The “Red Book” of the town of Ulm, a manuscript register preserved in the archives of that town, contains an ordinance dated in 1397, in which is conveyed a prohibition of games with cards. These facts are the only authenticated evidence which can be brought forward with a view of fixing the approximate period of the introduction of cards into Europe. Some authors have certainly imagined they were in a position to determine an earlier epoch, but they have gone upon data the value of which has since been destroyed by more thorough investigation. In the fifteenth century there are evident traces both of the existence and popularity of cards in Italy, Spain, Germany, and France. Their names, colours, and emblems, their number and forms, were indeed constantly changing, according to the country in which they were used and the fancy of the players. But whether called _tarots_ or “French cards,” they were in fact nothing but modifications of the primitive Oriental cards, and an imitation more or less faithful of the ancient game of chess. Reckoning from the fifteenth century, we meet with cards in every enumeration of games of chance; we find them also proscribed and condemned in ecclesiastical and royal ordinances. The clergy, too, raised their voices against them; but these measures did not prevent the trade in [Illustration: Figs. 204 and 205.--Jean Dunois, King Alexander, Julius Cæsar, King Arthur, Charles the Great, and Godefroi de Bouillon. From ancient coloured Wood-Engravings; prints analogous to the first Playing-Cards of the Fifteenth Century. (Bibl. Imp., Paris, Department of Manuscripts.)] them from increasing, nor great attention to their improved manufacture. Poets and romance-writers vied with each other in speaking of them; they appeared in the miniatures in manuscripts, and also in the first attempts at engraving on wood and copper (Figs. 204 and 205). And, notwithstanding the fragile nature of the cards themselves, some have been preserved which belong to the earliest years of the fifteenth century. As we have already seen, cards had, in principle, been classed among the number of childish games; but it may be safely asserted that this could not have long been the case, else how could we explain the legal strictures and the ecclesiastical anathemas of which they were the subject?