Mons. Eloi Johanneau's proof that cards were known in the eleventh century, from the testimony of Papias, previously noticed, neither requires, nor indeed admits of serious refutation. If it could be shown that the word _Naipe_ or _Naibe_ was ever used in Spain or Italy to signify a painted cloth or a picture, before it was used to signify a Playing Card, its affinity with _Nappe_ and _Mappa_ might be admitted to be clearly established. John of Salisbury, who was born in the early part of the twelfth century, says not a word in his work 'De Nugis Curialium'--on the Trifling of Courtiers--which might indicate a knowledge of cards, although one of the chapters is especially devoted to an examination of the use and abuse of gaming.[74] Had cards formed one of the common pastimes of the courtiers of his age, it is highly probable that he would have mentioned them, by some name or other, so as to distinguish them from the other games which he enumerates.
The 38th canon of the Council of Worcester, held in 1240, contains the following prohibition: "Prohibemus etiam clericis, ne intersint ludis inhonestis, vel choreis, vel ludant ad aleas vel taxillos; nec sustineant ludos fieri de Rege et Regina, nec arietes levari, nec palæstras publicas fieri:" that is, "We also forbid clergymen to join in disreputable games or dancings, or to play at dice; neither shall they allow games of King and Queen to be acted [fieri], nor permit ram-raisings, nor public wrestlings."[75] Ducange, who quotes the passage in his Latin Glossary, under the word Ludi, is inclined to think that the game _de Rege et Regina_--King and Queen--might have been the game of cards. There are not, however, any just grounds for entertaining such an opinion. The conjecture seems to have been suggested merely from the circumstance of there being a King and Queen in the cards with which the writer was most familiar; but had he known that no Queen is to be found in the earliest European cards, he probably would not have made so bad a guess. Besides, looking at the context, there can scarcely be a doubt that the _games_--not _game_--of King and Queen were a kind of mumming exhibitions which the clergy enjoyed as spectators, not as performers. Payments to minstrels and mummers for their exhibitions for the amusement of the monks, and eke of the lord Abbot himself, are not of unfrequent occurrence in the account books of old monasteries. In the same clause, the clergy are enjoined not to allow of ram-raisings nor public wrestlings--sports in which they were as unlikely to appear as actors as in the games of the King and Queen. What may have been meant by ram-raising--_arietes levari_--the curious reader is left to find, if he can, in the pages of Strutt and Fosbroke.