The mock battles of knighthood, nicely defined by the chronicler Roger of Howden as ‘military exercises carried out not in the spirit of hostility but solely for practice and the display of prowess’. An uncertain tradition ascribes their origin to a knight of Anjou, Geoffrey de Preuilly, who was killed in 1066: their later description by English writers as conflictus gallicus seems to confirm their French origin. In the course of the 12th century they became extremely popular all over western Europe. The mêlée tournaments of this period were extremely rough affairs. Those taking part were usually divided into two teams, often on the basis of feudal allegiance (such as French v. Angevins): the site of the tournament would cover a wide area, permitting the mock fighting to range over the countryside. The principal weapons were lance and sword; prisoners were taken and expected to pay a ransom as forfeit. Fatal casualties were common. These, together with the damage and expenditure involved, were no doubt the grounds of the Church's hostility to tournaments, which were condemned by the Second Council of Clermont in 1130; but this did not much dent their popularity with the martial class.
From the 13th century onward, tournaments became progressively less dangerous and more ceremonious. ‘Rebated’ (blunted) weapons came into more frequent use; a coronal, a crown-shaped piece, replaced the sharp point of a tourneying lance. Jousting, when two opponents charged one another from opposite ends of the lists, grew in popularity and made for better spectator sport. So did the growing taste for the introduction of an element of theatre; at the tournament at Hem in 1279, for instance, the participants took on the parts of knights of Arthur's Round Table. Tourneying meetings became occasions of much festivity, and often formed part of the celebrations accompanying royal marriages, the knighting of a prince's heir, or returns from victorious campaigns. The famous Burgundian pas d'armes of the 15th century (as those of the Tree of Charlemagne, 1443; or the Golden Apple, 1468) were lavish jousting festivals with a courtly theme, often an amorous one (from the early 13th century it had become fashionable for jousting combatants to pose as champions of their chosen ladies, and to bear their tokens).
Late in the Middle Ages, the invention of the tilt, a barrier running the length of the lists on either side of which jousters charged one another, further reduced the hazards of the sport, as did the development of special tourneying armour, heavier and more expensive than war armour. The requirements for admission to tourney, in terms of noble birth, also became more demanding: the rules of the 15th-century German tourneying societies were especially exacting in this respect. By the beginning of the 16th century tourneying had thus become an aristocratic art with little relation to true martial skill, and soon after its popularity began to wane. By the close of the century, the tournament's day was past.
Bibliography
- Barber, R., and Barker, J., Tournaments, Jousts, Chivalry and Pageants in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 1989).
- Barker, J., The Tournament in England 1100-1400 (Woodbridge, 1986).
- Cripps-Day, F. H., The History of the Tournament in England and France (London, 1918).
- Fleckenstein, J. (ed.), Das ritterliche Turnier im Mittelalter,
2 vols. (Göttingen, 1985)
— Maurice H. Keen
