| Gray
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| 16473. Wed Mar 23, 2005 3:39 pm |
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This may be common knowledge, but it was news to me.
The kings, queens and jacks in a set of playing cards are meant to represent particular historical figures. | Quote: | | the kings of spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs are David, Alexander, Caesar, and Charles (Charlemagne), respectively. |
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| Flash
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| 16494. Wed Mar 23, 2005 6:49 pm |
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| I've heard that, but I've also heard that it's a myth. Don't know which way to jump, but I would say that I don't understand in what sense they are supposed to "represent" these people. I mean, they don't look like them or wear their costumes or anything. |
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| Frederick The Monk
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| 16500. Wed Mar 23, 2005 7:00 pm |
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Different cultures have used different symbols for their playing cards. In mediaeval Italy the suits were "clubs", "swords", "cups", and "coins". The Germans use different types of deck for different games. The standard suits are the Eichel (acorn) suit, the Schellen (bells), the Grun (or Blatt) suit (a green leaf) amd finally Herz (hearts). The Swiss have acorns and bells like the Germans but use Schilten (shields) instead of leaves and Rosen (roses) instead of hearts.
For much, much more on this and lots of pictures of various decks have a look here.
s:http://gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/vexhibit/plcards/index.html#suits |
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| Gray
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| 16523. Thu Mar 24, 2005 9:25 am |
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Well, Snopes says it's false (i.e. there's no actual origination of the characters with the cards, but they certainly don't disagree that it was done for some time in France before the Revolution: | Quote: | | In summary, the court cards in decks of playing cards were not initially identified by name. The assignation of identities to the kings (as well as the queens and knaves) was a temporary practice unique to French card masters that began around the mid-15th century, was not standardized for some time, and was discontinued at the end of the 18th century. The royal figures on modern playing cards no more represent specific persons than do the kings and queens in chess sets. |
There are pictures, too, as there are here, where the history is also recounted: | Quote: | | Charlemagne's companions had a private joke amongst themselves in which they pretended to be heroes from classical antiquity: Horace, Homer, Julius, King David... |
And, revealingly: | Quote: | | In this context, we may observe that the 15th century humanist scholars of the renaissance, in seeking the original classical texts and sources, wrongly convinced themselves that Carolingian manuscripts represented original Roman manuscripts. Thus, they began imitating Carolingian minuscule script, which in turn was adopted by the early printers as 'Roman' type. Likewise, Carolingian drawings and illuminations (9th century) were also mistaken for original, classical Roman sources: Charlemagne, Caesar, David and Alexander were all 'from ancient times'. |
And even though it's known that English caard manufacturers would have copied French styles (theirs is the ancestor of our packs) they end: | Quote: | | However, there is no evidence that the same idea was taken up by any English playing card manufacturer, even though English playing cards can be traced back to 16th century French ones. |
It seems evident that the French did practise putting their kings on their cards, and it seems obvious that the English copied this style. So while our cards are no longer 'meant to' represent kings, the styling of their depiction has nevertheless been carried across. |
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| Jenny
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| 16544. Thu Mar 24, 2005 2:36 pm |
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| Don't forget the notorious pack of cards issued to soldiers going to Iraq, depicting the various members of Saddam Hussein's regime. |
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| Flash
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| 16587. Thu Mar 24, 2005 11:49 pm |
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| Yes - you see pictures of those in the papers whenever they catch one of the Moustache Petes but it always seems to be different in each paper, ie the pictures they show us are mock-ups. Has anyone ever seen an actual example of these cards? |
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| Flash
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