Tarot began as a card game in medieval Italy in the 1400s, but gradually evolved into a divinatory tool. Tarot concepts of the 1900s and 2000s still owe much to French occultism of the 1700s and 1800s, when occultists like Jean-Baptiste Alliette (also known as Etteilla) and Antoine Court de Gébelin began putting their philosophies about tarot onto paper. Their writings give us some early examples of tarot’s suits being assigned to people, at least in terms of broader social classes. Batons (now Wands) were farmers. Cups were clergy. Coins (now Pentacles) were merchants. And Swords were nobles