SteveM wrote:R.A. Hendley wrote:
The rather unsophisticated nature of the trumps also suggests the game originated from the people, not the courts, with mass produced decks coming before the fancy court versions.
So unsophisticated no one at the time or to this day has been able to provide a convincing narrative, bar in individual interpreters own minds.
It shows the influence of a literate mind, whether a poet at court or among the people, it is of an individual and literate mind. To say it is a product of 'the people' makes no sense; you suggesting it was invented by a co-operative of 'common people', whatever they were? Everything has an inventer (and a market - the people, hoi polloi or courts, both of which were frequenters of taverns, may have been the market, if that is what you mean). We know also that the courts had plates and presses and made printed decks for market, are they of the courts or of the people?
If you go back further, to the origin of the pips, are cup bearers and polo sticks of the people too do you suppose, or of the courts? Along with leiutenant, first leitenants, knights, valets and kings - every tavern had one of them eh, well at least a queen or two, perhaps that's why they were introduced
Of course they came through apparently the mamluk military slave army system (which no doubt had its contingent of camp followers and 'cup bearers'.)
Ah, Steve! It's good to see we're disagreeing again! I was beginning to worry.
Where you and I differ is that I believe we
have provided a convincing narrative, more or less.
I think Dummett identified the basic structure of the trump narrative 30 years ago. It would take some pretty impressive documentation, or a very high caliber weapon to convince me other wise.
Michael Hurst has taken the ball and ran with it for years. He's examined Dummett's structure, and done us all a big favor by doing loads of leg work (research) and presenting it in an understandable fashion.
We are definitely in the right ballpark. The details are, naturally up for debate, as they would have been in 1450. I understand why the "new-age" crowd refuses to accept this -
it kills their magic. I guess the only other reason one would refuse to accept it, without evidence, is
pride. Ignorance and Pride. Reminds me of the first couple of trumps.
My point about "the people", is not
who they were specifically, but that, IMO, the trumps cater to the POPULAR sentiment. Any poetry, philosophy, theology or political commentary in the trumps would have been there as a by-product of the popular theater, literature, and art that the game aped.
I especially think the trumps derive from the popular theater and pageants, both in the choice of "characters" and in the overall narrative.
~
GREAT SHOW!
I'd even go so far as to say the first printed decks were hawked at the very events they mimicked, the pageants and morality plays, in a stall right next to the guy selling sausages on a sick.
You can read all the literary allusion into the trumps you want. I reckon it was there because the card maker knew it was popular and
would sell more decks.
BTW, shouldn't Yngwë Yngweron's rather speculative musings be over in the Unicorn Stable.