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King, queen and jack — and why the jack is marked J rather than Kn.
Also known as: Face cards, Picture cards, Knave, K Q J on cards
Three ranked figures per suit. The English jack was called the knave for centuries and was renamed for an entirely practical reason: an index corner has room for one letter, and Kn against K invites exactly the misreading a corner index exists to prevent.
The three figure cards in each suit — king, queen and jack — ranked above the numbered cards in most games and marked in the corner index by a single letter.
The jack was the knave in English until corner indices were introduced in the nineteenth century. Kn and K are too easily confused in a small index, so the older slang jack was adopted for the letter it gave.
English-speaking countries · from the mid-nineteenth century
The figures are double-headed in modern decks so that a card is legible whichever way up it is held. Single-headed court cards, standard until the mid-nineteenth century, told an opponent something about a hand simply by which way a player turned them.
The named identities attached to the French court cards — Charlemagne for the king of hearts and the rest — were printers' labels in sixteenth-century Rouen and Paris patterns, not a scheme, and they were dropped. Decks that carry them today are reproductions.
Frequently presented as the meaning of the court cards. It was a workshop habit.
A card divided across the middle into two mirrored halves, each showing the upper body of a crowned or capped figure, with a single letter and a suit mark in the corner.