In the second half of the 14th 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.

During the early Renaissance, books, cards, and paintings were manufactured by hand. A community of art and science appreciators formed and became the primary factor in the spread of card games across Italy. By late–th century many illustrated card-manual manuscripts had appeared in a number of key cities in several countries, including Viterbo near Rome in Italy, in Paris, and in Barcelona. Thanks to traveling artists and scholars, the popularity of the game steadily grew: in the early 15th century a single craftsman sufficed to satisfy the card requirements of a city; but by mid century there was need in multiple fulltime shops.

Not everybody welcomed the innovation: the foreign form of entertainment contained a threat to more and morality; gamblers and betters consorted with the devil and during the protestant Reformation the cards were called “devil pictures.”

No matter or because of this devilish image, card playing stood its ground. The English queen, Mary, Queen of Scots not only bet big, but bet on Sunday! The Compleat Gamester was published in London in the late 17th century, with descriptions of over a dozen types of card games and the winning strategies involved in their play. In Venice, specific types of facilities called casini allowed admittance of aristocrats and courtesans to indulge in games of cards. It was here that a game called primero was invented and spread throughout the continent to later morph into poker.

In time, women as well as men, farmers and merchants as well as courtesans and nobles were able to enter the games and found symbols of themselves represented in the cards. A Swedish deck that became very much the rage, was comprised of these suits in order of ranking: sun, king, queen, knight, dame, valet and maid. Those ribald Florentines played with cards that pictured nude dames and dancers, with the dancers being the low suit.

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- 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.

The author is a successful limit cash game player. He plays poker online and receives Rakeback at Gutshot Poker and Rakeback at Betfair Poker.