Sorry for answering late, Ross, and thanks Huck for the support w.r.t.
Ross Caldwell wrote: 14 May 2022, 12:35
Huck wrote: 14 May 2022, 11:22
Ross Caldwell wrote: 14 May 2022, 10:52
Can you give us the passage from Ulrich von Richenthal that describes the popularity of cards at the council? I can't find an edition of the chronicle online. I've checked Schreiber, but he doesn't mention it, at least searching under the name "richenthal."
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1843&p=22719&hilit ... hal#p22719
Actually we have only the prohibition of playing cards during the rather short election of the pope Martin ...
The note "we know from the Richenthal chronicles that playing cards was THE game at the Council! " is a plausible conclusion, but the documentary evidence is thin.
As far I know it and I would love, if I could say more.
Thank you very much! I didn't remember the connection with the name "Richenthal." Now it is in my mind.
"No one was allowed to play in secret or in public, whether with cards or other things, while the Pope remained unelected." Well, the prohibition was promulgated on Sunday 7 November (read in churches), and Pope Martin V was elected on Thursday 11 November, so it was not long at all.
Yes, card play was popular enough that Sigismund banned it during the mini-Lent of the election process.
In my perspective, we have some more documents to support "we know from the Richenthal chronicles that playing cards was THE game at the Council! ":
First, we have the ban on card playing in Constance of 29.12.1379 (see, e.g. Hellmut Rosenfeld: "Zur Vor- und Frühgeschichte und Morphogenese von Kartenspiel und Tarock", Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 52 (1970), p.75). We have no other document until 1414, hence we have to assume that the city kept the ban until then. During the Council, other rules applied which overruled the city rules [for Nördlingen we have –quoted from memory- that nobles had the right to play cards in the city when passing by. Constance was full of nobles at the Council.]. Hence card playing was reintroduced to the city, perhaps by the foreign attendants from Italy, Spain, etc.
Second, we have the Richenthal Chronicles, of which I repeat the English translations from
vh0610 wrote: 13 Apr 2021, 21:35
And in the Aulendorf-Version (
https://edition.mgh.de/001/html/edition ... $hl=karten) you can read under the rubrum 251
Und solt och da zwüschen nieman spilen noch karten, noch kainerlay spil tuͦn, weder haimlich noch offenlich, biß ain baͧpst erwellet wurd.
[My translation: And noone should also in the meanwhile play cards, not any other game, neither secretly nor openly, until a pope is elected]
And also in the Konstanz-Version (
https://edition.mgh.de/001/html/edition ... $hl=karten) you can read under the same rubrum 251
Es solt ouch dazwüschen nieman mer weder spilen noch karten, noch dehainerlay handspil nit tuͦn, haimlich noch offenlich, bis der bapst erwelt wurd.
[My translation: Noone should also in the meanwhile play cards, not any other game played by hand, neither secretly nor openly, until the pope is elected]
Note the “not any other game played by hand” which puts a strong emphasis on the importance of cards at the Council since they are solely mentioned specifically over “other game played by hand” (in the sense: “card games and the [negligible] rest of games played by hand”).
Third, we have that the mayor of Constance forbade specifically to play cards for one full year in private rooms after the Council was over, as stated by the Council-Expert Ansgar Frenken, Das Konstanzer Konzil, Kohlhammer Verlag, 2015, p.131:
„Nach der Beendigung des Konzils ließ die städtische Obrigkeit sogar für ein Jahr jegliches Kartenspielen in privaten Räumen untersagen.“
[My translation: After the termination of the Council the city magistrates even forbade for one year any game playing of cards in private rooms].
The “any” in “any game playing of cards” gives rise to the interpretation that there were several types of card games played at the Council (interpreted in the sense: “not even a simple variant” or “not even for pleasure and without money” or “and certainly not the wild new variant [later on called Kayserspiel/Karnöffel]”)
Fourth, we have
Gisela Wacker “Ulrich Richentals Chronik des Konstanzer Konzils und ihre Funktionalisierung im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert”, PhD Thesis, Tübingen 2002.
She shows, based on documents of the Constance archives, that Konrad Witz attended the Council in person, he was in Constance from 1416 onwards (see op. cit. p. 111). Furthermore, there is highest probability that Konrad Witz was the painter of the original Richental-Chronicles and the painter of the later Ambraser Hofämterspiel (see op. cit. p. 84, 106f, 108,109, 111, 113), which she shows by comparison of style in Witz paintings, the Richental-Chronicles and the Ambraser Hofämterspiel (See, for instance, a comparison between a King of this deck and a depiction of King Sigimund, op. cit. p. 109).
The Council was THE place of cultural inventions of this time due to pan-European exchange of cultural ideas in the large, as well for art and for music (op. cit. p. 113). In this light, we are tempted to add: also for the cultural invention of playing cards as manifested in the Kayserspiel.
To sum up: in Constance, cards were first banned in 1379, then reintroduced in the Council as the primary game played by hand (“play cards, not any other game played by hand”), then especially heavily forbidden even in private rooms (!) directly after the Council (“After the termination of the Council the city magistrates even forbade for one year any game playing of cards in private rooms”). This ban puts a special strong emphasis on the game in the Council time. Finally, an artist attendant of the Council, Konrad Witz, is later on the artist of one of the most famous card games, the Ambraser Hofämterspiel –linked to Bohemia of which Sigismund was king of. Note that Konrad Witz was from Basel, not too far away from JvR’s Freiburg [The depiction of the Hofämterspiel is as if Witz had read JvRs treatise Part II and Part III].
How and where does an artist from Basel get in contact with a duke or king from Bohemia for whom he later on paints a card game?