Tarot History Forum

debra wrote:I'd like to know their original purpose and how and when the purpose was transformed.

I'm curious debra, this reads to me as if you are suggesting that the tarot was something other than what we know of it now?

I could of course come in here and say "it was used originally for playing a card game, and it was transformed into being used for other purposes like fortune telling, predominantly in the late 18th century".. but I suspect that's not what you're getting at at all. It reads more like you think tarot "existed" before it was used for a card game and then was transformed into one, and you want to know what it was before. Am I reading that correctly? And, if so, what is it about the "evidence" that we do have pointing to the invention of tarot as a game do you find unconvincing?

prudence wrote:I would ask first for a detailed description of the rest of the Cary Yale sheet (the missing parts). (I hope this counts as a question)

I would ask if it really and truly is meant to be taken at face value (the sequence of the trumps), with zero hidden meanings?

I would ask how common it was to use these cards as something of an occult tool, ie in spells or readings, and when did that all start? (is that a second question piggy backing ...?)

Ooooohhhh. I would love to see the rest of the Cary Sheet, I'd want to see the Hanged Man, and the rest of the Pope/Popess... and well.. all of it. Can I join you when everything is revealed?

As for the readings... don't you think that probably started right away? I have such a hard time imagining these cards being played in the game, with the Devil trumping the Pope, or Death triumphing over Love and players not immediately seeing stories and the possibility of stories from the way the cards interact. In fact, I'd have thought that fortune telling with playing cards had been going on before tarot anyway, and that Tarot was an even more... well.. fun! . People have been using systems of chance to foretell the future for... ever... right? I can't imagine that reading didn't start right away.

OnePotato wrote:1. If this is simply a sequentially progressive story of Christian salvation, why is it presented on movable cards, instead of in a fixed sequence of pages in a book?
1b. ....And why did you include pips with it?

2. Are the early decks Christian "theme" decks, presenting something else in a Christian context?

3. Woops. #1 used up two questions.

Hi OnePotato, I'd agree that the tarot certainly seems to have, at the very least, a Christian veneer. Do you have any ideas what you think might be behind it, if indeed anything else is?

I understand about the Mamluk playing cards. No surprise, I don't get the Trumps. Who the hell thought of these? What was their purpose? What about the idea that the cards are a memory device?


Nice mustache, Robert.

hmm I really like OnePotato's question (number1) and would love to see it answered too.

debra wrote:I understand about the Mamluk playing cards. No surprise, I don't get the Trumps. Who the hell thought of these? What was their purpose? What about the idea that the cards are a memory device?


Nice mustache, Robert.

Those sound a lot like the basic questions I always come back to... Why these 22 images? Why 22?

I've noticed that Beards seem to be making a comeback. Unfortunately, I'm so old now that most of my beard is grey and it only makes me look even older, or else I'd have one indeed. I'll have to live vicariously through my avatar's moustache.

prudence wrote:hmm I really like OnePotato's question (number1) and would love to see it answered too.

MY answer to that question would be that it is a card game, not a catechism. Beliefs found in the catechism - a few of them - are there because they are among the "higher subjects" and moral worldview of the medieval christians who created the series.

The inventor of the trump series had to have made a sequence in a particular order for the purpose of hierarchy - which card beat another. The cards were not numbered, so they must have been thought of as a pictorial narrative. Random subjects don't trump one another, so without numbers, subjects have to do it according to a certain logic. That logic implies a narrative, even if only a skeletal one. But it must be one that anybody could recognize or quickly memorize before playing.

They have medieval christian content because the story of the higher things that the trumps tell was made by medieval christians - that was the worldview of the inventor, and is most clearly shown in the card which shows the Resurrection of the Flesh to Judgment.

robert wrote: Those sound a lot like the basic questions I always come back to... Why these 22 images? Why 22?

I would suggest that depending on how you interpret the narrative, and what your origin theory might be, will determine whether or not you think the number of trumps is significant or merely accidental.

For instance, if I interpret Michael Hurst correctly, he thinks the number is accidental, and is a product of the narrative. That is, each card was chosen for a very specific reason, and the next one in the sequence also for a specific reason to trump the former. The resulting sequence happened to have 22 cards.

The only theory Michael Dummett has ever offered seems to be that the proportion of suit cards to trumps was desired to be 2:3 - i.e. 14:21 (14 cards per suit, 21 trumps), or 16:24 (the hypothetical Cary Yale ratio).

Personally I tend the think the number was determined beforehand and thus limited the extent of the narrative. There is no necessary reason to exclude Prudence, the Theological Virtues, the elements, the planets and the signs - this is exactly what the Minchiate designer included. But the Minchiate puts them all in together in a single clump between Fire and the Star, without further disturbing the traditional order by doing something like including Prudence with the three other Virtues.

Dummett's mathematical proportion theory is attractive, but it is merely descriptive - it doesn't explain *why* that proportion was found appealing. Perhaps the game designer wanted to make sure that there were enough trumps to make the game interesting for four players (all of whom would be guaranteed *some* trumps in a typical deal this way), or maybe the number was symbolic. I have speculated that 21 connects to dice games, and that it was thus a symbol of Fortune, which is appropriate for cards games in general and is depicted in the middle of the trump series.

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:The inventor of the trump series had to have made a sequence in a particular order for the purpose of hierarchy - which card beat another. The cards were not numbered, so they must have been thought of as a pictorial narrative. Random subjects don't trump one another, so without numbers, subjects have to do it according to a certain logic. That logic implies a narrative, even if only a skeletal one. But it must be one that anybody could recognize or quickly memorize before playing.

They have medieval christian content because the story of the higher things that the trumps tell was made by medieval christians - that was the worldview of the inventor, and is most clearly shown in the card which shows the Resurrection of the Flesh to Judgment.

[my emphasis]

This makes an assumption about the manner in which the trumps are used in the game. It could be, for example, that trumps are only allowed to be used if no cards of the opening suit are left in one's hand, and in that case simply the last trump played 'trumps' the the hand, without need for relative value (or 'number') between trumps.

Personally, I suspect that this is how it was used, and only later did trumps acquire value over and above order-of-play.

This does not mean that the set did not reflect a more-or-less natural sequence, or at least groupings themselves hierarchically understood. Rather, that aspect reflects the group of cards as cohesive symbolic reflection of a mediæval world view somewhat independent as to how the game(s) was (were) played.

jmd wrote: This makes an assumption about the manner in which the trumps are used in the game. It could be, for example, that trumps are only allowed to be used if no cards of the opening suit are left in one's hand, and in that case simply the last trump played 'trumps' the the hand, without need for relative value (or 'number') between trumps.

Personally, I suspect that this is how it was used, and only later did trumps acquire value over and above order-of-play.

This does not mean that the set did not reflect a more-or-less natural sequence, or at least groupings themselves hierarchically understood. Rather, that aspect reflects the group of cards as cohesive symbolic reflection of a mediæval world view somewhat independent as to how the game(s) was (were) played.

What evidence are you basing your concept on?

To me that seems a remotely plausible point of view, but it ignores the evidence of earlier trumping games like Karnöffel and the 16 Heroes game, which had a hierarchical order to their "trumps", Boiardo, as well as the order of the Steele Sermon and later lists. They are always given a hierarchy for play, except in appropriati (maybe you believe the trumps were originally invented for appropriati, and only later wedded to the regular pack?).

It seems incredible to me that the three groupings Dummett discovered, which are similar enough to call "synoptic", would emerge if no hierarchy were originally in place. It also makes it hard to interpret the series as a narrative - there is no need for a conceptual hierarchy in your scenario - the images could have been completely random. We know this wasn't the case.