There can be no doubt that playing-cards very soon made their way from Italy into Germany; but as they advanced towards the North they almost immediately lost their Oriental characteristics and Saracenic name. There is, in fact, no longer any etymological trace to be found in the old German language of the words naïb, naïbi, or naypes. Cards were called
Figs. 218 and 219.—The “Two of Bells” and the “King of Acorns,” taken from a Pack of Cards of the Sixteenth Century, designed and engraved by a German Master. (Bibl. Imp. of Paris. Print-Room.)
Briefe, that is, letters; the game itself Spielbriefe, game of letters; the earliest cardmakers were Briefmaler, painters of letters. The four suits of the Briefe were neither Italian nor French in character; they bore the name of Schellen, “bells” (Figs. [216], [217], [218]), or roth (red), grün (green), and Eicheln (acorns) (Fig. 219). The Germans, in their love of symbolism, had comprehended the real original signification of the game of cards, and although they introduced many marked changes, they made it their study, at least in principle, to preserve its military characteristics. Their suits depicted, it is said, the triumphs or the honours of war—the crowns of oak-leaves or ivy, the bells were the bright insignia of the German nobility, and the purple was the recompense of their valiant warriors. The Germans were careful not to admit ladies into the thoroughly warlike company of kings, captains (ober), and officers (unter). The ace was always the flag, the warlike emblem par excellence; in addition to this, the oldest game was the Landsknecht, or lansquenet ([Fig. 220]), the distinctive term of the soldier.
We are speaking here only of the earliest German cards, for, after a certain date, the essential form and emblematical rules of the pack depended on nothing but the fancy and whim of the maker or the engraver. The figures were but seldom designated by a proper name, but often bore devices in German or Latin. Among the collections of ancient cards we find one pack half German and half French, with the names of the Pagan gods. There are also several sets of cards with five suits (of fourteen cards each), among others those of “roses” and “pomegranates.”
Fig. 220.—The “Two” of a Pack of German Lansquenet Cards. (Bibl. Imp. of Paris.)
Fig. 221.—Card from a Game of “Logic,” invented by Th. Murner, and copied from his “Chartiludium Logices.” (Cracow, 1507.)
The Germans were the first who entertained the idea of applying cards to the instruction of youth; and, as it were, of moralising a game of chance by making it express all the categories of scholastic science. Thomas Murner, a Franciscan monk, and professor of philosophy, made in 1507 an attempt of this kind ([Fig. 221].) He designed a pack of fifty-two cards, divided into sixteen suits, corresponding to the same number of scholastic treatises; each card is covered with so many symbols that a description would resemble the setting forth of some obscure riddle (ténébreux logogriphe). The German universities, which were far from being dismayed at a little mysticism, were only the more eager to study the arcana of grammar and logic while playing at cards. Imitations of Murner’s cards were multiplied ad infinitum.