V.—TOURNAMENTS AND JUSTS.
Among the pastimes introduced by the Norman nobility, none engaged the general attention more than the tournaments and the justs. The tournament, in its original institution, was a martial conflict, in which the combatants engaged without any animosity, merely to exhibit their strength and dexterity; but, at the same time, engaged in great numbers to represent a battle. The just was when two knights, and no more, were opposed to each other at one time. These amusements, in the middle ages, which may properly enough be denominated the ages of chivalry, were in high repute among the nobility of Europe, and produced in reality much of the pomp and gallantry that we find recorded with poetical exaggeration in the legends of knight-errantry. I met with a passage in a satirical poem among the Harleian MSS. of the thirteenth century, [10] which strongly marks the prevalence of this taste in the times alluded to. It may be thus rendered in English:
If wealth, sir knight, perchance be thine,
In tournaments you're bound to shine
Refuse—and all the world will swear
You are not worth a rotten pear. [11]