Learning by playing: Card games as a didactic tool for teaching law. The Chartiludium iuridicum (1502) of Thomas Murner (1474-1534)

Fig. Cards of the Chartiludium iuridicum (1502), Source: https://www.e-rara.ch/bau_1/doi/10.3931/e-rara-56100

At the annual meeting of Atelier Héloïse, a European research group on the digital history of universities, space and knowledge, I will be giving a lecture on Charitludium iuridicum, a card game developed by the theologian Thomas Murner. His aim was to improve students’ learning success with this didactic tool, which actually worked. The cards provide students with an overview of the structure and the main contents of the popular introductory legal lecture on Justinian’s institutions.

In my presentation I will show how digital history methods can be used to contextualise the creation, distribution and reception of playing cards: Kaspar Gubler: “Learning by playing: Card games as a didactic tool for teaching law, developed by Thomas Murner (1474-1537), professor at the Universities of Basel and Krakow.”

XIIIth Heloise Workshop, 26-27th September 2024, Warsaw

“From East to West and back. Circulations of knowledge in pre-modern and modern Europe: actors, institutions and spaces.”

Time and Venue

Thursday, September 26 (from 9:00 am) to Friday, September 27 (till 6:30 pm), 2024.

Staszic Palace
Centre for the History of Renaissance Knowledge,
Institute of Philosophy and Sociology,
Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw

Organizers

Prof. Valentina Lepri  – Principal Investigator – ERC CoG n. 864542, KnowStudents; Head of the Centre for the History of Renaissance Knowledge.

Atelier Héloïse – European Network on Digital Academic History

Programme

Heloise workshop 2024_Warsaw_Programme_final (PDF)

Thursday, september 26 (The Hall of Mirrors)

PANEL II  (11:30-13:30)

The migration of students between Prague, Krakow, Vienna and Basel and their influence on university teaching (1348-1550)

KASPAR GUBLER (University of Bern), Learning by playing: Card games as a didactic tool for teaching law, developed by Thomas Murner (1474-1537), professor at the Universities of Basel and Krakow

MARTIN HOLÝ (Czech Academy of Sciences), Academic Mobility of Prague University Professors and their Careers in Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period (1458-1622)

MACIEJ ZDANEK (Jagiellonian University), Mikołaj Kozłowski, Jan of Głogów, Rudolf Agricola and others. Kraków in European academic space


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Kaspar Gubler (September 11, 2024). Learning by playing: Card games as a didactic tool for teaching law. The Chartiludium iuridicum (1502) of Thomas Murner (1474-1534). HistData. Retrieved June 19, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/11uo3