The mediæval games were gradually superseded by a new contrivance, that of playing-cards, which were introduced into Western Europe in the course of the fourteenth century. It has been suggested that the idea of playing-cards was taken from chess—in fact, that they are the game of chess transferred to paper, and without a board, and they are generally understood to have been derived from the East. Cards, while they possessed some of the characteristics of chess, presented the same mixture of chance and skill which distinguished the game of tables. An Italian writer, probably of the latter part of the fifteenth century, named Cavelluzzo, author of a history of Viterbo, states that “in the year 1379 was brought into Viterbo the game of cards, which comes from the country of the Saracens, and is with them called naib.” Cards are still in Spanish called naipes, which is said to be derived from the Arabic: but they were certainly known in the west of Europe before the date given by Cavelluzzo. Our cut [No. 156] is taken from a very fine manuscript of the romance of “Meliadus,” in the British Museum (MS. Addit. 12,228, fol. 313, vo), which was written apparently in the south of France between the years 1330 and 1350; it represents a royal party playing at cards, which was therefore considered at that time as the amusement of the highest classes of society. They are, however, first distinctly alluded to in history in the year 1393. In that year Charles VI. of France was labouring under a visitation of insanity; and we find in the accounts of his treasurer, Charles Poupart, an entry to the following effect:—“Given to Jacquemin Gringonneur, painter, for three packs of cards, gilt and diversly coloured, and ornamented with several devices, to deliver to the lord the king for his amusement, fifty-six sols of Paris.” It is clear from this entry that the game of cards was then tolerably well known in France, and that it was by no means new, though it was evidently not a common game, and the cards had to be made by a painter—that is, as I suppose, an illuminator of manuscripts. We find as yet no allusion to them in England: and it is remarkable that neither Chaucer, nor any of the numerous writers of his and the following age, ever speak of them. An illuminated manuscript of apparently the earlier part of the fifteenth century, perhaps of Flemish workmanship (it contains a copy of Raoul de Presle’s French translation of St. Augustine’s “Civitas Dei”), presents us with another card-party, which we give in our cut [No. 157]. Three persons are here engaged in the game, two of whom are ladies. After the date at which three packs of cards were made for the amusement of the lunatic king, the game of cards seems soon to have become common in France; for less than four years later—on the 22nd of January, 1397—the provost of Paris considered it necessary to publish an edict, forbidding working people to play at tennis, bowls, dice, cards, or ninepins, on working days. By one of the acts of the synod of Langres, in 1404, the clergy were expressly forbidden to play at cards. These had now made their way into Germany, and had become so popular there, that early in the fifteenth century card-making had become a regular trade.

No. 157. Cards in the Fifteenth Century.

In England, in the third year of the reign of Edward IV. (1463), the importation of playing-cards, probably from Germany, was forbidden, among other things, by act of parliament; and as that act is understood to have been called for by the English manufacturers, who suffered by the foreign trade, it can hardly be doubted that cards were then manufactured in England on a rather extensive scale. Cards had then, indeed, evidently become very popular in England; and only twenty years afterwards they are spoken of as the common Christmas game, for Margery Paston wrote as follows to her husband, John Paston, on the 24th of December in 1483:—“Please it you to weet (know) that I sent your eldest son John to my lady Morley, to have knowledge of what sports were used in her house in the Christmas next following after the decease of my lord her husband; and she said that there were none disguisings, nor harpings, nor luting, nor singing, nor none loud disports, but playing at the tables, and the chess, and cards—such disports she gave her folks leave to play, and none other.... I sent your younger son to the lady Stapleton, and she said according to my lady Morley’s saying in that, and as she had seen used in places of worship (gentlemen’s houses) there as she had been.”

From this time the mention of cards becomes frequent. They formed the common amusement in the courts of England and Scotland under the reigns of Henry VII. and James IV.; and it is recorded that when the latter monarch paid his first visit to his affianced bride, the young princess Margaret of England, “he founde the quene playing at the cardes.”

It must not be forgotten that it is partly to the use of playing cards that we owe the invention which has been justly regarded as one of the greatest benefits granted to mankind. The first cards, as we have seen, were painted with the hand. They were subsequently made more rapidly by a process called stencilling—that is, by cutting the rude forms through a piece of pasteboard, parchment, or thin metal, which, placed on the cardboard intended to receive the impression, was brushed over with ink or colour, which passed through the cut out lines, and imparted the figure to the material beneath. A further improvement was made by cutting the figures on blocks of wood, and literally printing them on the cards. These card-blocks are supposed to have given the first idea of wood-engraving. When people saw the effects of cutting the figures of the cards upon blocks, they began to cut figures of saints on blocks in the same manner, and then applied the method to other subjects, cutting in like manner the few words of necessary explanation. This practice further expanded itself into what are called block-books, consisting of pictorial subjects, with copious explanatory text. Some one at length hit upon the idea of cutting the pages of a regular book on so many blocks of wood, and taking impressions on paper or vellum, instead of writing the manuscript; and this plan was soon further improved by cutting letters or words on separate pieces of wood, and setting them up together to form pages. The wood was subsequently superseded by metal. And thus originated the noble art of Printing.

CHAPTER XI.
DOMESTIC AMUSEMENTS AFTER DINNER.—THE CHAMBER AND ITS FURNITURE.—PET ANIMALS.—OCCUPATIONS AND MANNERS OF THE LADIES.—SUPPER.—CANDLES, LAMPS, AND LANTERNS.

When the dinner was over, and hands washed, a drink was served round, and then the ladies left the table, and went to their chambers or to the garden or fields, to seek their own amusements, which consisted frequently of dancing, in which they were often joined by the younger of the male portion of the household, while the others remained drinking. They seem often to have gone to drink in another apartment, or secondary hall, perhaps in the parlour. In the romance of “La Violette” (p. 159), we read of the father of a family going to sleep after dinner. In the same romance (p. 152), the young ladies and gentlemen of a noble household are described as spreading themselves over the castle, to amuse themselves, attended by minstrels with music. From other romances we find that this amusement consisted often in dancing, and that the ladies sometimes sang for themselves, instead of having minstrels. We find these amusements alluded to in the fabliaux and romances of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In one of the fabliaux, a knight having been received hospitably at a feudal castle, after dinner they wash, and drink round, and then they go to dance— Ses mains
Lava, et puis l’autre gent toute,
Et puis se burent tout à route,
Et por l’amor dou chevalier
Se vont trestuit apparillier
De faire karoles et dances.
In the early English romance of “Sir Degrevant,” after dinner the ladies go to their chambers to arrange themselves, and then some proceed to amuse themselves in the garden— When the lordys were drawin (withdrawn),
Ladyes rysen, was not to leyn,
And wentten to chaumbur ageyne,
Anon thei hom dythus (dight);
Dame Mildore and hyr may (maid)
Went to the orcherd to play.
In the romance of “Lanfal,” we have the same circumstance of dancing after dinner:— And after mete Syr Gaweyn,
Sir Gyeryes and Agrafayn,
And Syr Launfal also,
Went to daunce upon the grene,
Unther the tour ther lay the quene,
Wyth syxty ladyes and mo.
* * * * *
They hadde menstrayles (minstrels) of moch honours,
Fydelers, sytolyrs, and trompours,
And elles hyt were unryght;
Ther they playde, for sothe to say,
After mete the somerys day,
Alle what (till) hyt was neygh nyght.
It was only on extraordinary occasions, however, that the dancing or walking in the garden continued all day. In the romance of “Blonde of Oxford,” the dinner-party quit the table, to wander in the fields and forests round the castle, and the young hero of the story, on their return thence, goes to play in the chambers with the ladies:—

Après manger lavent leurs mains,
Puis s’en vont juer, qui ains ains,
Ou en forès ou en rivieres,
Ou en deduis d’autres manieres.
Jehans au quel que il veut va,
Et quant il revent souvant va
Jouer és chambres la contesse
O les dames.

There were two classes of dances in the middle ages, the domestic dances, and the dances of the jougleurs or minstrels. After the first crusades, the western jougleurs had adopted many of the practices of their brethren in the east, and, among others, it is evident from many allusions in old writers that they had brought westward that of the “almehs,” or eastern dancing-girls. These dances formed, like the vulgar fabliaux, a part of the jougleur’s budget of representations, and were mostly, like those, gross and indecent. The other class of dances were of a simpler character,—the domestic dances, which consisted chiefly of the carole, in which ladies and gentlemen, alternately, held by each other’s hands and danced in a circle. This mode of dance prevailed so generally, that the word carole became used as a general term for a dance, and caroler, to carole, was equivalent with to dance. The accompanying cut ([No. 158]), taken from a manuscript of the Roman de Tristan, of the fourteenth century, in the National Library at Paris (No. 6956), represents a party dancing the carole to the music of pipe and tabor. A dance of another description is represented in our next cut ([No. 159]), taken from a manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii. fol. 174), also of the fourteenth century. Here the minstrels themselves appear to be joining in the saltitation which they inspire. It is a good illustration of the scene described from the romance of “La Violette.” On festive occasions this dancing often continued till supper-time.