To whatever nation the invention of cards is owing, it appears that the Germans were the first who practised card-making as a trade. In 1418 the name of a “Kartenmacher”--card-maker--occurs in the burgess-book of the city of Augsburg; and in an old rate-book of the city of Nuremburg, under the year 1433, we find “_Ell. Kartenmacherin_;” that is, Ell.--probably for Elizabeth--the card-maker. In the same book, under the year 1435, the name of “_Eliz. Kartenmacherin_,” probably the same person, is to be found; and in 1438 there occurs the name “Margret Kartenmalerin”--Margaret the card-painter. It thus appears that the earliest card-makers who are mentioned as living at Nuremberg were females; and it is worthy of note that the Germans seem to have called cards “_Karten_” before they gave them the name of “_Briefe_.” Heineken, however, considers that they were first known in Germany by the latter name; for, as he claimed the invention for his countrymen, he was unwilling to admit that the name should be borrowed either from Italy or France. He has not, however, produced anything like proof in support of his opinion, which is contradicted by the negative evidence of history.[II-2] [Footnote II-2: Cards--_Carten_--are mentioned in a book of bye-laws of Nuremberg, between 1380 and 1384. They are included in a list of games at which the burghers might indulge themselves, provided they ventured only small sums. “Awzgenommen rennen mit Pferder, Schiessen mit Armbrusten, _Carten_, Schofzagel, Pretspil, und Kugeln, umb einen pfenink zwen zu vier poten.” That is: “always excepting horse-racing, shooting with cross-bows, _cards_, shovel-board, tric-trac, and bowls, at which a man may bet from twopence to a groat.”--C. G. Von Murr, Journal zur Kunstsgesch. 2 Theil, S. 99.] The name _Briefe_, which the Germans give to cards, also signifies letters [epistolæ]. The meaning of the word, however, is rather more general than the French term _lettres_, or the Latin _epistolæ_ which he gives as its synonyms, for it is also applied in the sense in which we sometimes use the word “paper.” For instance, “_ein Brief Stecknadeln, ein Brief Tabak_,” are literally translated by the words “a _paper_ of pins, a _paper_ of tobacco;” in which sense the word “_Brief_” would, in Latin, be more correctly rendered by the term _charta_ than _epistola_. As it is in a similar sense--cognate with “paper,” as used in the two preceding examples--that “Briefe” is applied to cards, I am inclined to consider it as a translation of the Latin _chartaæ_, the Italian _carte_, or the French _cartes_, and hence to conclude that the invention of cards does not belong to the people of Germany, who appear to have received cards, both “name and thing,” from another nation, and after some time to have given them a name in their own language.