists, all from 1472, all four of which agree very closely, as Dr Kopp has shown. Dr Rosenfeld’s suggestion is therefore that the interpolation was due to the 1429 copyist, whom the later ones followed. The hypothesis cannot, however, be that we can get back to Brother John’s original text simply by excising the passage dealing with the variant forms, together with the phrase ‘the common form, and that in which it first reached us’ previously quoted. The Tractatus, as we now have it, goes on to express, and give grounds for, a preference for the 60-card form, and, later, to include a whole short section on the excellence of the number 60, as well as another on the Queen (the treatise as a whole being an essay in moralising based on the playing-card pack). Hence, if interpolations occurred, they were carried out on an extensive scale. The problem has thus not yet been completely resolved. My personal inclination is to think that Dr Rosenfeld has more of the truth of the matter. But, even if Dr Kopp is right, the consequences are comparatively minor; the picture is altered, significantly perhaps, but not very substantially.