Rank of playing card
Jack cards of all four suits in the English pattern
A Jack or Knave, in some games referred 🍋 to as a Bower, in Tarot card games as a Valet, is a playing card which, in traditional French and 🍋 English decks, pictures a man in the traditional or historic aristocratic or courtier dress, generally associated with Europe of the 🍋 16th or 17th century. The usual rank of a jack is between the ten and the queen.
History [ edit ]
Knave 🍋 of coins from the oldest known European deck ( c. 1390–1410 )
The earliest predecessor of the knave was the thānī 🍋 nā'ib (second or under-deputy) in the Mamluk card deck. This was the lowest of the three court cards and like 🍋 all court cards was depicted through abstract art or calligraphy. When brought over to Italy and Spain, the thānī nā'ib 🍋 was made into an infantry soldier or page ranking below the knight card. In France, where the card was called 🍋 the valet, the queen was inserted between the king and knight. The knight was subsequently dropped out of non-Tarot decks 🍋 leaving the valet directly under the queen. The king-queen-valet format then made its way into England.
A 17th century Knave of 🍋 Spades
As early as the mid-16th century the card was known in England as the knave which originally meant 'boy or 🍋 young man', as its German equivalent, Knabe, still does. In the context of a royal household it meant a male 🍋 servant without a specific role or skill; not a cook, gardener, coachman, etc. The French word valet means the same 🍋 thing. Knave became a derogatory word because royal households had so many of these young men who went swaggering around 🍋 the streets picking fights, molesting girls and generally making nuisances of themselves. It evolved to mean 'young manservant or henchman'.[1]
The 🍋 word 'Jack' was in common usage in the 16th and 17th centuries to mean any generic man or fellow, as 🍋 in Jack-of-all-trades (one who is good at many things), Jack-in-the-box (a child's toy), or Jack-in-the-Pulpit (a plant).
The term became more 🍋 entrenched in card play when, in 1864,[2] American cardmaker Samuel Hart published a deck using "J" instead of "Kn" to 🍋 designate the lowest-ranking court card. The knave card had been called a jack as part of the terminology of the 🍋 game All Fours since the 17th century, but this usage was considered common or low class. However, because the card 🍋 abbreviation for knave was so close to that of the king ("Kn" versus "K"), the two were easily confused. This 🍋 confusion was even more pronounced after the markings indicating suits and rankings were moved to the corners of the card, 🍋 a move which enabled players to "fan" a hand of cards without obscuring the individual suits and ranks. The earliest 🍋 deck known of this type is from 1693, but such positioning did not become widespread until reintroduced by Hart in 🍋 1864, together with the knave-to-jack change. Books of card games published in the third quarter of the 19th century still 🍋 referred to the "knave". Note the exclamation by Estella in Charles Dickens's novel Great Expectations: "He calls the knaves, jacks, 🍋 this boy!" Knave was the proper term and it was considered uncouth to call them 'Jacks'. Nevertheless, in a few 🍋 European countries, the equivalent of the name 'knave' for this card continues to the present. For example, in Denmark, it 🍋 is the Knægt, symbol B (for Bonde); in Sweden, the knekt, symbol Kn.
The German nickname of Bauer ("farmer" or "peasant") 🍋 often used for the Jacks, appears in English as the loanword, Bower, used for the top trumps (usually Jacks) in 🍋 games of the euchre family as well as some games of German origin where the Jacks play a significant role, 🍋 e.g. Reunion.
Representations [ edit ]
In the English pattern,[3] the jack and the other face cards represent no one in particular,[4] 🍋 in contrast to the historical French practice, in which each court card is said to represent a particular historical or 🍋 mythological personage. The valets in the Paris pattern have traditionally been associated with such figures as Ogier the Dane (a 🍋 knight of Charlemagne and legendary hero of the chansons de geste) for the jack of spades;[5] La Hire (French warrior) 🍋 for the Jack of Hearts; Hector (mythological hero of the Iliad) for the jack of diamonds; and Lancelot or Judas 🍋 Maccabeus for the jack of clubs.[6][7]
In some southern Italian decks, there are androgynous knaves that are sometimes referred to as 🍋 maids. In the Sicilian Tarot deck, the knaves are unambiguously female and are also known as maids.[8] As this deck 🍋 also includes queens, it is the only traditional set to survive into modern times with two ranks of female face 🍋 cards. This pack may have been influenced by the obsolete Portuguese deck which also had female knaves. The modern Mexican 🍋 pattern also has female knaves.[9]
Poetry [ edit ]
The figure of the jack has been used in many literary works throughout 🍋 history. Among these is one by 17th-century English writer Samuel Rowlands. The Four Knaves is a series of Satirical Tracts, 🍋 with Introduction and Notes by E. F. Rimbault, upon the subject of playing cards. His "The Knave of Clubbs: Tis 🍋 Merry When Knaves Meet" was first published in 1600, then again in 1609 and 1611. In accordance with a promise 🍋 at the end of this book, Rowlands went on with his series of Knaves, and in 1612 wrote "The Knave 🍋 of Harts: Haile Fellowe, Well Meet", where his "Supplication to Card-Makers" appears,[10] thought to have been written to the English 🍋 manufacturers who copied to the English decks the court figures created by the French. The Knave of Hearts appears as 🍋 a thieving antagonist in the traditional children's poem The Queen of Hearts
Example cards [ edit ]
The cards shown here are 🍋 from a Paris pattern deck (where the rank is known as the "valet"), and include the historical and mythological names 🍋 associated with them. The English pattern of jacks can be seen in the photo at the top of the article.
Trickster 🍋 figure [ edit ]
The jack, traditionally the lowest face card, has often been promoted to a higher or the highest 🍋 position in the traditional ranking of cards, where the ace or king generally occupied the first rank. This is seen 🍋 in the earliest known European card games, such as Karnöffel, as well as in more recent ones such as Euchre. 🍋 Games with such promotion include:
See also [ edit ]
