The TarotL Tarot History Information Sheet
Tarot History Information Sheet
The TarotL Tarot History Information
Sheet
by members of the
TarotL discussion group
(http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/TarotL)
(Mary K. Greer, Tom
Tadfor Little, Nina Lee Braden, Linda Dunn, Mark
Filipas,
Robert V. O'Neill,
Christine Payne-Towler, Robert Place, James Revak, and
others)
Compiled
and edited by Tom Tadfor
Little
Introduction
Many
things (true, false, and speculative) have been written about the history of the
tarot. This sheet addresses some oft-repeated statements about the tarot that
may seem like historical fact, but are actually without basis in the evidence
presently available. This is not to say that there is no room for speculative or
non-factual stories about the tarot. Myths and lore express the human soul and
creativity. These myths tell us much about the significance tarot has on an
inspirational growth level. They speak an inner truth that is, at times, more
personally true than external facts. However, both history and myth may suffer
when the two become
confused.
The information
given here consists mostly of conclusions that recent tarot historians have
drawn from studying the evidence of written documents and cards that have come
down to us. Other interpretations might be drawn from the same body of evidence.
Readers interested in examining the evidence for themselves and drawing their
own conclusions are directed to the references listed at the end of this sheet
for useful starting places. Readers should also be aware of the limitations of
relying on documentary evidence alone. Although written records are our most
reliable contact with centuries past, they do not preserve everything that
people thought or did, especially pertaining to an aspect of popular culture,
such as the tarot.
The
information on this sheet may be freely used, although direct quotations must be
credited and an acknowledgement would be appreciated if you found this sheet
especially useful. Permission is granted to photocopy for educational, nonprofit
uses.
Topic:
The time and place of the origin of the
tarot
Inaccurate:
The tarot comes from Egypt; India; China; Fez, Morocco; the Sufis; the Cathars;
Jewish Kabbalists or Moses; or the origin of the tarot is
unknown.
Current
Historical Understanding: The tarot
originated in northern Italy early in the 15th century (1420-1440). There is no
evidence for it originating in any other time or place. The earliest extant
cards are lavish hand-painted decks from the courts of the
nobility.
Topic:
The origin of the word
"tarot"
Inaccurate:
The word is Egyptian, Hebrew, or Latin; it is an anagram; it holds the key to
the mystery of the
cards.
Current Historical
Understanding: The earliest names
for the tarot are all Italian. Originally the cards were called
carte da
trionfi (cards of the triumphs).
Around 1530 (about 100 years after the origin of the cards), the word
tarocchi
(singular
tarocco) begins to be used to
distinguish them from a new game of triumphs or trumps then being played with
ordinary playing cards. The etymology of this new word is not known. The German
form is
tarock,
the French form is
tarot.
Even if the etymology were known, it would probably not tell us much about the
idea behind the cards, since it only came into use 100 years after they first
appeared.
Topic:
The cultural source of the tarot
symbols
Inaccurate:
The symbolism of the trumps comes from Egypt (or India, or other exotic
locale).
Current
Historical Understanding: The
symbolism of the trumps is drawn from the culture of Medieval and Renaissance
Europe. Most tarot subjects are distinctive to European Christendom.
Illustrations virtually identical to each of the tarot subjects can be found in
European art, and such precise analogs are not found in other
cultures.
Topic:
The gypsies and
tarot
Inaccurate:
The gypsies brought the tarot to Europe and spread its
use.
Current Historical
Understanding: This idea was
popularized in the 19th century by several writers, notably Vaillant and Papus,
without any basis in historical fact. There is no evidence that the Rom
(gypsies) used tarot cards until the 20th century. Most of their fortune-telling
was through palmistry and later through the use of ordinary playing
cards.
Topic:
Relationship between tarot and ordinary playing
cards
Inaccurate:
The 52-card deck evolved from the tarot, leaving the Joker as the only remnant
of the major
arcana.
Current Historical
Understanding: Playing cards came
to Europe from Islam, probably via Muslim Spain, about 50 years before the
development of tarot. They appeared quite suddenly in many different European
cities between 1375 and 1378. European playing cards were an adaptation of the
Islamic Mamluk cards. These early cards had suits of cups, swords, coins, and
polo sticks (seen by Europeans as staves), and courts consisting of a king and
two male underlings. The tarot adds the Fool, the trumps, and a set of queens to
this system. Some time before 1480, the French introduced cards with the
now-familiar suits of hearts, clubs, spades, and diamonds. The earlier suits are
still preserved in the tarot and in Italian and Spanish playing
cards.
The Joker originated
in the United States around 1857, used as a wild card in poker and as the
highest trump in Euchre. It appears to have no direct relationship to the Fool
of the
tarot.
Topic:
The "Charles VI" or "Gringonneur" tarot
cards
Inaccurate:
The tarot was invented to amuse Charles VI of France in 1392, as evidenced by a
deck by Gringonneur in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in
Paris.
Current Historical
Understanding: It is recorded that
in 1392, Jacquemin Gringonneur was paid to paint three decks of cards for
Charles VI. These were probably playing cards, not tarot. The deck in the
Bibliothèque Nationale de France is a late-15th century hand-painted deck
of the Northern Italian type (probably from Venice or
Ferrara).
Topic:
Tarot and the Hebrew
Alphabet
Inaccurate:
Eliphas Lévi (c. 1850) was the first to ascribe Hebrew letters to the
tarot.
Current Historical
Understanding: The Comte de Mellet,
whose short article on the tarot was published in Court de Gébelin's
Le Monde
Primitif (1781), was the first to
write of a connection between the Hebrew letters and the cards. Court de
Gébelin also mentioned the idea in passing in his own
essay.
Topic:
Tarot censored by the
church
Inaccurate:
The Catholic and Protestant churches outlawed tarot and all who used it in an
effort to stamp out either heretical teachings or a work of the
Devil.
Current Historical
Understanding: The Inquisition
documented in considerable detail what the church regarded as evidence of heresy
and the tarot is never
mentioned.
Many printers
made their living printing both religious cards and playing cards. Playing cards
were sometimes restricted or outlawed because of their use in gambling. Tarot
cards were, in fact, sometimes explicitly exempted from bans on playing cards,
perhaps because of their association with the upper classes. In 1423, playing
cards (tarot cards were not mentioned) were among many things thrown on the
fires in Bologna by followers of Bernadino of Sienna during an attack against
all studies and pastimes not focused on
religion.
After the
Reformation, the church did object to the cards depicting the Pope and Papess,
and cardmakers substituted less controversial
images.
Topic:
Original use of tarot
cards
Inaccurate:
The tarot was originally used for divination/magic/teaching secret
doctrines/etc.
Current
Historical Understanding: Written
records tell that the tarot was regularly used to play a card game similar to
Bridge. The game was popular throughout much of Europe for centuries and is
still played today, particularly in France. Early poets also used the titles of
the trump cards to create flattering verses, called
tarocchi
appropriati, describing ladies of
the court or famous personages. Although it is possible that tarot cards might
also have been sometimes used for other purposes, there is no clear evidence of
such use until long after the cards were invented. Records from a trial in
Venice in 1589 suggest that tarot may have been associated with witchcraft (at
least in the minds of the accusers) at this date, about 150 years after the
appearance of the tarot. After this, there are no references connecting tarot
with magic or divination until the 18th century. (See also next three
questions.)
Topic:
Tarot and
divination
Inaccurate:
Tarot was not used for divination before Etteilla and Court de Gébelin
around 1781.
Current
Historical Understanding: There is
evidence of such use, but it is fragmentary and suggestive rather than
conclusive. Tarot was used as early as the 16th century to compose poems
describing personality characteristics
(tarocchi
appropriati). In one case (1527),
the verses are presented as relating to the person's fate. There are records of
divinatory meanings assigned to tarot cards in Bologna early in the 1700s. This
is the first unambiguous evidence of tarot divination as it is commonly
understood. However, it is known that ordinary playing cards were connected with
divination as early as 1487, so it is reasonable to conjecture that tarot was
also. From the 1790s with Etteilla's deck we find tarot design being modified
specifically to reflect divinatory and esoteric
meanings.
Topic:
Occult philosophy and the original design of the
tarot
Inaccurate:
There are no hermetic, heretical, or kabbalistic characteristics in the original
tarot.
Current Historical
Understanding: This topic is still
open. The early Italian Renaissance, which gave birth to the tarot, was a time
of great intellectual diversity and activity. Hermeticism, astrology,
Neoplatonism, Pythagorean philosophy with roots in Alexandrian Egypt, and
heterodox Christian thought all thrived. Any or all of these may have left their
mark on the design of the tarot. Although it should be remembered that all of
the symbolism of the tarot has close analogs in the conventional Christian
culture of the time, many scholars today believe that these philosophies, which
are foundations of occultism, were important in the design of the
tarot.
Topic:
Tarot and the western esoteric
tradition
Inaccurate:
The tarot has always been a pillar of the western esoteric
tradition.
Current
Historical Understanding: The first
occult writers to discuss the tarot were Court de Gébelin and the Comte
de Mellet in 1781. For the first 350 years of its history, the tarot was not
mentioned in any of the many books on occult or magical philosophy. Following
1781, occult interest in tarot blossomed and the tarot then became an integral
part of occult
philosophy.
Topic:
Astrological, elemental, and kabbalistic
correspondences
Inaccurate:
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (or Eliphas Lévi, Papus, Zain,
Case, etc.) knew the true astrological, elemental, and Kabbalistic
correspondences to the Tarot and corrected previous
errors.
Current Historical
Understanding: There are many, many
systems of correspondences for the tarot. None can be shown to go back to the
tarot's origins, although the French tradition exemplified in the works of
Eliphas Lévi predates the English tradition now familiar through the
works of Waite and Crowley. Most sets of correspondences have a rationale and
system that make them meaningful and useful when studied within their own
tradition. Correspondences are a matter of individual choice and of intention or
adherence to a school of thought rather than right or
wrong.
Topic:
The Waite-Smith
Tarot
Inaccurate:
The Waite-Smith (or "Rider Waite") Tarot is the original, standard, or most
authentic tarot.
Current
Historical Understanding: The
Waite-Smith deck was created in 1909, making it a relative newcomer in the
almost-600-year history of the tarot. A. E. Waite was a prominent member of the
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The deck owes much of its symbolism to that
group and represents a departure from the earlier French tradition. The artist,
Pamela Colman Smith, contributed her own vision, especially in the innovative
creation of fully illustrated scenes for the minor arcana. For many years, the
Waite-Smith deck was the only one readily available in the US, so it became
familiar to whole generations of tarot readers. There is actually no
"definitive" version of the
tarot.
The well-known Celtic
Cross spread, publicized by Waite as "an ancient Celtic method of divination" is
also relatively recent, although it was not invented by
Waite.
Some
things to be careful of when writing about tarot
history
The terms "major
arcana", "minor arcana", "High Priestess", and "Hierophant" are anachronistic
when referring to the older tarot decks. The historically appropriate terms are
"the trumps and the Fool" (the Fool was not usually regarded as a trump), "the
suit cards", "Papess" or "Popess", and "Pope". Likewise "pentacles" and "wands"
are relatively recent substitutions for the traditional suit names of "coins"
and "staves" or
"batons".
The original
Italian titles of the cards were in some cases different from the later French
titles (and their English translations) that have become familiar to us through
the Tarot de Marseille and its descendants. Also, the ordering of the trumps
varied considerably in Italy where the cards originated; it is not known which
ordering is the earliest one. Even the number of cards in the deck varied a
great deal! So care should be used in making statements about the original
meaning of the cards based on the familiar titles and
ordering.
The intention of
the original designer(s) of the tarot in selecting the symbols for the trump
cards is unknown, although there are many conjectures, some more plausible than
others. Writers should avoid giving the impression that the intention is known
or
obvious.
Sources
and suggested
reading:
Decker, Ronald,
Michael Dummett, and Thierry Depaulis,
A Wicked Pack of
Cards
Dummett, Michael,
The Game of
Tarot
Giles, Cythnia,
The Tarot: History, Mystery, and
Lore
Kaplan, Stuart,
The Encyclopedia of
Tarot, Vol. I &
II
Moakley, Gertrude,
The Tarot Cards Painted by
Bonifacio Bembo
O'Neill,
Robert V., Tarot
Symbolism
Williams,
Brian, A Renaissance
Tarot
Williams, Brian,
The Minchiate
Tarot
Web
sites:
The Hermitage,
http://www.tarothermit.com/
Andy's
Playing Cards,
http://www.geocities.com/a_pollett/
Villa
Revak,
http://jwrevak.tripod.com/
Sources
of the Waite-Smith Symbols,
http://www.geocities.com/~ninalee//oneill/
Tarot
Magick in the 16th Century,
http://lonestar.texas.net/~r3winter/tarmag116.html
This
information sheet is available in several formats: printed hardcopy, formatted
electronic (Microsoft Word for Windows), and unformatted electronic (email
text), print-friendly web page
(http://www.tarothermit.com/infosheet.htm),
and illustrated and hyperlinked web page
(http://jwrevak.tripod.com/misc/tarotl_1.html).
Direct inquiries to the editor, Tom Tadfor Little, at
tom@telp.com.
Copyright 2000-2001 members of
TarotL
From: The
TarotL Tarot History Information
Sheet
http://www.tarothermit.com/infosheet.htm
Posted: Sun - April 25, 2004 at 02:59 PM