How Playing Cards and Suits Came to Be

In the second half of the–th century merchants introduced what was then commonly called “Saracen cards” into medieval Europe. Those who had survived the bubonic plague moved to cities, where they formed a new class of merchants and craftsmen - the urban bourgeois. Once the poverty and prejudice of the dark era eased, trade, guilds, and universities began to revive, and new scientific perspectives were discovered along with the time for leisure, play, and pleasure.

Books, cards, and prints were produced by hand during the early Renaissance period. Artists and scientists came together and became the moving force behind the spread of card games throughout Italy. Many illustrated card-manual manuscripts began to show up in a number of major cities including Viterbo near Rome in Italy, Paris and Barcelona by the late–th century. Traveling scholars and artists were responsible for card games gaining in popularity and becoming more widespread. Where once a single craftsman in early 15th century could satisfy the demand for cards in a city, by the mid 15th century, many shops worked full time to fulfill the need.

Because this was a somewhat foreign form of amusement, not everybody embraced it. Some felt it threatened the fabric of society’s mores and morals. They saw it as a game where gamblers and bettors were in cahoots with the devil. During the protestant Reformation cards were rather dramatically 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.

In fact, soon not only the male court enjoyed cards, but also women, farmers, craftsmen, and merchants gained access to the game and found their realities symbolically reflected there. A popular Swedish deck had these suits in order of significance: sun, king, queen, knight, dame, valet, and maid. Florentine cards depicted nude dames and dancers (the latter being lowest).

There was no standard number of cards or designs in a deck at that time. The number of cards could vary from 36 to 40 to 52. The suits of the time were symbolic of wealth, tasty victuals, military defense, and sports popular with the court. These were coins, cups, sabers, and clubs. Signs familiar to us were in use in France in the 15th century: in red, Couers (Hearts) stood for the church, carreaux (a rectangular floor tile) represented the merchant class; in black, there were piques (spear and arrow heads) depicting state authority, and trefles (trefoil clover leaf) as a sign of the farmers. Some brave soul at one point along the way ditched the vice-royals for queens.

Time passed and the deck of cards we recognize today was formed, whereby a deck of 52 cards with- 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.