During the middle ages, the clergy, notwithstanding their vows and their pretensions to superior sanctity, appear to have been not a whit more exempt from the weaknesses of human nature than the unsanctified laity; nay, from the history of the times, it would seem that their vows rendered them not only more susceptible of temptation, but more likely to fall. Their preaching pointed one way, and their lives another; and hence the old proverb, "Mind what the friar _says_, not what he _does_." The vices of the times are indeed written in the canons of synods and councils, and in the penitentials of bishops directed against the immoralities of the clergy; and from the experience of the past, thus recorded, we have ample proof that clerical vows are not always a certain charm against secular vices. After cards were once fairly introduced, it would appear that the clergy were not long in "cutting in;" for, according to Dr. J. B. Thiers, they were expressly forbid to play at cards, by the synod of Langres, 1404.[95] Menestrier refers to the statutes of Amadeus VIII, Duke of Savoy, 1430, forbidding all kinds of gaming for money within his territories, though his subjects are allowed to amuse themselves at certain games, provided they play only for meat and drink.[96] "With respect to cards, they are forbidden; nevertheless, they are allowed to women, with whom men may also play, provided that they play only for pins,"--"dum ludus fiat tantum cum spinulis." In this passage a jurist would not construe the word "spinulis"--pins--literally, but would take it to mean any small articles of pins' worth. In France, about 1580, the douceur given by a guest to a waiter at an inn was called "his pins"--"épingles;"[97] and the proverbial phrase, "Tirer son épingle du jeu," seems to allude rather to "pin-stakes," than to the game of "push-pin." Early in the fifteenth century, card-making appears to have become a regular trade in Germany, and there is reason to believe that it was not of much later date in Italy. In 1418 the name of a card-maker--"_Kartenmacher_,"--occurs in the burgess-books of Augsburg. In an old rate-book of the city of Nuremberg, the name "_Ell. Kartenmacherin_" occurs under the year 1433; and in the same book under the year 1435, the name "_Elis. Kartenmacherin_," probably the same person. In the year 1438 the name "_Margret Kartenmalerin_" occurs.[98] From those records it would appear that the earliest card-makers and card-painters of Nuremberg were women; and that cards were known in Germany by the name of "Karten" before they acquired the name of "Briefe." Heineken, however, maintains that they were first known in Germany by the latter name; for as he claimed the invention for his countrymen, the fact of the name being derived either from the French or Italian was adverse to his theory.