Tarot de Marseille

Le Bateleur. The Magician.

I just finished Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus. It was a beautiful book, putting me constantly into a black, white, and grey, yet vibrant dreamworld. As I wondered in and out of different tents, one to which I always returned was the Fortune Teller. She used cards for her readings, specifically the Tarot de Marseille. This little episodes as she read provide a little foreshadowing for those that know meanings, or spent time looking them up. As a card player and enthusiast, and the owner of three decks of tarot, I wondered how (if at all) the Tarot de Marseille differed from my own.

The earliest inventors of paper and printing with wood blocks, the Chinese, "played cards" as early as the 9th century (first recorded references of playing cards, although it has been speculated that since there was paper, there were paper card games). Cards were widespread in Asia by the 11th century. In the 14th century, Mamluk Egypt introduced Europe to their playing cards, a deck consisting of 4 suits (swords, staves, cups, and coins) of either 13 or 14 cards (numbered 1 through 10 [pips], with either 3 or 4 "court" cards [a king, first and second duties, and an assistant--all designed and faceless keeping an Islamic tradition]). The Spanish were most likely the first European card players owing to connections in the Islamic world, but card playing by the elite of European was widespread by early 15th century. Card playing exploded with the invention of the printing press, in conjunction with and challenging the myriad religious prints.

Types of design also mushroomed in the different cultures and regions of Europe. Germany played with suits of hearts, bells, leaves, and acorns, and these suits probably influenced the French suits of hearts, diamonds, spades (from leaves), and clubs (from acorns). The Tarot de Marseille continues to use the swords, staves, cups, and coins, but changes the court cards to king, queen, knight, and knave (or "page" and "jack" as well).

With news games being made and played in the 14th century, Northern Italians created a supplement to the traditional four-suited set. These cards, often numbered 1 though 21 (and a no numbered or zero car), depicted allegorical persons and situations, called carte de trionfi (shortened to trionfi) or triumph cards. The French called these stouts (roughly translated as "assets") and the English shortened "triumph" to "trump" (side ramble: This makes me wonder if the meaning of "trump" is taken from the cards--I may need a trip to the OED!!).

The Tarot de Marseille includes the trump cards, as well as the 4 suits, 14 cards of swords, staves, cups, and coins. The swords are curved and crossed and the staves crossed as lattice work, echoing the origins in the Mamluk cards with the curved scimitar and the long, straight polo mallets. The Tarot de Marseille is certainly the fore bearer of the most common divinatory tarot decks. The 22 trump cards and the four sets of four court cards influence the titles and pictorials in the modern Rider deck, created in 1909. However this modern deck differs from the Tarot de Marseille, in that the pip cards (1 through 10) also include an allegorical pictorial.

Other things of interest:

Abbreviation of Knave to Kn too much like the K for King. Went low class with Jack.
Euchre. Joker relationship and sound. The best bower. Relation to the "zero" card--the Fool.
Timing. 13 cards in each suite -- 13 lunar month calendar and 364 days or 52 card deck to 52 week year. Four suits four seasons.
Papess. Female Pope controversy. Sometimes called the Priestess. Pope also become Priest or Hierophant.
13 not numbered or named. Death.
Corner and edge idices -- so one doesn't have to spread hand -- 17th to 18th century
Redesign of court cards so reversible. Less telling to opponents what's in one's hand. 18th century
French Revolution. "Ace high" because of the rise of the Third Estate. Or three court cards became Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité.