Medieval Heraldry

Produced in 1994 by Heraldic Times Ltd (no longer in existence) this delightfully attractive deck was printed in a place called Europe! That’s as far as we go geographically with this unusually sized deck, measuring 88 by 62mm. England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are all represented, having a suit each.

The prints have been sourced from original manuscripts that are held in the British Museum, the British Library and Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

Each card is bordered with a decorative green twine, subtly featuring Red Rose, Thistle, Leek and clover in the middle of each edge. The corners have shields for St George of England, St Andrew for Scotland, The harp for Ireland and a dragon for Wales.

The box (See inside the box ) tells us that these are high-quality, plastic-coated poker sized playing cards, printed with gold and gilt edging (See the gilding ). Most of that is true! Whilst the deck is poker styled, they are somewhat shorter than the standard size.

The suits comprise of two types of pips: A standard and ones reflecting each country. Cards two through to ten have four standard pips, one in each corner, with the aces and courts having two.

For a smaller sized deck, there is a very large box! Measuring 135 by 156mm, blue satin drapes over an inner cardboard holder of the deck.

A 1460 medieval painting adorns the back of the cards, featuring the King of Arms of the Duke of Brittany, presenting a roll of arms to the Duke of Bourbon. The illustration has been redrawn and modified, replacing the original arms in the roll with the four countries. The original was by Rene d’Anjou (1409-1480), entitled "Traicté de la forme et devis comme on fait un tournoi". A lot of artistic licence has been taken with the new more basic image!