Jack (playing card) Jack (playing card) A jack or knave is a playing card which, in traditional French and English decks, pictures a man in the traditional or historic aristocratic dress generally associated with Europe of the 16th or 17th century. The usual rank of a jack, within its suit, plays as if it was an 11 (that is, between the 10 and the queen). As the lowest face (or "court") card, the jack often represents a minimum standard — for example, many poker games require a minimum hand of a pair of jacks ("jacks or better") in order to continue play. The
Lancelot Compilation Lancelot Compilation The Lancelot Compilation is the name given to a Middle Dutch collection, produced ca. 1320, containing seven Arthurian romances folded into the three parts of the Lancelot-Grail cycle. Arthurian romance must have been widespread orally in the Low Countries; the oldest written remains of Arthurian romance in Middle Dutch date from the second half of the thirteenth century; this compilation is the "largest collection of Arthurian romances in Middle Dutch". There are three main witnesses for the "Lancelot en prose" tradition: the "Lancelot Compilation"; the collection of rhyming fragments known as "Lantsloot vander Haghedochte"; and the prose translation