A playing card is a typically hand-sized rectangular piece of heavy paper or thin plastic used for playing card games.
Playing cards are often used as props in magic tricks, as well as occult practices such as cartomancy.
As a result, their use sometimes meets with disapproval from some orthodox religious groups.
They are also a popular collectible (as distinct from the cards made specifically for trading card games).
Specialty and novelty decks are commonly produced for collectors, often with political, cultural, or educational themes.
One side of each card (the "front" or "face") carries markings that distinguish it from the others and determine its use under the rules of the particular game being played, while the other side (the "back") is identical for all cards, usually a plain color or abstract design.
In most games, the cards are assembled into a "deck" (or "pack"), and their order is randomized
by a procedure called "shuffling" to provide an element of chance in the game.
For this reason, many card games involve gambling.
The origin of playing cards is obscure, but it is almost certain that they began in China after the invention of paper.
The symbols on the first cards were coins and strings of coins (which may have been
misinterpreted as sticks from crude drawings), and myriads of coins, which were represented by ideograms.
Wilkinson suggests in
The Chinese origin of playing cards
that the first cards may have been actual paper currency which were both the tools of gaming
and the stakes being played for.
The designs on modern Mah Jong tiles and dominoes likely evolved from those
earliest playing cards.
The Chinese word p'ai is used to describe both paper cards and gaming tiles.
The time and manner of the introduction of cards into Europe are matters of dispute.
The 38th canon of the council of Worcester (1240) Is often quoted as evidence of cards
having been known in England in the middle of the 13th century; but the games
de rege et regina
there mentioned are now thought to more likely have been chess.
If cards were generally known in Europe as early as 1278, it is very remarkable that Petrarch,
in his dialogue that treats gaming, never once mentions them; and that, though Boccaccio,
Chaucer and other writers of that time notice various games, there is not a single passage
in them that can be fairly construed to refer to cards.
Passages have been quoted from various works, of or relative to this period, but modern research
leads to the supposition that the word rendered cards has often been mistranslated or interpolated.
An early mention of a distinct series of playing cards is the entry of Charles or Charbot Poupart,
treasurer of the household of Charles VI of France, in his book of accounts for 1392 or 1393,
which records payment for the painting of three sets or packs of cards, which were evidently already
well known.
In the account-books of Johanna, duchess of Brabant, and her husband, Wenceslaus of Luxemburg,
there is an entry under date of the May 14, 1379 as follows: "Given to Monsieur and Madame
four peters, two forms, value eight and a half moutons, wherewith to buy a pack of cards".
It is likely that the ancestors of modern cards arrived in Europe from the Mamelukes
of Egypt in the late 1300s, by which time they had already assumed a form very close
to those in use today.
In particular, the Mameluke deck contained 52 cards comprising four "suits": polo sticks
and coins, plus swords and cups.
Each suit contained ten "spot" cards (cards identified by the number of suit symbols or "pips"
they show) and three "court" cards.
The Mameluke court cards showed abstract designs not depicting persons (at least not in any
surviving specimens) though they did bear the names of miltary officers.
There is some evidence to suggest that this deck evolved from an earlier 48-card deck that
had only two court cards per suit, and some further evidence to suggest that earlier
Chinese cards brought to Europe may have travelled to Persia, which then influenced the
Mameluke and other Egyptian cards of the time before their reappearance in Europe.
It is not known whether these cards influenced the design of the Indian
cards used for the game of Ganjifa, or whether the Indian cards may
have influenced these, but the Indian cards have many distinctive elements,
such being round, being generally had painted with intricate designs, and
comprising more than four suits (often as many as twelve).
Europeans later changed the court cards to represent European royalty and attendants,
originally "king", "chevalier", and "knave" (or "servant").
The Italians were probably the first to substitute "queen" for "chevalier", which was
then adopted by the French and others.
It has been much disputed whether the earliest cards were printed from wood blocks.
If so, it would appear that the art of wood engraving, which led to that of printing,
may have been developed through the demand for the multiplication of implements of play.
The belief that the early card makers or cardpainters of Ulm, Nuremberg and Augsburg,
from about 1418 to 1450, were also wood engravers, is founded on the assumption
that the cards of that period were printed from wood blocks.
It is, however, clear that the earliest cards were executed by hand, like those designed
for Charles VI.
Many of the earliest woodcuts were colored by means of a stencil, so it would seem that
at the time wood engraving was first introduced, the art of depicting and coloring figures
by means of stencil plates was well known.
There are no playing cards engraved on wood to which so early a date as 1423 (that of the
earliest dated wood engraving generally accepted) can be fairly assigned; and as at this
period there were professional card makers established in Germany, it is probable that
wood engraving was employed to produce cuts for sacred subjects before it was applied
to cards, and that there were hand-painted and stencilled cards before there were
wood engravings of saints.
The German Brief maler or card-painter probably progressed into the wood engraver;
but there is no proof that the earliest wood engravers were the card-makers.
The cards manufactured by German printers used the suits of
hearts, bells,leaves, and acorns still present in German decks today used
for Skat and other games.
Later Italian and Spanish cards of the 15th century used swords, batons, cups, and coins.
It is likely that the Tarot deck was invented in Italy at that time,
though it is often mistakenly believed to have been imported into Europe
by Gypsies.
While originally (and still in some places) used for the game of
Tarocchi, the Tarot deck today is more often used for cartomancy and other occult practices.
This probably came about in the 1780s, when occult philosophers mistakenly
associated the symbols on Tarot cards with Egyptian hieroglyphs.
The four suits (hearts, diamonds, spades, clubs) now used in most of the world originated in France.
The tre`fle, so named for its resemblance to the trefoil leaf, was probably
copied from the acorn; the pique similarly from the leaf of the
German suits, while its name derived from the sword of the Italian suits.
It is not derived from its resemblance to a pike head, as commonly supposed.
In England the French suits were used, and are named hearts, clubs
(corresponding to tre`fle, the French symbol being joined to the
Italian name, bastoni), spades (corresponding to the French pique,
but having the Italian name, spade=sword) and diamonds.
This confusion of names and symbols is accounted for by Chatto thus:
"If cards were actually known in Italy and Spain in the latter part of the
14th century, it is not unlikely that the game was introduced into this
country by some of the English soldiers who had served under Hawkwood
and other free captains in the wars of Italy and Spain.
However this may be, it seems certain that the earliest cards commonly used
in this country were of the same kind, with respect to the marks of the
suits, as those used in Italy and Spain."
Court cards have likewise undergone some changes in design and name.
Early court cards were elaborate full-length figures; the French in
particular often gave them the names of particular heroes and heroines
from history and fable.
A prolific manufacturing center in the 1500s was Rouen, which
originated many of the basic design elements of court cards still present
in modern decks.
It is likely that the Rouennais cards were popular imports in England,
establishing their design as standard there, though other designs became
more popular in Europe (particularly in France, where the Parisian design
became standard).
Rouen courts are traditionally named as follows: the kings of spades,
hearts, diamonds, and clubs are David, Alexander, (Julius) Caesar,
and Charles (Charlemagne), respectively.
The knaves (or "jacks"; French "valet") are Hector (prince of Troy),
La Hire (comrade-in-arms to Joan of Arc), Ogier (a knight of Charlemagne),
and Judas Maccabee (who led the Jewish rebellion against the Syrians).
The queens are Pallas (warrior goddess; equivalent to the Greek Athena or
Roman minerva), Rachel (biblical mother of Joseph), Argine (the origin of
which is obscure), and Judith (of the Apocrypha).
Parisian tradition uses the same names, but assigns them to different suits:
the kings of spades, hearts, diamons, and clubs are are David, Charles,
Caesar, and Alexander;
the queens are Pallas, Judith, Rachel, and Argine; the knaves are Ogier,
Le Hire, Hector, and Judas Maccabee.
Oddly, the Parisian names have become more common in modern use, even with
cards of Rouennais design.
Though specific design elements of the court cards are rarely used in game play,
a few are notable: the jack of spades and jack of hearts are drawn in profile,
while the rest of the courts are shown in full face, leading to the former
being called the "one-eyed" jacks.
The king of hearts is shown with a broadsword behind his head, leading to
the name "suicide king".
Until the French Revolution the kings were always the highest card in their suit. During the French Revolution games began being played "ace high" as a symbol of lower classes raising in power above the royalty.
Corner and edge indices appeared in the mid-1800s, followed by innovations
such as reversible court cards (which required abandoning some of the design
elements of the earlier full-length courts), and an American
innovation, the Joker.
Created for the Alsatian game of Euchre, it then spread to Europe from
America along with the spread of Poker.
Although the Joker card often bears the image of a fool, which is one of the
images of the Tarot deck, it is not believed that there is any relation.
The primary playing cards in use today, called Anglo-American playing cards,
includes the English suits, reversible Rouennais court cards, and usually two
Jokers (often distinguishable, with one being more colorful than the other).
The fanciful design and manufacturer's logo often displayed on the
ace of spades began under the reign of James I, who passed a law requiring
an insignia on that card as proof of payment of a tax on local manufacture
of cards.
Read more about german card suit acorn.
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