How Playing Cards and Suits Came to Be
The author is this article is a full time online poker player. He plays poker and receives rakeback from http://www.rakebacksolution.com and participates in the promotions at http://www.racesandrollsrakeback.com .
Cards, known as Saracen cards, were introduced to Europe in the second half of the 14th century. The people in more rural areas, having survived the “Black Death” were moving to the cities. Here they began a class of merchants and artisans who became middle class urbanities. Coming out of the dark ages with its superstition, ignorance and poverty, guilds and universities made a reappearance, scientific experimentation was once again allowed and thrived, and the populace now had time for leisure and play.
In the early days of the Renaissance, books, cards and prints were created by hand. Card games were spread across Italy by a society of art appreciators formed at this time. At the end of the 14th century many key cities in Europe including Viterbo near Rome, Paris and Barcelona, were able to obtain illuminated manuscripts of card manuals. Traveling artists and scholars spread these manuscripts across the continent and their popularity flourished. Early in the 15th century, a lone artisan was enough to satisfy the demand of a city. By mid-century, however, there became a need for several shops devoted to their creation.
Card manuscripts were not loved by everyone. Indeed many were threatened by this foreign entertainment and saw it as a force to promote gambling and as an immoral and counter cultural product of the devil. At the time of the protestant Reformation, the cards were referred to as “Devil Pictures.”
In spite of or because of this, the popularity of cards persisted. Even Mary, Queen of Scots was a major bettor and enjoyed the game, shockingly, even on Sunday. The compleat Gamester was published in the late 17th century in London, relating details of more than a dozen games and their basic strategies. Particular facilities “casini” were established in Venice for aristocrats and courtesans especially for card games. From these Venice casini, a game called primero found its way all over Europe and was transformed into poker some time later.
After a while, the game was played and enjoyed by women as well as men, farmers, craftsmen, and merchants as well as courtesans and aristocrats. The suits at the time from a popular Swedish deck were in order of rank: sun, king, queen, knight, dame, valet and maid. In Florence, cards were depicted as nude dames and dancers, with dancers being the lowest rank.
Interestingly, the number of cards in a deck at the time was not standard, consisting of 30-40 or 52 cards. The designs also varied considerably. The suits most preferred were symbolic of wealth, food, military security as well as popular sports of the court:, coins, cups, sabers and clubs. Some of the symbols familiar to us today were typical of those in France: in red, Coeurs (hearts) stood for the church, and correaux (a rectangular floor tile) was a sign of the merchant class; in black, piques (spear and arrow heads) represented state authority, and trefles (trefoil clover leaf) denoted farmers. Somewhere along the line, a brave artisan exchanged the vice-royals symbol with queens.
Time passed and the deck of cards we recognize today was formed, whereby a deck of 52 cards with 13 various rankings compiled 4 different suits. The familiar Clubs, Spades, Diamonds and Hearts are the suits with Aces, Kings, Queens and Jacks usually weighing in at a value of 10. The non-face cards, 2 through 10 are each counted at face value.
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