Question by coaishdnr: Question for tarot players?
I read this book called History of Card Games Played with Tarot Packs and it said that in the 18th and 19th century it was a golden age for the game of tarot. It was played in Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands and even Russia. The game was played with a tarot deck called a Tiertarock which had the playing card suits of hearts spades diamonds and clubs and there were animals depicted on the trump cards. Was this Tiertarock deck actually more common in the 18th and 19th centuries than the Marseilles Tarot later used by occultists.
Best answer:
Answer by philebus
German card makers began producing French suited tarot cards at the beginning of the 18th century. The animals of the Tiertarocks were just one of the themes used, which included popular figures and locations. It would have taken some time for the new pattern to reach a place of dominance throughout so much of Europe but it had the same great advantage that made the French suits dominant in regular playing cards. The old Italian suits required woodblock printing to produce, these blocks were costly to have made and the cards took longer due to the colouring requirements. However, the simple French suits required only a stencil to reproduce, making them far cheaper to manufacture.
Recalling Dummett’s other books, I gather that the pattern had become dominant by the late 18th century. France was perhaps the last to adopt the new cards in the early 20th century.
The two volume book you’ve read focuses very heavily on the development of the games, however, you might also be interested in an early book by Michael Dummett “The Game of Tarot” published by Duckworth in 1980. This work has a much broader scope and includes the history of the cards and designs themselves as well as a chapter on the development of the occult belief. Dummett has also co-authored two books giving a detailed history of the occult tarot.
I hope that you do try out some of the games you’ve been reading about, they only have a small following among English speakers right now but it is growing.
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