History of Playing Cards — Part 121

[112] Anderson's History of Commerce, vol. i, p. 483.--The passage relating to cards, in the act referred to, was pointed out to the Hon. D. Barrington by Mr. John Nichols. Gough, in his 'Observations on the Invention of Cards,' in the Eighth Volume of Archæologia, says, that Mr. Le Neve produced before the Society of Antiquaries a minute to show that cards were manufactured in England before the 1st of Edward IV; for then a person had his name from his ancestor having been a card-maker. Mr. Gough observes that the ancestor of this person--Hugh Cardmaker, prior of St. John the Baptist, at Bridgenorth--was probably a maker of cards for dressing flax or wool. A _Karter_--a wool-comber--occurs in the town-books of Nuremberg, in 1397.

[113] Fenn's Paston Letters, vol. ii, p. 333, edit. 1778.

[114] "The kynge came privily to the said castell [of Newbattle], and entred within the chammer with a small company, where he founde the quene playing at the CARDES."--Leland's Collectanea, vol. iii, Appendix, p. 284. Cited by Warton, in his History of English Poetry, who also observes that cards are mentioned in a statute of Henry VII, in the year 1496.

[115] Private Life of James IV of Scotland, in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, Nos. 9 and 10, 1832.

[116] "Les cartes, comme tout ce qui tient aux arts, out une origine Italienne: c'est à Venise ou à Florence que les Grecs réfugiés de Constantinople les ont d'abord fait connaître."--Annuaire Historique pour I'année 1837, p. 188.

[117] Ducange, Glossarium ad Scriptores mediæ; et infimæ Græcitatis. Folio, 1688. Under the words Αζαρια and Χαρτια. Î¤Î±Ï Î»Î¹Î± is merely a different mode of spelling ταβλια--_tabulæ_, tables, a kind of backgammon board with its appendages.

[118] The following is Mons. Brunet's prefatory note to his brochure, which was published at Paris, in 1842. "Les curieux, les amateurs de livres recherchent avec empressement tout ce qui a rapport aux cartes; c'est ce qui m'a porté à consacrer un instant de loisir à la traduction de ce que je venais de lire, à cet égard, dans un ouvrage allemand, vaste répertoire de I'érudition bibliographique la plus étendue (Lehrbuch einer Literargeschichte der berühmtesten Volker des Mittelalters, von J.G.T. Grasse, Dresden und Leipsig, Arnoldische Buchhandlung, 1842, Band II, s. 879-85); j'ajoute quelques indications nouvelles à cet aperçu, que je n'imprime d'ailleurs qu'à quelques exemplaires."