All Things Medieval discussion

Hi! I am ot sure if this is the right place to post this, but I will try. I am asking for help for something related to my university studies. I have to write something related to the following topic: "Germanic Literature of the Middle Ages from a Comparative Perspective".
I do not really know a lot about the topic. What is clear is that I need to find books that belong to the Germanic literature and that were originally published in the Middle Ages.

The thing is that I was thinking about trying to find books that talk about tarot. As far as I know, this ""game"" was invented during this period, and I also know that it is related to the Pagan religion, something that was common during the time if I am not mistaken. So maybe there are books that talk about it.
I know that this sounds extremely difficult, so I was also thinking about trying to find books that talk about witches in a more general sense and not just related to tarot. The only one that comes to my mind is Joan of Arc, who was sentenced to death due to something related in some way to witchcraft.

So, all of this is to ask if anyone knows about any book (being originally published in the Middle Ages and being part of the Germanic literature) that mentions tarot or is related to witches or witchcraft. If you may have any other recommendation I would like to know them too because, as I already mentioned, I am quite lost and I do not really know how to do this class writing.

Thank you in advance!

You might want to try a book called Magic in the Middle Ages by Richard Kieckhefer. It doesn't specifically have anything on tarot cards but it does have some Germanic culture mentioned in it. Check the index and the bibliography for further reading.

Tarot and card playing is kind of late for what you want, I feel.
Even witchcraft persecutions in Germany were more from the Reformation and Luther so I think youd be likely to be looking at other countries...or a later period.

Now if you are interested in Christian heresies... The Brethren of the Free Spirit existed in Germany and are interesting. Norman Cohn wrote The Pursuit of the Millenium about them and other examples. Cohn also wrote Europe's Inner Demons, on how persecution of heretics shifted to the witch hysteria in the Reformation and the 17th century.

Also catholic mystics like Hildegard of Bingen were significant and not always orthodox. (She wrote music and poetry too) I will add Hadewijch of Brabant even though she was Dutch, since Brabant was part of the Holy Roman Empire (most of what is now Germany) in the 12th century

In terms of German literature... the 13th century Nibelungeslied is a good choice of a work where old Germanic religion dripped into mediaeval literature. It certainly has examples of magic. The obvious comparisons are the Scandinavian Volsung Saga and Richard Wagner's 19th century Ring of the Nibelung.

There were several Arthurian epic poems like Parsifal by Wolfram von Eschenbach. And the 12th-13th century was the heyday of the Minnesaenger poets sort of like the Troubador tradition in Provence... They seemed to dwell on nature quite often even when they had a different story to tell so I suppose you could make a case there.

There are also historical chronicles that were written. Otto von Friesing wrote The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa. I think the earlier chronicles of Charlemagne (Einhard) might deal with the wars with the Saxons in North Germany if you wanted to get into the contest between Christianity and Germanic paganism.

If you are set on Tarot and card playing There are sources from late 15th century Italy about the introduction of card playing in Europe and the German variation Tarock existed possibly as early as the 16th century... this is more early modern than mediaeval however. And I suspect uses of the cards is more for gambling than esoteric purposes and acc to google, Cards were not used for divination or fortune telling until the end of the 18th century. This seems like an interesting history though not really mediaeval but how it appears in German literature seems like more of a stretch. The pre-christian Saxons had other forms of divination. Some of these practices might be described by Einhard and earlier sources.

There were also Germans who got into alchemy. Wikipedia lists about 50 names. Some of these are in a later early modern period but the most famous ones... Agrippa and Faust are from the late 15th century and Albertus Magnus was from the 13th century. Faust appears alot in later literature... Faust is in Christopher Marlowe's play in the Elizabethan era and Goethe wrote about him in the Romantic era. There were other German sources on Faust... There might be something from his lifetime but most of them seem to be afterwards.