Several beautiful modern decks have been produced that commemorate this period of rich designs in France, by deliberately taking court card designs inspired by the personages commonly seen in 16th century French decks. And even in the time when this practice became more common, many different identities were used prior to any kind of standardization, with early choices for the Kings also including historical personages like Solomon, Augustus, Clovis, and Constantine. Playing cards were in common use in Europe for well over a hundred years before historical and literary figures were identified with the court cards for the first time. But this tradition is a later development that is unique to France, and was not practiced prior to the 16th century. In some cases these names were even printed on the cards themselves. The Jack of Hearts (La Hire) could also be Caesar's comrade Aulus Hirtius, while the Jack of Clubs is also sometimes associated with Judas Maccabeus, an important Jewish leader. Others suggest that Rachel is actually Ragnel, the wife of Sir Gawain of the Round Table, and that Argine should actually be Argeia, legendary princess from Argos, and that both have suffered an unfortunate fate at the hand of poor copyists and artists. Some argue that Judith was in fact an obscure reference to the wife of Charles VI. Not all these identifications can be certain, nor were they universally accepted. Hector, the mythological hero of Troy (Diamonds).La Hire, French military commander Étienne de Vignolles (Hearts).Lancelot, legendary knight of King Arthur (Clubs).Ogier the Dane, legendary knight of Charlemagne (Spades).Rachel, the wife of the Biblical Jacob (Diamonds).Judith, from the apocryphal book of the same name (Hearts).Argine, an anagram of the Latin word Regina meaning Queen (Clubs).Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess (Spades).Charlemagne, king of the Franks (Hearts).Alexander the Great, Greek leader (Clubs).Here is a list of common characters that were typically used in 16th century French decks, including four kings that represent the four great empires of Jews, Greeks, Franks, and Romans: Scholars are not even in complete agreement about which characters exactly are represented by which court cards, and this is in part because there was not always unanimity or consistency on this point in 16th century French decks!īut while it is not true that the characters of the court cards originated in representations of important figures from literature and history, at least for some time in France this identification was a common practice, and is still sometimes evident in modern French decks today. So this was only a temporary practice that was eventually abandoned, and was never adopted to the point where the entire set of court cards was associated with a commonly accepted or standard set of characters. The source material for these popular characters includes mythology, theology, and history.īut this practice of assigning identities to the court cards was a later development in the history of playing cards, which only began in the mid-15th century, long after playing cards had already been used throughout Europe, using court cards that had no such connection to any individuals in particular. In this time period, there was a popular trend to associate each court card with a different figure from the past, so that particular heroes and heroines from antiquity and literature became connected with playing cards. There's a long tradition with French playing cards, dating back to the 16th century, that every court card be associated with a particular figure in history and literature. It is certainly the case that there was a period in history where court cards were closely connected with specific personages. For example, you may sometimes hear the suggestion that the four kings in a deck of playing cards represent historical leaders Charlemagne, David, Caesar, and Alexander. The artwork of the court cards in a regular deck of playing cards is very firmly established in tradition, and deviation from this familiar look is considered to be a novelty, even today.īut where does this traditional look originate? It is sometimes claimed that the figures of our modern playing court card characters are in fact based on historical personages. Claim: Court cards are based on real people
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |