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Spheres of
Transnational Ecoviolence
Environmental Crime,
Human Security, and Justice
Peter Stoett · Delon Alain Omrow
Spheres of Transnational Ecoviolence
 Peter Stoett · Delon Alain Omrow

Spheres
of Transnational
Ecoviolence
Environmental Crime, Human Security, and Justice
Peter Stoett Delon Alain Omrow
Faculty of Social Science and Faculty of Social Science and
Humanities Humanities
Ontario Tech University Ontario Tech University
Oshawa, ON, Canada Oshawa, ON, Canada

ISBN 978-3-030-58560-0 ISBN 978-3-030-58561-7 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58561-7

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2021

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 Preface

One of the greatest threats to environmental and human security today

is transnational ecoviolence and crime, which has become both a lucra-
tive enterprise and a mode of life in many regions of the world. Taking
an explicitly interdisciplinary approach, this text provides a comprehen-
sive overview of transnational ecoviolence, moving away from the more
traditional treatment of ecoviolence as the study of conflicts resulting
from resource scarcity (though these are certainly involved as well). If
we expand the conventional definition of crime to include both acts and
structures of violence, future historians may well look back at the current
era as the era of transnational ecoviolence and crime, when we failed to
come to grips with its extent and to deal effectively with it on numerous
jurisdictional levels. We use ecoviolence here as Laura Westra used it in an
often overlooked volume she published in 2004; though it encompasses
violence related to conflicts over natural resources (as Thomas Homer-
Dixon and others have researched so well), it also includes violence against
nature that is either illegal or, as some would say, damn well should be.
We argue that we cannot seriously consider stopping ecoviolence
without also promoting environmental (and climate) justice as well as
human security. Environmental crime is linked intimately to, and could
even be defined as, violence: violence against nature, violence against
humans. The book engages in a conceptual discussion of this era-defining
violence and offers case study material that illustrates the complexity of

v
vi PREFACE

the issues. Clearly, we need robust and programmatic responses to egre-

gious violence against nature and insults to environmental justice on a
broad spectrum of scale, from small communities to the biosphere. Impor-
tantly, borrowing from the pioneering work of green criminologist Robert
White, we should not view transnational environmental crime as a “south-
ern” problem, since northern states and corporations are also heavily
invested in the criminal projects that taken together threaten the ability
of future generations to care for themselves.
And a point we readily confess to belaboring throughout this book: it
is essential to integrate the theme of climate justice in any contemporary
treatment of transnational ecoviolence and crime, not merely for ethical
reasons but for the strategic necessity of legitimizing efforts, often less
than agreeable, to reduce ecoviolence itself. Surprisingly to some North
Americans, perhaps, this is not a contentious point. From aiding the
spread of invasive species and transmission of new diseases, to the rise in
sea levels and disruptive extreme weather events, climate change is shaping
the landscape for transnational ecoviolence today. If the prolific expan-
sion of global trade opened new doors for environmental crime in the
past century, climate change is opening them again today, evincing every-
thing from climate mitigation fraud to land grabs disguised as community
resettlement programs organized by coercive forces and criminal gangs.
We dedicate a chapter in this book to climate crime, ranging from fraud-
sters selling fake carbon offsets to gullible consumers to what some would
no doubt argue is the crime of the century, the deliberate spreading of
misinformation on the reality and impacts of climate change by the fossil
fuel industry and others with monetary stakes in a carbon-based global
economy. But climate permeates all the issues discussed in the book.
A second major factor in enabling the commission of transnational
ecoviolence and crime today is the advent of modern technology: digitized
and instantaneous communication across the globe is but one example.
The systemic use of the dark net, for example, which has made child
pornography readily available for viewing, has also permeated the illegal
wildlife trade. However, as with climate change, there is another side to
this constantly evolving coin. Technology can be used to fight transna-
tional environmental crime in an unprecedented manner today: moni-
toring the Internet through algorithm, the use of high-resolution satel-
lite and drone surveillance, the use of DNA sampling to identify species’
origins, and other techniques have all come into vogue. Are they all polit-
ically acceptable/feasible in liberal democracies? Are they further steps
 PREFACE vii

toward an AI-driven totalitarianism, or even the “green leviathan” loathed

by those who fear dictatorship and authoritarianism arising from scarcity,
or a corporatism driven by the tech industries themselves?
The text also addresses the debate over defining ecocide and the estab-
lishment of international legal institutions that can effectively respond
to transnational ecoviolence and crime today. Because it is so intimately
linked to political violence, economic and physical displacement, and
development opportunity costs, we believe that transnational ecoviolence
must be viewed primarily as a human security issue (the term “human
security” has a long and complicated lineage at this point, but as long
as there are decision-making human beings, we will periodically circle
back to discussions about its legitimacy and practicality). However, this
makes fighting transnational ecoviolence, in a world still driven by the
central concerns of national and corporate security, and even through
relatively legitimate institutions such as INTERPOL, a very complex task
that will be affected by geopolitics, nationalism, deregulatory impulses,
authoritarian states, rebel factions and extremists, broader socio-economic
patterns, and many other factors.
This book is not intended as a primer in how to “fight” crime. It
is not written, strictly, from a criminological viewpoint, but rather is
intended to cover the politics behind (and in front of) formal and informal
transnational ecoviolence, including the international political economy
that drives it, and which stresses the legitimacy of efforts to combat both
its pernicious effects and root causes. We are not claiming to have solved
any of the problems we discuss in the book; our goal is to encourage
further discussion and the application of possible solutions. But as we
struggle through the novel coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic in 2020,
the zoonotic origins of which may have been linked to the illegal wildlife
trade, and as indigenous people in Brazil, Canada, and elsewhere struggle
to protect their land from further assault, and as we drain the oceans of
marine life, and as climate change continues to threaten our very collective
survival, this discussion is more pertinent than ever.

Oshawa, Canada Peter Stoett

Delon Alain Omrow
 Acknowledgments

The first thing to acknowledge is the immense patience of the edito-

rial crew at Palgrave Macmillan, who tolerated two-year-long extensions
required due to a change in Dr. Stoett’s employment circumstances as
he moved from Director of the Loyola Sustainability Research Centre at
Concordia University in Montreal to Dean of Social Science and Humani-
ties at Ontario Tech University in Oshawa, near Toronto; and then taking
on a major assignment co-chairing the first international assessment on the
spread and control of invasive alien species with the Intergovernmental
Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
It has been an ongoing pleasure working with Anca Pusca and Rachel
Moore at Palgrave, who have provided clear guidance and stuck with the
project throughout all the curves in the road.
Both authors are grateful to the Canadian Institute for Advanced
Research (CIFAR), which sponsored a workshop held in January 2019
in Toronto that gathered experts from around the globe to discuss the
challenge of transnational environmental crime; this resulted in a joint
publication in Nature: Sustainability (Gore et al. 2019) and a commit-
ment to look deeper into the conceptual and practical implications of the
threats posed by the spheres of transnational ecoviolence discussed here.
Many of those who attended the meeting have been primary sources of
inspiration and information, including Sheldon Jordan, Director General,
Wildlife Enforcement, at Environment and Climate Change Canada, and
many authors cited in this book.

ix
x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are very grateful for the extremely helpful comments of an anony-

mous reviewer, who put together a direct, detailed, and insightful review
in amazingly short turnaround time. Special thanks also to freelance
British-Tunisian journalist and co-founder of the West Africa Fisheries
Journalism Training Project Mona Samari, who provided a succinct case
study of illegal fishing off the coast of West Africa which we included in
Chapter 4.
Delon acknowledges with gratitude the support of Tas Rasool, whose
warmth continues to encourage and inspire him in his intellectual pursuits.
He is grateful to his nieces, Tianna and Naya, for giving him a renewed
sense of hope for the future. He would like to extend a special thanks to
Peter for inviting him to contribute to this book and is humbled to work
with such a brilliant and prolific writer. He dedicates this book to the
memory of his grandmother, Moongeah “Edith” Thakurdin née Ramesra,
who passed away with inimitable grace in January 2019.
Peter thanks the staff and especially Executive Assistant Kirstie Ayottte
at the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities at Ontario Tech Univer-
sity for coping with his unusual schedule. He is grateful to Delon for
coming onboard and adding his intellectual acumen, writing skills, and
creative energy to this project at just the right time. And he is especially
grateful to his family, including Gianluca, Giuliana, and Alexandra; and
the incomparable Cristina Romanelli, who is not just a partner in life
but a constant source of knowledge and light, and whose work on the
links between biodiversity and health has informed the world. He dedi-
cates this book to the memory of his father, Frederik Stoett, who left
us after a valiant struggle in February 2020; and to the future of his
granddaughter, Everley Stoett Small, who joined us soon after.

Toronto and Montreal

May 2020

Reference
Gore, M., P. Braszak, J. Brown, P. Cassey, R. Duffy, J. Fisher, J. Graham,
R. Justo-Hanani, A. Kirkwood, E. Lunstrum, C. Machalaba, F. Masse, M.
Manguiat, P. Stoett, T. Wyatt, and R. White. 2019. “Transnational Envi-
ronmental Crime Threatens Sustainable Development.” Nature Sustainability
2(1): 784–786.
 Contents

1 Transnational Ecoviolence and Crime: Revisiting

Environmental Justice and Human Security 1
Introduction 1
Defining Violence 5
Agential and Structural Ecoviolence 12
Environmental Justice and Human Security 16
What Is Transnational Ecoviolence and Crime? 24
Moving Forward: Spheres of Transnational Ecoviolence 30
Conclusion 32
References 33

2 Ecoviolence Against Fauna: The Illegal Wildlife Trade 41

Introduction 41
The Contemporary IWT 42
The Architects of Ecoviolence 45
Global Responses to the IWT 50
The Illegal Trade of Turtles 54
The Illegal Trade of Pangolins 55
The Illegal Trade of Hyacinth Macaws 58
Syncretic Analysis: The Seed-Finch’s Song of Freedom 60
Conclusion 64
References 65

xi
xii CONTENTS

3 The Transnationalization of Hazardous Waste 73

Introduction 73
Conceptualizing Hazardous Waste 75
Canada and the Global Waste Trade 80
Waste Disposal in the United States 81
Transnational Waste and the Eco-Mafia 84
Syncretic Analysis: Investor-State Dispute Settlements (ISDS) 86
Conclusion 95
References 96

4 Transnational Oceanic Ecoviolence 103

Introduction 103
What Is IUU Fishing? 107
Environmental Justice and Reduction Fisheries 109
Human Security and Sea Slavery 113
Syncretic Analysis: IUU on the West African Coast 116
Conclusion 121
References 122

5 Floral Transnational Ecoviolence 127

Introduction 127
Conceptualizing Forest, Timber, and Plant Crime 129
Dudleya Poaching and Trading 138
The Transnationalization of the Ginseng Trade 139
Human Security and Floral Transnational Ecoviolence
in Peru 141
Syncretic Analysis: Mexico’s “Avocado Republics” 143
Conclusion 148
References 149

6 From Petty Fraud to Global Injustice: Climate

Ecoviolence 155
Introduction 155
And Justice for All? 159
Conceptualizing Climate Ecoviolence 163
Chlorofluorocarbon Trade 172
Perverse Consequences: Green Land Grabs and Conflict
Minerals 174
 CONTENTS xiii

Human Security and Climate Change in Turkey 178

Syncretic Analysis: The Wildfires in Australia 180
Conclusion 184
References 186

7 Responses to Transnational Ecoviolence and Crime 195

Introduction 195
States and Markets 196
Militarized Responses 202
The Protection of Environmental Activists 204
High Tech Approaches 208
International Efforts 212
INTERPOL and NESTs 220
Two Quick Examples: Predator and Wisdom 225
International Courts, Real and Imagined 227
Earth Jurisprudence 232
Conclusion 234
References 236

References 243

Index 291
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Selected spheres of transnational ecoviolence 31

Fig. 7.1 National environmental security taskforces (Source Higgins
and White [2016], INTERPOL [2014]) 224

xv
 CHAPTER 1

Transnational Ecoviolence and Crime:

Revisiting Environmental Justice and Human
Security

Violence comes in many forms, including road traffic and industrial

accidents, gender-based sexual abuse, sexual harassment against women,
self-inflicted suicides, and violence due to organized crime. Like infec-
tious diseases, many of these harmful behaviors are ‘socially contagious’
– transmitted through imitative behavior, promoted by the mass media,
and perpetrated by transnational criminal networks.
Gahr Store et al., 2003: 71

Combining financial and economic values, illegal logging, fishing, and

wildlife trade has an estimated full global economic value of about $1 tril-
lion to $2 trillion per year. More than 90 percent comes from the estimated
value of ecosystem, regulating and cultural services that are not priced by
the market. It is double or more the global risks of counterfeiting and
piracy, which are estimated at $509 billion, or 3.3 percent of world trade
in 2016.
World Bank Group, 2019: 18

Introduction
If there is a common theme across dimensions of social thought today, it
is that great change is upon us; that the environment, which sustains us
and grants us the ability to even think of enjoyable, wonderful futures,
is in a form of peril that could only be eclipsed (perhaps) by the advent
of full-scale thermo-nuclear war or a calamitous meteor impact. To be

© The Author(s) 2021 1

P. Stoett and D. A. Omrow, Spheres of Transnational Ecoviolence,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58561-7_1
2 P. STOETT AND D. A. OMROW

clear, it’s not Earth itself that is at stake here. It’s the thin layer of life we
call the biosphere and, more particularly, the species homo sapiens which,
for better or worse, inhabits it. Climate change (and the heated political
discourse on doing something about it) is the most visible manifestation
of a broader crisis in the human-environment relationship, but biodiver-
sity loss, massive natural resource consumption, the interlinked oceans
crises, toxic pollution, ozone layer depletion, and many other concerns
are all related, global in scope, local in destruction, and caused in some
manner by human conduct (see Stoett 2019). The rapid spread of the
zoonotic novel coronavirus COVID-19 in 2020 may have been linked
to live wildlife markets in China that have been linked to the illegal
wildlife trade (Yu 2020; Vidal 2020), and it’s widely accepted that habitat
destruction and climate change will induce more newly emerging and re-
emerging infectious diseases in the future (see Morens and Fauci 2013;
Daszak et al. 2001; and various IPCC reports).
People have done this. No one hurls the lightning bolts that start forest
fires, but we certainly helped dry out the forest surface so that it burns
so quickly and bright. No one decides how often and when endangered
species will mate and propagate, but we have certainly made their survival
in the wild increasingly difficult, if not impossible. Human agency is at the
causal heart of our ecological footprint and any attendant angst over our
continued collective survival is well-deserved. Meanwhile, we continue to
exploit not just the natural environment, but each other. One can plau-
sibly argue that great advances in human dignity, freedom, and equality
have been made since the days of feudalism and slave economies, but it is
impossible to deny the continuation of a global political economy based
on mass exploitation. We are in the midst of a massive act of violence
against nature, and attendant crimes against humanity: the socio-legal
structures that facilitate this bear scrutiny and must be reformed if we
are to get off this path.
This book is focused primarily on one particular aspect of this
contextual challenge: the rise and expansion and fight against both
formal (legislated) and informal (uncodified directly, but equally harmful)
transnational environmental crime, which we broadly label transnational
ecoviolence, and the human suffering that accompanies it. Typically,
“ecoviolence” has referred to violence that results from conflicts over
natural resources and/or resource scarcity (or abundance) amid growing
population pressure, a theme explored by Thomas Homer-Dixon and
others (Homer-Dixon and Blitt 1998; de Soysa 2002; Gleditsch and
 1 TRANSNATIONAL ECOVIOLENCE AND CRIME … 3

Urdal 2002); but we use the term to connote agential and structural
violence, as discussed later in this chapter, which coterminously affects
both nature and people, and which may or may not take place during
conflict. Our use of the term is thus closer to Laura Westra’s employment
of it in her often overlooked 2004 book Ecoviolence and the Law: Supra-
normative Foundations of Ecocrime (Westra 2004). We are emphatic about
the linkage between environmental justice and human security: there are
few forms of environmental crime that do not involve human suffering,
exploitation, fraud, or some other wrong against individuals or commu-
nities. Treating ecoviolence otherwise—removing the element of human
pain—is an empirical and, one can plausibly argue, strategic error. The
reverse is often the case, as well: many crimes against humanity, and cases
of severe economic exploitation including that of children, are accompa-
nied by cumulative environmental harm, much as warfare is not only bad
for the people it kills and maims, but it also destroys the trees, rivers,
and wildlife that sustain them. Many forms of transnational ecoviolence
are also linked historically to the imperialist projects that have them-
selves perpetrated extreme exploitation (also known as super-exploitation
in some Marxist circles) in the periphery of the global economy (Smith
2016).
This volume is rooted firmly in the premise that we must look at envi-
ronmental harms as clusters of ecological, social, and economic damage;
ecoviolence (whether it crosses borders in its transmission or not) is a
threat to both environmental justice and human security. And it can also
be seen as a violation of the inherent rights of nature (see Humphreys
2016; Maloney and Burdon 2014), if that conceptual lens is adapted.
If nature has rights, and we openly think it should, then violations of
those rights are a form of violence, just as violations of human rights are
usually regarded as violent acts as well. When ecoviolence breaks laws and
involves actors in more than one country, this is labeled formal transna-
tional environmental crime; when it does not break any formal law but
violates what we could consider to be the inherent rights of nature and
the human rights to environmental justice and human security, this is
labeled informal transnational environmental crime. In order to include
both these variants, and to pay homage to the progressive development
of an Earth Jurisprudence that assigns inherent rights to nature, we prefer
to use the term transnational ecoviolence.
This book is thus inspired by previous efforts in political science,
human geography, international law, environmental science, criminology,
4 P. STOETT AND D. A. OMROW

and other disciplines; it is an inherently interdisciplinary exercise. We

are not claiming novelty here, but are seeking to convey a new way of
looking at things. Much of what has come to be known as “green crimi-
nology” is not altogether a new academic enterprise, though it continues
to be treated as novel in some circles. An edited book published in
2007 integrated previously published work on the general theme (Beirne
and South 2007). However it is mainly concerned with wedding “the
movements in green environmentalism and in animal rights” (xiii). Boyd
and Menzies edited a text on “toxic criminology” in 2002; Del Frate
and Norberry edited one on environmental crime in 1993; Williams
published an article on “an environmental victimology” in 1996. The
term “greening of criminology” was used in a textbook published in
2004 (Carrabine et al. 2004), which generated some debate (see Halsey
2004); Robert White has been presenting a framework for studying green
criminology in various guises since 2010, including an “eco-global crim-
inology” (White 2011). As thematic subjects, environmental crime and
green criminology are in themselves worthy pursuits, but their own inter-
disciplinary nature means that scholars from a vast array of other fields,
including history, anthropology, sociology, political science, chemistry,
geography, legal studies, biology, journalism, and many others, must
contribute to their evolution (see Elliott and Schaedla 2016). We’ve tried
to integrate various disciplines in the discussions and analyses that follow,
and to supersede our own disciplinary callings in the process.
At the same time, given the extent of the disasters unfolding before
our eyes and the preponderance of failure in efforts to mitigate it, a
critical perspective is highly warranted here. We live in an age charac-
terized by the public anxieties discussed above, but the specific anxieties
of wealth (or, more directly, the frets and concerns, both understand-
able and exaggerated, of the wealthy) continue to plague both established
and emerging public discourses over security. Indeed, the privatization of
security provision, and the adaptation to environmental change afforded
only by wealth, are two of the key themes of this century (both of
them began much earlier, of course). Everything from prison systems to
neighborhood watches to pandemic responses have been privatized and
militarized and made profitable in many parts of the world. Conserva-
tion, meanwhile, is increasingly subject to securitization as a response
within the neoliberal framework that accepts and indeed promotes priva-
tized and militarized protection as a market commodity. One of the bigger
debates raging within the conservationist community is whether a heavily
 1 TRANSNATIONAL ECOVIOLENCE AND CRIME … 5

weaponized approach to “saving” nature is warranted under a consequen-

tialist ethics given the extremity of the biodiversity crisis. We will return to
this theme throughout this book, but it partly derives from a critical crim-
inology popularized by Hillyard (2004) and others and has been picked
up by many engaged in the green criminology enterprise (Wyatt 2013).
It is just one aspect of the set of circumstances we face in what is widely
labeled the anthropocene (see Dalby 2020).
Transnational ecoviolence, as a concept, opens many doors to a broader
understanding of criminal activity: beyond the individual, since entities
such as corporations and governments are generally the chief culprits;
beyond the legal, since even severe environmental harm is often quite
lawful in character; beyond the tendency to avoid focusing on systemic
corruption as a major factor in crime (much as political science strug-
gles to deal with it as a sustained aspect of governance). But it does not,
nor should it, deflect from what is arguably the central preoccupation
of those concerned with crime, which is the reduction of harm, in this
case to both to the environment, and to nature (distinguishing these is
not simple, but one includes city skies and the other doesn’t). Hauck
(2007), in a discussion of illegal fisheries in South Africa, makes this point
clearly: “interestingly, in the green criminology literature, there seems to
be little direct reference thus far to the discourse on human security,
non-traditional security, or more specifically, environmental security….”
Another way of putting this: the question of what constitutes violence,
as a concept, remains central to an understanding of the politics (inter-
national, national, local) of environmental crime, when we take human
security as one of our main concerns. We turn to a discussion of this
question next.

Defining Violence1
If we are linking human security and environmental crime, one of the
most obvious overlaps is the existence or threat of violence. But what
do we mean by “violence”? The focus on ecoviolence differentiates our
present concerns from the much broader study of international relations,
ecopolitics, environmental politics, political geography, or even polit-
ical ecology. It obviously entails more than just violence against nature,

1 Parts of this section have been taken from Stoett (2012).

6 P. STOETT AND D. A. OMROW

but what analytic path does it take us down? Again, we are moving
beyond the popular employment of the term “ecoviolence”, which refers
mainly to armed conflicts that have resulted from population pressure
and resource scarcity (Homer-Dixon and Britt 1998), though those situ-
ations are certainly violent, to the inclusion of environmental crimes,
formal and informal. Why do we want to expand the term in this way,
and what would a broader conception look like? We can begin with a
short discussion of the root concept of violence itself.
The word violence means many things to many people, of course.
Violence is ugly, inflicted, a violation; it can be beautiful, choreographed,
even emulated. It is unfortunate, disproportionate, random, personal,
political, epistemic, structural, mechanical. Violence is pain, it is release;
it is oppressive, it is liberating; it is shamed, it is commercialized. It is the
core human reflex; it is the result of institutional cultural construction; it
is unleashed rage or calculated sadism. Violence echoes in the collective
soul, the murdered demanding revenge. Violence takes and frees slaves,
and forces labor as well as progressive change.
And yet a definition, or at least an employable typology, of ecovio-
lence is central to the task of understanding how it can affect those who
are, as the African saying has it, caught on the grass between feuding
elephants. We would simply refer to eco-conflict if all we implied was
contestation, or the clash of interests, over natural resources. The use of
the term violence certainly implies that some form of injury or violation
of persons or norms has occurred, or could occur, as a result of factors
present in the physical environment, beyond the mere existence of social
conflict. The case studies generated by interdisciplinary analysts tend to
assume that ecoviolence is the potential dependent variable, but they
rarely actually discuss the meaning of the term itself. Such a discussion
raises ancillary questions about the meaning of human conflict, human-
nature relations, structural oppression, human security, and a plethora
of other factors which together constitute the conceptual landscape of
ecoviolence. It will also raise the perplexing fact that the fight against
ecoviolence can, in itself, be quite violent in nature, whether it is the
dispossession of people dependent on natural resources for conservationist
purposes, shoot-on-sight park ranger policies in response to poaching, or
the use of coerced labor to extract the rare Earth minerals necessary for
producing battery-operated vehicles (Church and Crawford 2018).
Despite its centrality to the raison-d-etre of the human sciences,
violence has been notoriously difficult to hunt down in definitional terms.
(No surprise: most definitions, even the more widely cited within the
 1 TRANSNATIONAL ECOVIOLENCE AND CRIME … 7

social sciences, are openly vague, offering tantalizing avenues for further
exploration.) For example, Audi defines violence as “the physical attack
upon, or the vigorous physical abuse of, or vigorous physical struggle
against, a person or animal; or the highly vigorous psychological abuse
of, or the sharp, caustic psychological attack upon, a person or animal; or
the highly vigorous, or incendiary, or malicious and vigorous, destruction
or damaging of property or potential property”. However, he fully admits
that this definition is “seriously vague” (1974: 49), though the inclusion
of the term “animal” is welcome. Wolff conceptualizes violence as “the
illegitimate or unauthorized use of force to effect decisions against the will or
desire of others. Thus, murder is an act of violence, but capital punishment
by a legitimate state is not; theft or extortion is violent, but the collection
of taxes by a legitimate state is not ” (Wolff 1969: 606; italics in original).
Wolff argues that it is wrong “to restrict the term ‘violence’ to uses of
force that involve bodily interference or the direct infliction of physical
injury” (ibid.) as this definition is too limited in scope and excludes a
variety of non-physical actions that may still cause personal harm, but his
emphasis on state legitimacy is curiously ethnocentric. Lee (1996) exam-
ines the literature related to definitions of violence and determines that,
while there is a consensus among scholars that violence causes harm to
people (though some would include non-humans), there is robust debate
as to whether a definition of violence must include an act of physical
force or not (and if it does not, then can human systemic impoverishment
or poverty not be included in the definition?). Lee then distinguishes
between positive rules (social and legal rules enforced by the state through
its legitimate power) and “ideal” rules regarding morality and justice in
society. As poverty is a violation of society’s “ideal” rules, Lee argues that
it should be included in a definition of violence, as both direct personal
violence and structural violence cause harm and are therefore equally
immoral. Jackman combines vagueness with endless possibility: he defines
violence as “actions that inflict, threaten, or cause injury. Actions may be
corporal, written, or verbal. Injuries may be corporal, psychological, mate-
rial, or social” (Jackman 2002: 405). Turpin and Kurtz argue against a
minimalist definition of violence, since “[t]he tendency to see violence as
the consequence of aberrant behavior committed by deviant individuals
at the margins of society obscures the central roles violence plays at the
very foundations of the social order and the fundamental dilemmas that
humans face” (Turpin and Kurtz 1997: 207).
Another random document with
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Plate 4.
 CHINA.

A S has been already mentioned, the invention of Playing-cards has

been claimed at many places; each writer setting forth the
pretensions of his own country to this honour to the best of his ability,
and each one with seemingly good authority for his statements.
It is certain that the Chinese point in triumph to the longest pedigree
for their game, and they quote extensively from their own authors as
proof of this fact; and until some European well versed in their
language can dispute this claim, it may be as well to allow it.
Mr. Chatto says that cards appear to have been known from an early
period in China. There is a Chinese dictionary, entitled “Ching-tsze-
tung,” compiled by Eul-Kowng, and first published a. d. 1678; which
says that the cards now known in China as Teen-tsze-pae, or “dotted
cards,” were invented in the reign of Leun-ho, 1120, and that they
began to be common in the reign of Kaow-tsung, who ascended the
throne in 1131. According to tradition, they were devised for the
amusement of Leun-ho’s wives.
The general name for cards in China is Che-pae, or “paper-tickets.”
At first they were called Ya-pae, or “bone-tickets,” from the material of
which they were made. Several varieties of cards seem to be in use in
China. One pack that is described by Mr. Chatto is said to be
composed of thirty-two cards covered with small circular dots of red
and black, with court cards of one man and one woman. The cards
most commonly used are called Tseen-wan-che-pae (a thousand times
ten thousand cards). There are thirty in a pack, divided into three suits
of nine cards each, and three single cards, which are superior to all
others. The name of one of the suits is Kew-ko-wan; that is, “The nine
ten thousands” (or “myriads of Kwan,” which are strings of beads,
shells, or money). The name of the other suit is Kew-ko-ping (nine
units of cakes); and that of the third, Kew-ko-so (nine units of chains).
The names of the three single cards are Tseen-wan (a thousand times
ten thousand), Heeng-hwa (the red flower), and Pi-hwa (the white
flower). One of their games of cards bears the same name as the
Chinese game of Chess, Kew-ma-paon; and it contains pictures of
chariots, horses, and guns.
 The Chinese name for a card considered singly or as one of the
parts of a pack is Shen, or “Fan,”—a most evident reference to the
manner of holding cards spread open like a fan, which is common to all
nations.
The shape and size of the Chinese card are peculiar. They are
printed in black on a thin cardboard. The backs are sometimes bright
crimson and sometimes black or yellow, and they are the shape and
size of a finger. Some of them are little more than half an inch broad by
three inches long, and others are an inch wide by three and a half long.
The pips and court cards are always printed in black on a white
background, and on the face of some of them are stamped Chinese
characters printed in red. In some packs the cards have animals, such
as horses and deer, represented upon them; while in others characters
which may mean the names only of the animals are written above the
pips. The cards are rounded at the top and bottom, and at the upper
end a small portion is left blank, as if to hold them conveniently and
allow of their being spread or “fanned” out, showing the whole of the
pictured surface, the blank space being held under the thumb and
fingers. Strangely enough, this blank space being at the top instead of
at the bottom of the card, it would seem that they should be held by the
top and spread out in exactly the reverse way customary among
Europeans. The tiny cards are so narrow and so small that they might
well be held concealed by the palm of the hand, which could effectually
cover them and prevent the shape of the pips being seen through the
thin cardboard or the number of the cards being counted by the
opponent.
The Chinese have another name for their cards, and this is Wat-pi;
but it seems to be the name given to different games, as they also call
queer-looking tablets on which round dots are placed in regular order
and which resemble our dominos, by the same name.
Mr. Singer gives an account of some Chinese cards an inch and a
half long and a little more than two inches broad. Each suit consists of
nine cards with black backs. They are printed with Chinese characters,
and not with emblems like those in other packs.
Some authors state that cards are played by the lower orders only,
and that people of distinction play at Chess; and that among the
Chinese it is considered undignified to play cards, and many of them
pretend they have no idea of their use or the meaning or value of the
characters on them.
It is also asserted that a game analogous to the old one of Tarots
has been found in China, which contains seventy-seven tablets.
There is a tradition that a Venetian carried cards from China to his
native city, which was the first place in Europe where they were known.
This traveller was probably Niccolo Polo, who with his brother Matteo
returned from China about 1269; or it may have been the celebrated
Marco Polo, son of the above Niccolo, who accompanied his father and
uncle on their second voyage to that great empire.

EGYPT.
An attempt has been made to prove that a kind of card was in use
among the Egyptians in the seventh century before our present era;
but this has been hotly disputed if not disproved. That there were
games which were known to the early Egyptians has been shown by
the inscriptions on their monuments, and the representations of figures
playing jack-stones or knuckle-bones and dice. Some kind of game
resembling Chess may also have been played, but upon this subject
authorities do not agree.

INDIA.
If India was not the birthplace of Cards, as it probably was of Chess,
it is certain that they were known in that country at a very early date;
and beautiful specimens of ancient as well as modern packs are prized
in many European collections.
A pack of Hindoo cards is fully described in Mr. Singer’s book, and
many of them are handsomely reproduced. They are painted on ivory,
the backs are gilded, and they number the same as the Tarot cards.
This pack contains seven suits, which are Suns, Moons, Crowns,
Cushions, Harps, Letters, and Swords. Of each of these suits there are
ten numeral and two court cards, which appear to represent a
Sovereign and a General. Besides these there are twelve cards
apparently of no suit, on which are groups of figures, some male and
some female.
Mr. Chatto describes several packs of Hindostanee cards, among
others some owned by the Royal Asiatic Society and preserved in their
Museum. One of these packs consists of ten and others of eight suits.
“In each suit, when complete, the number of cards is twelve; that is,
two coat cards, or honours, and ten others whose numerical value is
expressed by the number of marks upon them. The cards of all the
packs are circular; the diameter of the largest is two and three quarter
inches, and of the smallest about two and an eighth inches.” The
material of which they are formed is supposed to be canvas, and
indeed it is expressly stated in a memorandum that accompanies them
that such is the case, but they appear to be made of thin veneers of
wood. One of these packs formerly belonged to Capt. D. Cromline
Smith, to whom they were presented about 1815 by a high-caste
Brahmin, who considered them a great curiosity, and supposed that
they were a thousand years old. These cards resemble a pack now
owned by Mr. de Forest that he bought in Cashmere within a few
years, and that have been reproduced for this work. The Brahmin’s
pack, says Mr. Chatto, “consists of eight suits, each suit containing two
honours and ten common cards,—in all ninety-six cards. In all the suits
the King is mounted on an elephant, and in six the Vizir, or second
honour, is on horseback; but in the blue suit, the emblem or mark of
which is a red spot with a yellow centre, he rides a tiger; and in the
white suit, the mark of which appears like a grotesque or fiendish head,
he is mounted on a bull. The backs of all the cards are green. The
following are the colours of the ground on which the figures are painted
in the several suits, together with the different marks by which the suits
and the respective value of the common cards were also distinguished:
—
COLOURS. MARKS.
1. Fawn. Something like a pineapple in a shallow cup.
2. Black. A red spot with a white centre.
3. Brown. A “tulwar,” or sword.
4. White. A grotesque kind of head.
5. Green. Something like a parasol without a handle, and with two broken ribs
 sticking through the top.
6. Blue. A red spot with a yellow centre.
7. Red. A parallelogram with dots on it as if to represent writing.
8. Yellow. An oval.”
Plate 5.
 Mr. Chatto mentions other packs with red backs, one of them
containing ten suits, and all seemingly distinguished more by the
coloured background than the emblem of the suit, which is sometimes
entirely omitted, particularly in the court cards. The games to be played
are complicated and difficult to understand, although one of them is
said to resemble l’Ombre, the favourite game in Spain. The tradition
regarding the origin of Hindostanee cards, as given by Mr. Chatto, is
“that they were invented by a favourite Sultana or Queen to wean her
husband from a bad habit he had acquired of pulling or eradicating his
beard.” The game of cards is not mentioned in the Arabian Nights,
remarks Mr. Chatto, “and from this silence it may be concluded that at
the time when those tales were compiled card-playing was not a
popular pastime in Arabia. The compilation of these tales, it is believed,
is not earlier than about the end of the fifteenth century, although some
of them are of a much higher antiquity.”

CASHMERE.

T he cards from Cashmere, which belong to Mr. de Forest and are

reproduced for this work, differ but slightly from those described by
Mr. Chatto. The Cashmere cards are circular in shape, as well as the
Hindostanee, and are of about the same size, being two inches in
diameter. The emblems on the Cashmere cards differ considerably
from those described by Mr. Chatto, and only the court or figure cards
bear a general resemblance to those that formerly belonged to Capt.
D. Cromline Smith.
The Cashmere cards seem to be made of thin slices of wood,
overlaid with a composition of some sort, and so thickly covered with
paint and varnish that the original material is entirely concealed. This
pack contains thirty-six cards of three suits; namely, ten pip and two
court cards in each suit. A large purple flower on a red ground, placed
within circles of yellow, ornaments the backs, which are probably
intended to be precisely the same; but to an experienced gamester
there would be no difficulty in distinguishing one card from another,
even with the face of it concealed, as the design, though uniform,
differs slightly on each card.
 The three suits are not only marked by the emblems of pips, but, like
the Hindostanee cards, the backgrounds are vividly painted in some
uniform colour upon which the design is displayed, and this colour
marks the suits distinctly even when the emblem is omitted, which in
some cases is done either by design or accident. The white suit is
headed by a King mounted on an elephant, and a Vizir on a bull. There
are no emblems on these two cards by which to distinguish the suit.
The ten pip cards show tiny figures of men clothed in loosely fitting red
garments and wearing red turbans on their heads. These figures are
represented kneeling, with their hands clasped in the attitude of prayer.
They are dotted over the surface of the cards and grouped as the
corresponding pips are in the other suits, and generally face each
other, except in number eight, in which all the figures look the same
way and to the left side. Another suit is distinguished by a dark-blue
ground, on which small yellow disks, surrounded by circles of red, are
painted. This suit may correspond with a “moon” suit mentioned by Mr.
Chatto among the Hindostanee cards, and it is also noticeable as it
closely resembles the “money” used as an emblem on Italian and
Spanish cards. The court cards of this suit show a man mounted on a
tiger and bearing the distinctive emblem uplifted in his right hand. The
position of this man is closely copied on the Spanish cards, although in
them he is represented on horseback. The second honour shows two
tigers seated on a cross-legged bench gazing over their shoulders at
two attendants, who wave what appear to be staves or fans. Between
these tigers is a large “moon-face,” which seems to mark the suit. If
this be the case, it would point to the origin of the money emblem. The
pips on the rest of the suit are carelessly executed circles, and the
features, which would show it to be intended for the moon, are omitted.
The outline of this mark may have been followed on the cards that
were first introduced into Europe, and may readily have become
changed during the lapse of years. The “moon” mark on the
Hindostanee cards has gradually extended both East and West, one
that closely resembles it being found on the Chinese cards, and partly
followed on the wooden cubes of the Alaska Indians.
Plate 6.
 The green suit bears emblems which recall the carreaux of the
French cards, and are even more like one of the marks used by the
Apache tribe of North American Indians by which to distinguish one of
their suits. The diamond-shaped pip on the Cashmere cards is painted
red and ornamented with stripes and dots of pink. The court cards
show a Vizir on a white horse, bearing the pip in his right hand, and a
Sultan attended by two slaves, who also carries the emblem of the suit.
These cards show little marks of use, and their surface is slightly
sticky, so that they could not be conveniently either shuffled or dealt. It
is probable that the pack is not complete, and that there should be
more than the three suits that now compose it.

PERSIA.

S IX tablets brought from Persia by a recent traveller form an

interesting addition to the cards used by different nations. These
tiny cards appear to be the three honours of two different packs. They
are made of layers of pasteboard, some of them as thick as two
ordinary playing-cards. The others are nearly double that thickness;
and although they are all of the same size (namely, an inch and an
eighth wide by two inches long), there are many marks on them to
show that they never all belonged to the same pack. Although made of
pasteboard, they are covered so thickly with paint and varnish that they
might easily be supposed to have been cut out of wood. The backs of
these cards are all alike, and are painted black. They are remarkable
for the female figure that they bear as a court card, as in this respect
they are not only unlike all other Eastern cards, but in it differ from
those of every Western nation, with the exception of the French and
those other countries where the French cards have been adopted. This
female figure is by some called a Courtesan, but it could as well be
named a Queen. She is seated on a chair of state, that is ornamented
with a design which closely resembles one of the emblems used on a
Hindostanee pack of cards, and which is called a crown by Mr. Chatto.
This may, however, be a purely accidental resemblance. A young child
is placed in the lap of this Queen, but she bears no particularly
distinctive emblems either on her dress or on any part of the card
which might serve to mark the suit. The background of one of these
Queens is yellow, and that of the other one is red, and there are two
Queens in this pack of six cards. There are two cards which appear to
belong to the “Yellow Queen.” One of them shows a Hunter on a
golden background drawing his knife across the throat of some animal;
and the other card bears a Cavalier mounted on a white horse, on the
back of which is perched a tiger. This card has a black background. A
sun placed at the top may be intended for the distinguishing emblem.
These three cards undoubtedly belong to the same pack, and are
considerably thicker than the others, which are much more highly
ornamented and better finished than those already described. The
Queen is handsomely dressed; her hair is covered, and she wears
large ear-rings, from which depend a necklace. The child is dressed in
a loosely fitting garment, and its head is covered with a jewelled cap.
The background of this card is a beautiful red, and the corners are
ornamented with fine arabesques of flowers and fruit. The King which
belongs to this set is accompanied by a female figure, and they are
placed on a yellow background, but they bear no emblem by which
they might be distinguished. The third card has a very richly
ornamented golden background, and shows two figures, one of them
carrying what appears to be a drum. All these cards have beautifully
ornamented corners, and are painted like a miniature.

ITALY.

T HE first European document known that mentions cards is the

manuscript already referred to, written by Nicolas de Covellezzo,
about the end of the thirteenth century, is preserved among the
archives of Viterbo, and contains the earliest written account yet
discovered of cards, not only among the Italians but also in Europe, if
we except the much disputed passage in the Wardrobe Rolls of
Edward the First, King of England, which will hereafter be mentioned.
This document refers to cards by the name of Carte, as well as by that
of Naïbi.
Plate 7.
 Mr. Singer says that “the first game played in Italy was without
question Trappola. This had been introduced from Arabia, and is
mentioned by many early Italian authors, one of whom writing in 1393
calls cards Naïbi, and speaks contemptuously of them as a childish
game. Another writer, Tenanza, declares that in 1441 the Venetian
Maître-cartiers, who formed a large guild, remonstrated with the
Senate of that city on the injury done to their trade by the importation of
large quantities of playing-cards with printed as well as painted figures
within their gates, which had been manufactured elsewhere; and this
remonstrance shows that the card-makers of the day were already
numerous, and seems to point to the fact that the use of cards was well
established, and that considerable numbers were called for and
manufactured.”
Lorenzo de’ Medici mentions the games of La Bassetta and Il Frusso
in some of his “Canzoni,” printed before 1492; and there are Italian
writers who point to him as the inventor of some games of cards.
In Italy the suits were called Coppe (Cups), Spadi (Swords), Denari
(Money), Bastoni (Maces). These continued to be the commonly used
marks on the Italian cards from the sixteenth century to a much later
period; and the same suits and pips have been used in Spain from the
time of their first history to the present day. An Italian writer claims that
a native of Bologna invented Tarots or Tarocchino before the year
1419, and says that “there is preserved in the Fibbia family, which was
one of the most illustrious and ancient of that city, a portrait of Francis
Fibbia, Prince of Pisa, who sought refuge at Bologna about the
commencement of the fifteenth century, in which he is represented
holding in his right hand a parcel of cards, while others appear lying at
his feet. Among the latter are seen the Queen of Batons and the
Queen of Denari; the one bearing the arms of the Bentivoglio family,
and the other the arms of the Fibbia. An inscription at the bottom of the
picture states that Francis Fibbia, who died in 1419, had obtained as
the inventor of Tarocchino, from the Reformers of the city, the privilege
of placing his own arms on the Queen of Batons, and that of his wife,
who was one of the Bentivoglio family, on the Queen of Denari.”
Writers disagree as to whether Fibbia invented the emblems of the
cards or joined two packs of cards which already had their appropriate
emblems into one, or whether he invented a new game to be played
with the already well known Tarocchino cards.
Notice should be taken of the fact that printed as well as painted
cards are mentioned in the petition of the card-makers of Venice, as it
was from this date that each village in Italy manufactured its own
cards. After the invention of wood-engraving, Germany and Holland
exported cards in large quantities, and this may have called for the
protective decree. There was also a difference, which was mentioned
in the documents of the period, between the primitive Naïbi and cards
proper. As these documents do not define the difference between the
packs, we can form no idea of what it was.

GERMANY.

I n a German book printed at Augsburg in 1472, called “Gülden Spiel,”

or “The Golden Game,” written by a Dominican friar of the name of
Ingold, it is stated that cards had been known in Germany since 1300.
As this is by no means contemporaneous testimony, it is probable that
the German vanity which claims the honor of inventing the art of
printing wishes, with no more reason on its side, to appropriate to itself
the invention of playing-cards, which in plain words is laying claim to
the invention of wood-engraving, as many of the early German packs
are engraved and not stencilled or painted. This rather suspicious
assertion may therefore well be ignored, and we may only credit the
one made by the Italian author of Viterbo, which is apparently more
authentic. Unfortunately, the latter gives no details about the kind of
cards which he mentions. He only states that cards made their
appearance in 1379 in Europe, and came from Arabia under their
original name.
In the “Livre d’Or” of Ulm, which is a manuscript preserved in that
city, there is an ordinance, dated 1397, forbidding all card-playing.
These are the only authentic witnesses that can be brought forward
by which the approximate time of the introduction of playing-cards into
Europe may be fixed.
Plate 8.
 A German author by the name of Heniken claims for his country the
birthplace of cards, and brings forward many ingenious but hardly
satisfactory deductions in support of his pretensions. He says that
Briefe, which is the name that cards bear in his country, means
“letters,” and that the common people do not say, “Give me a pack of
cards,” but “Give me a Spiel-briefe” (a pack of letters), and they do not
say, “I want a card,” but “I want a Brief” (letter). “We should at least
have preserved the name carte,” he says, “if they had come to us from
France; for the common people always preserve the names of all
games that come to them from other countries.”
Unfortunately for this argument, it has been discovered that cards
were called Karten in Germany before they were called Briefe. It may
be claimed that cards were carried into Germany by the Crusaders,
who had learned their use during the wars with the Saracens. They
might also have made an ingenious use of the cards during their long
absences in the East, and diverted them from their original purposes,
writing letters to mothers, wives, or sweethearts on them, or chosen
them to send to the young folk at home to serve for their amusement,
as the pictures of the Kings, Knights, etc., rude though they probably
were, would have undoubtedly proved both novel and entertaining; and
from this fact the name of Briefe may have been given to the Naïbi of
the Orient. The Eastern origin of the cards is plainly pointed to, as
there are no Queens in ancient packs of German cards.
In many parts of Germany the court and pip cards which are usually
used resemble most closely those which are represented in the packs
of the early part of the fifteenth century. The cards which are at the
present time (1890) manufactured at Frankfort in Germany are copies
of the French packs of the fifteenth century, with the modifications
which have crept in during the lapse of over three hundred years; and
they display the modern Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, and Spades, and
these cards are generally used in the German Empire. But the same
factory turns out cards which are suited to the more conservative
portions of the country, where the ancient Schellen (Bells), Hertzen
(Hearts), Grün (Green), and Eicheln (Acorns) are still preferred.
In the modern German cards each Ace bears the attributes of the
wine-cellar or the biergarten. In the ancient cards the Ace was always
draped with a flag. The modern Hearts are surrounded with
champagne bottles. Acorns carry a loving-cup; Bells, a steaming
punch-bowl; and Leaves, beer-glasses and goblets. There are no
Queens in this pack, their place being taken by Knights on horseback
dressed in beautiful uniforms; and beside their heads is the word Ober,
signifying the position they hold over the Knaves, which are
represented as working-men. There are only five pip cards in this pack,
numbered from five to ten; and the emblems are arranged in a
symmetrical and fanciful way, quite unlike the cards which were
adapted by the French from the original Tarots and adopted by all
English-speaking nations. The backs of these cards bear a plaid or
checkered pattern, recalling to mind those of the original Tarots.
To a German is due the adaptation of cards to the instruction of
children; and this idea, which was promulgated soon after the first
introduction of these packs into Germany, has been developed steadily
through successive years, until now it is possible to study history,
geography, and other sciences by these means, and babies still in the
nursery learn to spell and to read after a fashion by playing the various
games which are strewn before their unappreciative eyes. The name of
this ingenious inventor was Thomas Murer, a Franciscan friar, who in
1507 arranged a game in which various branches of education were
taught. Each card was covered with so many symbols that M. la Croix
declares that “their description alone resembles the most gloomy
rebus;” but the German universities, undaunted by difficulties, enjoyed
the study of logic and other sciences under the guise of amusement,
and Murer’s game was imitated and continues to be so to the present
time.

SPAIN.

T HE Spaniards base their claim of having been the first to use, if

they were not the inventors of, playing-cards to the fact that Naïbi,
the name by which cards were known among the Italians about the
year 1393, is very nearly similar to the name by which they are known
in Spain to-day. As it was about that time that Italy was invaded by the
Spaniards, they declare that they, as the conquerors, imposed cards
upon that country and taught their use, under the name they bore in
their own homes.
The Spanish word Naïpes, as we have already mentioned, seems to
be derived from one which means “flat” or “even;” but an ancient
Spanish dictionary states that it comes from the initial letters of the
name of the Spanish inventor of cards, N. P., Nicolas Pepin. This
etymology seems fanciful and as unsatisfactory as the claim to the
invention of the cards; but the Spaniards can point to a statute made
by John the First, King of Castile, in 1387, which prohibits “games of
dice, of Naypes, and of Chess;” and this proves beyond dispute that at
that date they were at least well known in that place.
A Flemish traveller named Eckeloo, who lived about 1540, describes
the Spaniards of his time as “most passionately fond of gambling,” and
says that he “travelled many leagues in Spain without being able to
procure the necessaries of life, not even bread or wine, but that in
every miserable village cards were to be bought.” Travellers of the
present day describe the tradespeople, fishermen, and beggars of
every wretched town playing even at the street-corners, and using
blocks of stone or the steps of the churches on which to throw their
cards.
It was the Spaniards without doubt who carried cards into Mexico,
when they conquered that country in 1519; and history mentions that
Montezuma took great pleasure in watching the Spanish soldiers at
their games.
Mr. Singer says that the Spanish pack consists, like the German, of
only forty-eight cards, as they contain no tens. Their four suits are
named Espadas (Spades), Copas (Cups), Oros (Money), and Bastos
(Maces). Oros means literally “golden money;” and this suit is also
called Dineros,—that is, “money in general.” Like the Italian and
German packs, they have no Queen, her place being taken by the
usual Knight, or Mounted horseman. The court cards are called Il Rey
(King), Caballo (Knight), and Sota (Knave). There are some packs in
which a Queen is permitted, the suits then having four court cards
instead of three.
 FRANCE.

A MONG the archives preserved in the Chambre des Comptes in

Paris there was at one time an account, dated 1392, which said,
“Paid to Jacquemin Gringonneur, Painter, for three packs of cards of
gold and different colours, ornamented with different devices for the
King [Charles the Sixth], for his amusement, 50 sols parisis.”