I'm looking hard at the kings trying to figure out what the symbols mean on these playing cards. Here's a few pictures of the four kings from a standard modern playing card deck. At first, they look much alike in their medieval colorful kingly garb with all the same symbols.
But they are definitely not identical. Here are a few differences to note:
The king of spades looks towards his left and has a sword
The king of hearts - the suicide king - holds a sword behind his head (or perhaps in it). He is the only king who has both hands shown and who does not have a moustache.
The king of clubs holds something like a sword but which might be less pointed. Perhaps a club? He also has an orb-like thing held probably in his right hand. He looks to his right.
The king of diamonds has an axe and is in profile.
(This by the way, is my second stab at looking at
the symbols on royal playing cards).
Are these details of any significance? Do these details show up consistently? Here are a few other images of the four kings from different decks of playing cards. These details seem the same across these decks (which admittedly, are all modern American decks).
Oops, in this next set of I have reversed the position of the King of Diamonds and of Hearts. Sorry.
Looking further afield, here are four kings from a Tarot deck published by Grimaud - Decale, designed by Emmanuel Jeannin-Nalete and Martine Garrivet. It's from the mid 1900s.
Many details are mostly the same. All have wigs and beards just like the standard modern decks. The kings of spade holds a sword in his right but only the hilt is visible. The king of hearts still holds his orb in his right hand. The tarot king of clubs holds a sword which appears to be a much larger and different type of sword than the one held by the king of spades. The king of diamonds also holds a sword which is smaller than the one heard by the king of clubs and much like the sword held by the king of spades. All these kings hold scepters in their left hands which is quite different from the modern kings.
These two kings of spades look nearly identical. Both wear crowns, hold swords, and have wigs, moustaches, and beards. Both are presented in three quarter profile.
Lets look at one set of details around the crown.
The crown of the king of clubs on the left has a few horizontal bands. Starting at the bottom, they are blue, red, yellow, blue, and the top is yellow. Except for the bottom blue stripe, they all have some wavey peaks. In the highest row, each peak is topped by a three cornered plant or leaf.
The crown of the king of spades on the right is along the same lines but rendered slightly differently. The crown's bands are black, red, black, and the yellow top has a black wavey band inside the yellow again with organic three leafed shapes atop each wave.
Here's an ultramodern king of hearts who is still the suicide king and looking slightly to his right. OH, and from reading some very well researched articles on WOPC (which I list at the end of this article)< I learn that the Suicide King use to hold a battle axe!)
The other kings each have their distinctive features.
There is a great deal of speculation about the symbols and association on playing cards. Some people say that four suits represent the four classes of society. There's a meme that is going around on the web about the 52 cards and the fact that there are 52 weeks in a year.
The common system of suits used in the US - spades, hearts, clubs, and diamonds - is based on a system worked out in France a few centuries ago. The Italians primarily use swords (like spades), cups (like hearts), coins (diamonds), and clubs (but they look like a club). The Germans too have their own suits: acorns, leaves, hearts and bells.
Returning to the French playing card deck history, the French tended to give names to the royal cards switching from history, mythology and the Bible. For instance, the King of Hearts is Charlemagne; the King of Spades is King David, the King of Diamonds is Julius Caesar; and the King of Clubs is Alexander the Great. But the truth is more complicated than that because each region of France had its own traditions, style, and symbolism around decks of cards so here is not one single symbolic generalization. However, in 1701, a law in France made the Paris Pattern the only allowed design for playing cards which ended the dozen or more regional design variations. I am personally very thankful that they standardized playing cards not cheeses for that would have really been a historic loss.
After my efforts to learn from staring at the cards, I did a little search and found Simon Wittle has some answers on WOPC about the History of the Court Cards. Also on the History of the Suicide King (of Hearts). Ken Lodge also has an article about the French Regional Playing Cards. There's a great survey article by Paul Bostock on why our modern cards look the way they do.
