GERMANY.
In a German book printed at Augsburg in 1472, called “Gülden Spiel,” or “The Golden Game,” written by a Dominican friar of the name of Ingold, it is stated that cards had been known in Germany since 1300. As this is by no means contemporaneous testimony, it is probable that the German vanity which claims the honor of inventing the art of printing wishes, with no more reason on its side, to appropriate to itself the invention of playing-cards, which in plain words is laying claim to the invention of wood-engraving, as many of the early German packs are engraved and not stencilled or painted. This rather suspicious assertion may therefore well be ignored, and we may only credit the one made by the Italian author of Viterbo, which is apparently more authentic. Unfortunately, the latter gives no details about the kind of cards which he mentions. He only states that cards made their appearance in 1379 in Europe, and came from Arabia under their original name.
In the “Livre d’Or” of Ulm, which is a manuscript preserved in that city, there is an ordinance, dated 1397, forbidding all card-playing.
These are the only authentic witnesses that can be brought forward by which the approximate time of the introduction of playing-cards into Europe may be fixed.
Plate 8.
A German author by the name of Heniken claims for his country the birthplace of cards, and brings forward many ingenious but hardly satisfactory deductions in support of his pretensions. He says that Briefe, which is the name that cards bear in his country, means “letters,” and that the common people do not say, “Give me a pack of cards,” but “Give me a Spiel-briefe” (a pack of letters), and they do not say, “I want a card,” but “I want a Brief” (letter). “We should at least have preserved the name carte,” he says, “if they had come to us from France; for the common people always preserve the names of all games that come to them from other countries.”
Unfortunately for this argument, it has been discovered that cards were called Karten in Germany before they were called Briefe. It may be claimed that cards were carried into Germany by the Crusaders, who had learned their use during the wars with the Saracens. They might also have made an ingenious use of the cards during their long absences in the East, and diverted them from their original purposes, writing letters to mothers, wives, or sweethearts on them, or chosen them to send to the young folk at home to serve for their amusement, as the pictures of the Kings, Knights, etc., rude though they probably were, would have undoubtedly proved both novel and entertaining; and from this fact the name of Briefe may have been given to the Naïbi of the Orient. The Eastern origin of the cards is plainly pointed to, as there are no Queens in ancient packs of German cards.
In many parts of Germany the court and pip cards which are usually used resemble most closely those which are represented in the packs of the early part of the fifteenth century. The cards which are at the present time (1890) manufactured at Frankfort in Germany are copies of the French packs of the fifteenth century, with the modifications which have crept in during the lapse of over three hundred years; and they display the modern Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, and Spades, and these cards are generally used in the German Empire. But the same factory turns out cards which are suited to the more conservative portions of the country, where the ancient Schellen (Bells), Hertzen (Hearts), Grün (Green), and Eicheln (Acorns) are still preferred.
In the modern German cards each Ace bears the attributes of the wine-cellar or the biergarten. In the ancient cards the Ace was always draped with a flag. The modern Hearts are surrounded with champagne bottles. Acorns carry a loving-cup; Bells, a steaming punch-bowl; and Leaves, beer-glasses and goblets. There are no Queens in this pack, their place being taken by Knights on horseback dressed in beautiful uniforms; and beside their heads is the word Ober, signifying the position they hold over the Knaves, which are represented as working-men. There are only five pip cards in this pack, numbered from five to ten; and the emblems are arranged in a symmetrical and fanciful way, quite unlike the cards which were adapted by the French from the original Tarots and adopted by all English-speaking nations. The backs of these cards bear a plaid or checkered pattern, recalling to mind those of the original Tarots.
To a German is due the adaptation of cards to the instruction of children; and this idea, which was promulgated soon after the first introduction of these packs into Germany, has been developed steadily through successive years, until now it is possible to study history, geography, and other sciences by these means, and babies still in the nursery learn to spell and to read after a fashion by playing the various games which are strewn before their unappreciative eyes. The name of this ingenious inventor was Thomas Murer, a Franciscan friar, who in 1507 arranged a game in which various branches of education were taught. Each card was covered with so many symbols that M. la Croix declares that “their description alone resembles the most gloomy rebus;” but the German universities, undaunted by difficulties, enjoyed the study of logic and other sciences under the guise of amusement, and Murer’s game was imitated and continues to be so to the present time.