
Hunt and House: Depictions of Medieval Life in German Playing Cards (2016) - benbreen
http://www.metmuseum.org/blogs/in-season/2016/hunt-and-house
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JCSato
This article doesn't really talk about medieval life at all, save for a
mention at the end:

"The cards' suit symbols differed, but as in The Courtly Household Cards, the
pip cards are individuals of varying social ranks. These cards could not trump
the face cards, but they could trump one another in a topsy-turvy order. Thus,
the moneylender trumps the nobleman, the priest the moneylender, the bawd the
priest, the pimp the bawd, the innkeeper the pimp, the wine merchant the
innkeeper, and so on. This upturned order cannot have pleased the authorities.
Such decks of cards based on social strata, nonetheless, may well have been
common for German playing cards before suit symbols related to the hunt were
adopted."

Most of the rest is talking about how great and well preserved the artistry of
this particular deck of cards is (admittedly, it is pretty fantastic).

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lukasb
Pimps were higher status than innkeepers and wine merchants?

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lukas099
No, the pimp beats the bawd and the innkeeper beats the pimp.

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taejo
Right, so for this order to be "topsy-turvy", the pimp would have to have
higher status than the innkeeper outside of the game.

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DanielleMolloy
I expected the article would also mention illustrations of the standard German
playing cards set, which is still quite popular:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_playing_cards](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_playing_cards)

Also check out other regional sets:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playing_card#Modern_deck_for...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playing_card#Modern_deck_formats)

