On the Game of Tarot
--------------------

I have spoken of the plaies with the cardes, such as Piquet, and their
vertues, in my earlier lettres. But I would fail in my duty to teche
You about all games if I did not speke of the other type of cardes,
the Tarots.

The Tarot cardes are like the plainer sorte, with foure sutes and
cardes shewing both peepes and nobles upon them. Yet the Tarots are
more fancy, and there are manie more cardes with which to plaie: and
the Tarots have yet a fifth sute, which they call the Triomphes, or
Trumps, which do defeat all.

The sutes of the Tarot differ from those of Piquet; in the Tarot, the
cardes shew Swords, Cups, Staves, and Coins. They run from Ace to Ten,
as in the smaller decke, but an extra court carde, the Cavalier, is
added between the Knave and the Queene. Thus, there are fourteen cardes
in eche sute, making in all .lvi. cardes in the sutes.

Added to these are .xxi. Trumpes, and the Foole. The Trumps depict
many sortes of persons and thinges, suche as an Emperor, the Pope,
the Sun, the Devil, and many more beside. These Trumpes have an
order, which one learnes with practice; yet some, to make the plaie
easier, place numbers on the cardes, in the order of rank. The
Mountebanke is always lowest in ranke, and the Worlde always highest;
yet, the value of these cardes follows not their ranke, but some
cardes have a special value. And any Trumpe will defeat any other
carde in play; and the higher Trumpe will defeat the lower.

The value of the cardes is suche: the Foole is worth five points;
the World and the Mountebanke four; all Kings are worth four; Queens
three; Cavaliers two; and Knaves one. Other cardes have no value,
save in that all cardes are worth one pointe when the plaiers tally
their scores, at the end of the hande.

Tarot can be plaied with anie number from two to sixe, but foure is
most common: And the Dealer begins by dealing Twelve cardes to eche
plaier, and should then place the other cardes to the side. And there
is no discard or draw in this game. The Eldest leades the first tricke,
and after this the victor in the one tricke leades to the next. And as
eche plaier has twelve cardes, there shall be twelve trickes. And if
ye have a carde of the sute led, you must play it: if ye have no cardes
of this sute, yet you have a Trump, you must play that: yet if you have
neither the sute led nor Trump, you may play what you will, but shall
lose the tricke. And if you Renounce, you loose the game forthwith,
and shal be accounted a wrongful plaier. And the tricke is won by he
who plaies the highest Trumpe, or if none, the highest carde of the
sute led.

The Foole is not plaied like other cardes, but has a quality of its
own, as it is the Excuse. You may play the Foole at any tricke,
whatever the sute or Trump. When you play the Foole, you may at once
take him backe, and lay him with the other cardes that you have taken
in trickes; yet you must then choose one of those cardes, and give it
to he who wins that tricke. If you have no cardes from tricks yet,
you may wait until you have some, and then give one to he who won
that tricke. Yet, if you never win a tricke, you must give the Foole
to him, which is a great losse, as it is a high carde. And if you
lead a tricke with the Foole, he who follows may play anie carde, and
the others must follow that carde as if it were led.

When all the trickes are plaied, eche plaier counts his cardes, taking
the total thereof. And if hee has more than twelve cardes, he gains one
point for eche card above twelve: and if hee has less than twelve cardes,
he loses one point for eche below it. And to this, hee adds the value
of the Counting Cardes: as, one pointe for eche Knave, foure for eche
King, five for the Foole, and so on as listed above.

The Set is Fifty, and he who first reaches Fifty wins the Game. If
none has Fifty at the end of the Hand, the cardes will be shuffled
by a new Dealer, and a new Hand shal be plaied.

And in my next lettre, I shal speke of other Games. Yr Ob'dient,
Justin duC, this .xxiii. day of April in the Yeere of Our Ld 1597.

Endnotes
--------

Very little of the foregoing is my own thoughts or research; in this
particular case, I have had to rely mainly on secondary sources. I am
primarily indebted to Michael Dummett, whose mammoth tome _The Game of
Tarot_ (London: Duckworth, 1980) is the bible of the subject, and this
description is drawn from his descriptions in there.

(_The Game of Tarot_ contains more or less everything known about
the history of the deck: its origins, the myths that surround it,
the various iconographies that have been attached to it, and the
games that were played with it. It is an absolute must-have if you
are interested in the topic.)

Suffice it to say, the Tarot deck dates back to the early fifteenth,
or possibly very late fourteenth centuries, and was used more or less
entirely for gaming during SCA period. The deck has been used for card
games pretty continuously through the 20th century in many places;
Dummett describes several dozen variations of the game, from various
countries and eras.

Not to get into too much controversy about the mystical side of the
Tarot, all of the available evidence indicates that the Tarot was not
used for divination until the 18th century, well after period. (For
more information, again, see Dummett, who examines the history of
Tarot divination exhaustively.) While cartomancy was known in late
period, it appears to have been quite rare, and very simplistic
compared to modern Tarot reading.

Note that period decks tended not to have fancy pictures on the pip
cards -- they simply depicted the appropriate number of the
appropriate object. Court cards were a little fancier, and the trumps
generally showed a picture, much as they do today (although some of
the iconography got changed over the past century). No one is certain
of where the choice of symbols on the trumps came from; personally, I
like the theory that they are drawn from the great processions common
in Italian celebrations of the Renaissance. A few companies publish
reproductions of period Tarot decks; the serious gamer should look
around for such, but you can play the games just as well with most
modern decks.

The Trumps in period generally followed more or less the order they do
today, but the order varied slightly in some regions, and some of the
names and pictures were different. Trump I, generally called the
Magician today, was Le Bateleur, The Mountebanke, or something like
that in most period decks. The Fool, often called Trump 0 today, seems
not to have been regarded as a Trump, but as something quite distinct,
as outlined in the game. I gather that it was relatively rare to have
indeces on the Trumps in period; most players just knew the order of
the cards. They certainly make the game easier to learn, though.

In many Tarot games, the pip cards in the suits of Cups and Coins rank
in reverse order, such that the 2 beats the 10. Fortunately, it
appears that this early French version did not have this complication,
which does not significantly alter the game save to make it harder to
keep track of things.

The game described is more or less Dummett's "Seventeenth-century
French Tarot (second version)", combined with some of the elements of
the first version. (_The Game of Tarot_, pg. 215.) This is based on
accounts from the latter half of the 17th century (specifically _La
maison academique des jeux_, 1659), so it is technically out of
period. We know that Tarot was played in France in period, but we
don't have any clear accounts of it, so I am using this 17th century
version, which seems to be a very elemental version of Tarot, with few
frills, on the theory that it is likely to be close to the period
game.

A quick modern-text summary of the rules:

Deal twelve cards to each player, and play twelve tricks. You must
follow suit if possible; if you cannot, you must play a trump if
possible. The Fool serves as "the Excuse" (yes, that's the period
term): when you play it, you immediately capture it, surrendering
one card of your choice to the winner of the trick in exchange.

If you end with less than 12 cards, you lose one point for each
card less than 12; more than 12, and you gain one point per excess
card. Add to that the value of the counting cards, as listed. The
first player to break 50 wins.

				-- Justin du Coeur