16th-century gambling games

thumb|250px|Jacob Duck: guardroom with soldiers playing cards, 17th century Lansquenet is a banking game played with cards, named after the French spelling of the German word Landsknecht ('servant of the land or country'), which refers to 15th- and 16th-century German mercenary foot soldiers; the lansquenet drum is a type of field drum used by these soldiers. It is recorded as early as 1534 by François Rabelais in Gargantua and Pantagruel.