Originally published 2016-07-30.
On traditional French playing cards each court card has a name. The kings are David (spades), Charles, meaning Charlemagne (hearts), Caesar (diamonds) and Alexander (clubs). The queens are Pallas (spades), Judith (hearts), Rachel (diamonds) and Argine (clubs). The jacks are Ogier (spades), La Hire (hearts), Hector (diamonds) and Lancelot (clubs).
These names belong to the Paris pattern, the standard French design, and they mix biblical figures, ancient rulers, a Greek goddess and heroes of medieval legend. Here is who each figure is, how the names became fixed, and which popular stories about card history do not hold up.
The four kings
- King of Spades – David: the shepherd boy who defeated Goliath and became king of Israel in the Hebrew Bible. He is often shown with a harp, recalling his role as the traditional author of many Psalms.
- King of Hearts – Charles: Charlemagne, king of the Franks, crowned emperor in Rome in the year 800 and remembered as a founding figure of both France and Germany.
- King of Diamonds – Caesar: Julius Caesar, the Roman general and dictator whose conquest of Gaul in the 50s BC shaped the history of what became France.
- King of Clubs – Alexander: Alexander the Great of Macedon, who created an empire stretching from Greece to the Indus before his death in 323 BC.
David, Caesar, Alexander and Charlemagne are four of the Nine Worthies, a popular medieval group of model rulers drawn from the Bible, the classical world and Christian history. Medieval audiences would have recognised the set immediately.
The four queens
- Queen of Spades – Pallas: Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and war, and the only queen who is not a human woman. She is one of several Greek threads running through the pack.
- Queen of Hearts – Judith: the heroine of the Book of Judith, who saved her city by killing the Assyrian general Holofernes.
- Queen of Diamonds – Rachel: usually identified with the biblical Rachel, wife of Jacob and mother of Joseph.
- Queen of Clubs – Argine: the most debated name. A common explanation is that it is an anagram of Regina, Latin for queen; other suggestions link it to Argeia, a figure from Greek legend. No theory is certain.
Some writers have suggested the queens secretly stood for women at the French court; one theory, for example, makes Rachel a disguise for Agnès Sorel, mistress of Charles VII. Such ideas are speculation with no solid evidence behind them.
The four jacks
- Jack of Spades – Ogier: Ogier the Dane, one of Charlemagne’s paladins in the medieval chansons de geste, later turned into a Danish national hero.
- Jack of Hearts – La Hire: the nickname of Étienne de Vignolles, a real French soldier of the Hundred Years’ War who fought alongside Joan of Arc.
- Jack of Diamonds – Hector: often explained as the Trojan prince of Homer’s Iliad, though in the Paris pattern he may instead be Hector de Maris, a knight of the Round Table and Lancelot’s half-brother.
- Jack of Clubs – Lancelot: the best-known knight of King Arthur’s Round Table.
Where the names come from
Card games reached Europe in the 1370s, most likely from the Mamluk lands of Egypt and the Levant, and spread quickly. The familiar French suits of hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades appeared in France around 1480, adapted from German suit signs. French card makers soon began printing names on the court cards, and for a while different regions and workshops used different names.
The Paris pattern gradually pushed out its rivals, and by the late 18th century it was effectively the national design. A standardised version, still known as the portrait officiel, is used for many French packs today, and some of them still print the names beside the figures. Other national patterns, including the English one most of the world now plays with, generally leave their court cards anonymous.
Myths about the origin of cards
One widely repeated story says playing cards were invented to amuse the French king Charles VI, who suffered episodes of mental illness. That is the account given by William Gurney Benham in his 1931 study Playing Cards: The History and Secrets of the Pack, and it was common in older books. Card historians reject it: cards were already known in Europe, and recorded in France by 1377, before Charles became king in 1380. The legend probably grew from a 1392 royal account recording payment to a painter for three packs of cards for the king.
Benham also linked each suit to a part of society: hearts to the church, clubs to the military, diamonds to trade and spades to manual labour. Interpretations like this are appealing, and other authors propose different versions, but there is no early document showing the suit designers intended any such meaning. They are best enjoyed as later symbolism rather than history.
Why the names are still worth knowing
Knowing the names turns a pack of cards into a pocket history lesson. In a single deck you hold an Israelite king, a Frankish emperor, a Roman dictator, a Macedonian conqueror, a Greek goddess, biblical heroines, a companion of Joan of Arc and two knights of the Round Table. Next time you deal a hand, look at the court cards closely: in a French pack, you may find the names written right there.
Sources: Wikipedia: French-suited playing cards; International Playing-Card Society: Who do the kings, queens and jacks represent?; International Playing-Card Society: Paris and Rouen patterns.
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