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100 of the fifteenth century. Whether they were introduced by Moor, Christian, Jew or Gypsy is of minor importance. It concerns us more to know how they were received. We have abundant evidence that the cards supplied a universal want, and that they soon became as popular with the poor and ignorant as they had been with the rich and noble. While the Duke of Milan found amusement, as he did in 1415, with a suite of cards elaborately painted by artists of renown on plates of ivory, at a cost of fifteen hundred crowns, and while Flemish nobles were playing at games of hazard with cards engraved on silver plates, the working people of France and Spain, soldiers in Italy, and traveling mechanics in Germany were diverting themselves in wine-shops and public gardens, in huts and by the road-side, with similar games, played with greasy cards which had been printed or stenciled on coarse paper. The cards were adapted to all tastes, and there was a fascination in them which made men neglectful of duty.

The evil results of this infatuation were soon perceived. Playing cards were denounced not only by kings and the provosts of cities, but by the more zealous and conscientious priests of the church. At the synod of Langres held in 1404, the fathers of the church forbid all games of playing cards to the clergy. On the fifth day of May, in the year 1423, St. Bernard of Sienna preached against playing cards from the steps of the Church of St. Peter, with such effect, that his hearers ran to their houses, and brought therefrom all the games of hazard that they owned—cards, dice and checkers—and burnt them in the public square. One card-maker, who felt that his business had been ruined by the sermon, went in tears to the saint, and said, "Father, I am a card maker, and know no other trade. You have forbidden me to make cards and have consequently condemned me to die from starvation." Whereupon the ready priest said, "If you know how to paint, paint this image"—showing him the figure of Christ, with the monogram in the centre of a halo of glory. The card-maker, we are told, followed the