We must not, however, take upon ourselves to assert too positively that all the profound researches, persevering study, and ingenious deductions which have been applied to the subject have entirely succeeded in elucidating the question. Nevertheless, a certain degree of light has been thrown upon it, by which we shall endeavour to profit.
The question is, at what date are we to fix the invention of playing-cards, and to whom are we to attribute it? In order to solve these queries, they must be divided; for, although the introduction of playing-cards into Europe may not date back beyond the fourteenth century, and the invention of our game of piquet may not have been prior to the reign of Charles VII., it is at least asserted—(1st), that playing-cards existed in India in the twelfth century; (2nd), that the ancients played at games in which certain figures and numbers were represented on dice or tablets; (3rd), that in comparatively recent times the game of chess and the game of cards presented striking affinities, proving the common origin of these two games—one connected with painting, the other with sculpture.
If we are to believe Herodotus, the Lydians, in order to beguile the sufferings of hunger during a long and cruel famine, invented nearly every game, especially that of dice. Later authors ascribe the honour of these inventions to the Greeks, when irritated at the tedious delays of the siege of Troy. Cicero even mentions by name Pyrrhus and Palamedes as the originators of the “games in use in camps” (ludos castrenses). What were these games? Some say, chess; others, dice or knuckle-bones.
Certain very ancient specimens prove unquestionably that the Indian cards were nothing but a transformation of the game of chess; for the principal pieces in this game are reproduced on the cards, but in such a way that eight players instead of two could take part in it. In the game of chess there were only two armies of pawns, each having at its head a king, a vizier (who was afterwards turned into a “queen”), a knight, an elephant (which became a “bishop”), and a dromedary (afterwards a “castle”). There can be no doubt that the course and arrangement of these games were very different; but in both may be found an original affinity in the fact that they recalled to mind the terrible game of war, in which each adversary had to attack by means of stratagems, combinations, and vigilance.
We have now learned from certain authority (Abel de Rémusat, Journal Asiatique, September, 1822) that playing-cards, proceeding from India and China, were, like the game of chess ([Fig. 203]), in the hands of the Arabians and the Saracens at the commencement of the twelfth century. It is therefore almost certain they must have been brought into Europe after the Crusades, with the arts, traditions, and customs which the men of the West then derived from their Oriental antagonists. There is, however, every reason to believe that the use of cards spread but slowly; for at an epoch when the civil and ecclesiastical authorities were constantly issuing ordinances against games of chance, we do not find that cards were ever the subject of legal proceedings, like dice and chess.
The first formal mention made of playing-cards is found in a manuscript chronicle of Nicolas de Covelluzzo, preserved in the archives of Viterbo. “In the year 1379,” says the chronicler, “there was introduced at Viterbo the game of cards, which comes from the country of the Saracens, and is called by the latter naïb.” There is, in fact, a German book, the “Jeu d’Or,” printed at Augsbourg in 1472, which testifies to the fact that cards existed in Germany in the year 1300. But, in the first place, this evidence is not contemporary with the fact alleged; and, besides,
Fig. 203.—Chess-Players. Fac-simile of a Miniature of the Thirteenth Century. (MS. 7,266, Bibl. Imp., Paris.)
we may well suppose that the vanity of the Germans, which had attributed to themselves the discovery of printing, desired, with about as much reason, to appropriate also the invention of cards—that is, of wood-engraving. We shall, therefore, act judiciously in paying but little attention to this doubtful assertion, and hold to the account given by the chronicler of Viterbo. But the latter, unfortunately, furnishes us with no details as to the nature of these cards. Was the game similar to that which is still extant in India? Or was it one peculiar to the Arabs? These are questions which must remain unsolved. The only facts presented to our notice are, that in 1379 cards made their appearance in Europe, brought from Arabia, or the country of the Saracens, and that their original name is given. The Italians for a long time gave to cards the name of naïbi. In Spain they are still called naypes. If it be understood that the word naïb in Arabic signifies “captain,” we shall see that the game in question was one of a military character, like that of chess, and we shall be led to recognise in these primitive cards the tarots which were for a long time current in the south of Europe.
In 1387, John I., King of Castile, issued an ordinance prohibiting to play with dice, naypes, or at chess.