Ruff and Honours
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| Origin | England |
|---|---|
| Family | Trick-taking |
| Players | 4 |
| Skills required | Tactics and Strategy |
| Cards | 52 |
| Deck | English |
| Play | Clockwise |
| Playing time | 25 min. |
| Random chance | Medium |
| Related games | |
| Triomphe, Whist | |
Ruff and honours was an English trick-taking card game that was popular in the 16th and 17th centuries; it was superseded in the 18th century by Whist.
Ruff and honours is covered in Charles Cotton's The Compleat Gamester 1674 where it is described as being commonly known in all parts of England. At the time Randle Cotgrave thought the name was just a synonym for Trump. The game was also known as Slamm, a less popular form was called Whist, and it was closely related to Ruffe and Trump described by Francis Willughby.
Willughby speculated that there was an earlier simple trick-taking game without the ruff and honours. Cavendish and others state that ruff and honours was a descendant of the French game of Triomphe (→ Middle English triumph → Modern English trump). Triomphe, known as French Ruff in England, was a five-card game using a shortened deck, an up-turned trump card and played either in partnership or singlehandedly with 2-7 players. The earliest reference to a card game called "Triumph" in English is a 1522 translation of a French book. The earliest reference of "Triumph" being played in England is in a sermon by Hugh Latimer in 1529. The earliest mention of Triomphe goes back to France in the 1480s.
Ruff originates from an obscure 15th-century Italian game known as Ronfa and probably entered the English language through the French equivalent of Ronfle where it meant "point" as formerly in the game of Piquet. By the late 16th-century, due to confusion by English players, ruff acquired its English meaning of "to trump".
The game has been reconstructed from Cotton's "ruff and honours" and Willughby's similar "ruffe and trump".
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