'Lord Curzon's Notes on Persia: About 1889-1890' [‎687v] (1395/1486)

JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTS.
[May 10 , 1889 .
57 2
tive subject to the archaeologist and to the
student of human nature.
It is necessary just for a moment to mention
the use of cards for other than a purely re
creative purpose, and which brings them
within a broader range of interest. The dis
position to seek decision upon matters which
cannot come within the exact knowledge of
the individual, by means which imply reliance
upon the doctrine of chances, would seem to be
almost an intuitive desire with mankind, and
it is from this desire that the spirit arises
which we call “ gambling ; ” this is a
peculiar attribute of the human animal, and
we may, without risk of being considered over
speculative, assume that playing-cards, what
ever may have been the material of which they
were made, were from the first made for
divinatory purposes and for “gambling”
—divination being but a gambling with the
possibilities of the future, and thus when so
used, taking the place of the oracle of the
Greeks, and the augur of Ancient Rome.
The origin of cards has been speculatively
placed at a period—which so far as accurate
knowledge of the subject goes, can hardly be
termed historic, but I propose only to take
dates which may be reliably traced and proved
by existing authorities.
It is popularly considered that playing cards
had their origin in the year 1392 , and that they
were invented as a means of amusing Charles
VI. of France; but there can be no question
that the cards upon which such erroneous
conclusion has been formed, and some seven
teen of which still exist in the National
Library in Paris, were but repetitions of models
which had been in use long before; these
cards, from the painstaking elaboration w'hich
has been expended upon them, being evidently
specially prepared as cartes de luxe for
the king, who would certainly have been
familiar with their use in the ordinary form.
These cards are fine specimens of delicate
painting, and they have about them a
mysterious grotesqueness which give them
a strange attraction ; and you have a fac
simile of one of them now before you.
We have in the German treatise, “ Das
Guldin Spil,” printed in 1482 , an assertion
that the game of cards was introduced into
Germany in the year 1300 , but the manuscript
authority being wanting, it may be that this
date is open to question. An Italian chronicle
gives the year 1379 as that when the game
was introduced into Viterbo; and the records
of the city of Nuremberg make mention of
cards between the years 1380 to 1384 . But
Mr. Bond, late Principal Librarian of the
British Museum, has called a witness as
to date which is of interest, for in that
collection he has found a Latin MS. en
titled “ De Moribus et disciplina Humane
Conversationis,” which contains a moralisation
of the game of cards ; its author, who describes
himself as “ Johannes in ordine pra^dicatorum
minimus Theutonicus,” asserting that tards
were introduced in the country in which he
was w’riling in the then year 1377 . Trans
lating him, he says:—“Hence it is that a
certain game called the game of cards (Lud/es
cartaruni) has come to us in this year 1377 ; ”
and he goes on to say, “ but at what time it was
invented, where, and by whom. I am ignorant.
But this I say, that it is of advantage to
noblemen and to others, especially if they
practice it courteously and without money.”
I should like to quote at length from this
treatise did time permit, as it has a very capital
description of a game of cards, but its
interest has special reference to one of the
points to which I propose to call attention
in respect to cards, viz., the intense con
servatism which has belonged to their pictorial
aspect for 500 years. In the first chapter he
treats “ de materia ludi et de diversitate in-
strumentorum ; ” and he says that “ in the
game which men call the game of cards they
paint the cards in different manners, and play
with them in one way and another; ” showing
that they were well-known, and had been in
use sufficiently long for more than one kind of
game to be played with them, and further,
“ as the game came to us, there are four kings
depicted on four cards, and each one holds a
certain sign in his hand, and that under the
king are two ‘ marichali,’ the first of whom
holds the sign upward in his hand, and the
other holds the sign downward in his hand.”
These two marshals are represented in the
cards of the 15 th century, and onwards, by the
queens, and knaves, or varlets, and it is
very interesting to note that in the hands
of the knaves of the playing cards of to
day the staves are in two of them held
upwards, and in the other two downwards.
He goes on to say that under these
first-named three cards there are to each
king ten other cards, on each of which
the king’s sign is placed, on the first
once, on the second twice, and so on;
and thus we have in the year 1377 conclu
sively not only a fixed date but also the fact
that the pack consisted of 52 cards, disposed