Learning by playing: Card games as a didactic tool for teaching law. The Chartiludium iuridicum (1502) of Thomas Murner (1474-1537)

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.