Medievalist doing cards

Majors as the court, through the eyes of the Hermit

When you spend enough time in medieval studies, you grow accustomed to seeing everything through a peculiar lens. You start thinking in parallels, names and historic events, rather than normal categories. Sometimes it sort of transfers into your other favourite things, like the tarot.

In itself, the tarot is a deeply medievally structured instrument. Bet you've never thought about it that way. But, if you do spend some time on it, the picture starts to emerge.

Let’s imagine that there is one key person in the major arcana, the one who can help us understand the dynamics of the majors. Who is that, I wonder?

Now. You can start with the main person. As we are repeatedly told, in the centre of a medieval world sits the king. He can be good, bad, mad, slightly deranged, tyrannical, megalomaniac, chivalrous, legendary or stupid. Kings are all different, you know, and this point of view is totally alright - but not quite accurate.

Why?

Why, it’s simple. In the Center of the medieval world sits God. Religion technically occupies the main place in that world. It’s the church that tells people how to live. From that perspective, if you bring in the tarot, the main guy of all the majors is certainly the Hierophant, aka The Pope.

That works for the middle ages, but can we view the tarot through the eyes of The Pope? The answer is obvious: Nope.

The reason being…well, the Hierophant represents the conservative, dogmatic, stern, almost fanatical type of power. Unbendable, unyielding, spiritually radical. And…not that objective. Historically, popes do tend to get involved in the affairs of state. To remind you one particular incident, let me just mention Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Catherine of Aragon and Clement VII. The wonderful thing, otherwise known as The King's Great Matter, almost turned the world upside down. The Pope said nope, as we remember. The involvement of the church was 200%, but that meant Henry had to change the whole system just to get his way. This led to the Reformation and the establishment of the C of E.

All in all, Popes were never that far from participating in the lives of the kings, political conflicts and the rest of it. So, we most certainly cannot view the dynamics of the majors through this lens.

Who, then? The Empress? The Fool? The Priestess? The magician? The Hanged man? Or maybe the Lovers?

No. That’ll be the Hermit.

Medievally speaking, that’s the most objective, absolutely unfocused on riches, glory, politics or god forbid, flesh- character. Spiritually, he’s the purest one. The most trusted one. The most knowledgeable one. His power comes from the spirit. He knows things that most people would never know. He cares about THE SOUL. He is, if you will, Saint Benedict, Saint Augustine - the one who leaves the world to make the greatest impression on it. He’s the Merlin of Arthurian sagas, he’s all the blessed hermits who perform miracles by praying.

And, what’s more important, he’s not a part of THE COURT. He is an outsider. He is totally objective. He’s not influenced by the mundane, the society or monarchy, to that matter. He is the one who is sought by the kings, and he himself couldn't care less about the castles and positions. He’s above that.

And that’s why, boys and girls, he is the ultimate protagonist of our story.

In the next instalments, we'll cover the dynamics of his relations with the people of power: the Royal couple.

See you:)

P.S. that’s a little something for you:) Enjoy.