|
The Playing Card |
| Playing cards as we know them today have changed very little since
the first deck was produced with the advent of paper in the thirteenth
century. Card historian David Parlett notes that cards are first mentioned
in 1371 in Spain, and by 1380 were novel craze in cities throughout Europe.
The early descriptions of "cards" often occurred in restrictions on gambling,
which would imply that the first card games were mostly of this type.
The cards and game are described by a monk named John of Rheinfelden in 1377: In the game called cards, the cards are painted in different designs and are played with in various ways. In the commonest manner - the one in which they first reached us - four cards depict four kings, each of whom is seated on a royal throne. Each of them holds a certain sign in his hand, some of these signs being considered good but others signifying evil. Under these kings come two marshals, of whom the first holds the sign upwards, as the king does, but the other holds the same sign downwards in his hand. After this are ten other cards, of the same overall size and shape. The king's sign appears once on the first of these, twice on the second, and so on with the others up to and including the tenth. Thus the king is the thirteenth card, and there are fifty-two cards altogether (Parlett 37).The earliest cards were individually hand-made and hand-painted, by 1420 German and Swiss card-makers were producing cards by stencil, woodblock, and metal-engraving. Cards made throughout the fifteeenth century demonstrated a wide variety of suits, including animals, birds, flowers, and hardware. German-made cards often depicted suits of acorns, hearts, bells, and leaves. Spanish and Italian cards used the "Latin-suits" of swords, clubs, cups, and coins. France is responsible for inventing and standardizing the suits we know today -- spades, hearts, clubs, and diamonds. These simple shapes first appeared in 1480. Court cards also showed wide variety with the original over and under-marshalls appearing as Kinghts and Knaves or Maids. Queens are mentioned in 1429 and appear as part of a 56-card pack with King, Queen, Knight and Valet. By the end of the fifteenth century, however, standard card decks were becoming common, probably because they are easier and less expensive to produce and because players were accustomed to the game once the "novelty" had worn off. In England, players speak of a "pair" or "pack" of cards; Italians use a mazzo, or "bunch" of cards, Russians talk of a korona or "crown" of cards, and Americans play with a "deck." French royal cards typically included the King, Queen, and Knave. The
latter was used in the sense of the English valet, or "serving boy." In
the 1800s, however, the Knave came to be known as Jack from what was considered
a popular low-class game called All-Fours. Social snobbery rubbed off on
poor Jack, and it was considered vulgar to use Jack rather than Knave when
refering to the card. When indices appeared mid-century, it was preferabe
to eliminate any confusion that might occur from using "K" for King and
"K" for Knave, so "J" for Jack became standard. The court cards always
showed human figures at full-length bearing or looking at the suit symbol,
either standing, seated on a throne, or mounted on a horse.
Sources
|
