Nature of tourneying weapons.
When the knights reached the lists, their arms were examined by the constable; and such as were of a frame and fabric contrary to good chivalry were rejected. The lances were hurtless, the points being either removed altogether, or covered with broad pieces of wood, called rockets. The gallant manners of the age gave such lances the title of Glaives Courtois. The swords were blunted and rebated. Instances are on record of knights encountering with swords made of whalebone, covered with parchment, the helmet and hauberk being made of leather.
There existed very often, however, a disposition to convert tournaments into real battles. National rivalry broke through the restraints of knightly gentleness; envy of martial prowess, or of woman’s love, had found an occasion of venting its passion; and, in spite of the authority of the king-at-arms and heralds to reject weapons of violence, bribery and power appear often to have introduced them. As the nature of offensive armour may be judged from the defensive harness, so in the laws of a country we may read the state of manners. The practice of converting the elegant tournament into a deadly fray occasioned an oath to be imposed on all knights that they would frequent tournaments solely to learn military exercises[293]; and, by a law of England made towards the close of the thirteenth century, a broad-sword for tourneying was the only weapon that was allowed to the knight and squire; and there was a stern prohibition of a sword pointed, a dagger pointed, or a staff or mace. Knights banneret and barons might be armed with mufflers, and cuishes, and shoulder-plates, and a scull-cap, without more. Spectators were forbidden from wearing any armour at all, and the king-at-arms and heralds, and the minstrels, were allowed to carry only their accustomed swords without points.
Knights wore ladies’ favors.
The tilting armour in which knights were sheathed was generally of a light fabric, and splendid. Its ornaments came under a gentler authority than that of royal constables and marshals. If the iron front of a line of cavaliers in the battle-field was frequently gemmed with the variously coloured signs of ladies’ favors, those graceful additions to armour yet more beseemed the tournament. Damsels were wont to surmount the helmets of their knights with chaplets, or to affix streamers to their spears[294], and a cavalier who was thus honoured smiled with self-complacency on the highly emblazoned surcoat of his rival in chivalry.
The desire to please ladies fair formed the very soul of the tournament.[295] Every young and gallant knight wore the device of his mistress, while, indeed, the hardier sons of chivalry carried fiercer signs of their own achievements: but they were unmarked by the bright judges of the tourney, for their eyes could only follow through the press their own emblems of love.
Nothing was now to be heard but the noise and clattering of horse and armour.
“Ther mayst thou see devising of harneis
So uncouth[296], and so rich, and wrought so wele
Of goldsmithey, of brouding[297], and of stele,
The sheldes bright, testeres[298], and trappures;
Gold hewn helms, hauberks, cote-armures;
Lords in paramentes[299], on hir courseres,
Knights of retinue, and eke squires,
Nailing the speres, and helmes buckling,
Gniding[300] of sheldes, with lainers[301] lacing;
Ther as need is they were nothing idle:
The fomy steeds on the golden bridle
Gnawing, and fast the armourers also
With file and hammer pricking to and fro;
Yeomen on foot, and communes many on,
With short staves, thick as they may gone;
Pipes, trompes, nakeres[302], and clariounes,
That in the bataile blowen blody sounes.”[303]
The preparation.
After the arms had been examined, “à l’ostelle, à l’ostelle, to achievement knights and squires to achievement,” was cried by the well-voiced heralds from side to side, and the cavaliers, making their obeisances to the ladies, retired within their tents to don their harness. At the cry, “Come forth, knights, come forth,” they left their pavilions, and mounting their good steeds, stationed themselves by the side of their banners. The officers-at-arms then examined their saddles; for though they might grow unto their seats, yet it could only lawfully be done by noble horsemanship, and not by thongs attaching the man and horse together.[304]