Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages / Third Edition

by Edward Lewes Cutts

State Carriage of the Fourteenth Century.

It would take up too much space to transcribe the account of the tournament; the romancers and chroniclers dwell on every stroke, and prolong the narrative through page after page. We leave the reader to imagine to himself the crowd of meaner knights “hurtling together like wild boars,” and “lashing at each other with great strokes”; and can only tell one or two unusual deeds which caused most talk among the knights and ladies, and supplied new matter for the heralds and minstrels to record. How Sir Launcelot rushed against Sir Dinadan with the “boisterous spear” he had deprecated, and bore him back on his horse croup, that he lay there as dead, and had to be lifted off by his squires; and how Sir Lamorake struck Sir Kay on the helm with his sword, that he swooned in the saddle; and how Sir Tristram avoided Sir Palomides’ spear, and got him by the neck with both his hands, and pulled him clean out of his saddle, and so bore him before him the length of ten spears, and then, in the presence of them all, let him fall at his adventure; “until at last the haughty prince cried ‘Hoo!’ and then they blew to lodging, and every knight unarmed him and went to the great feast.” We may, however, quote one brief summary of a tournament which gives us several pictures worth adding to our story:—“Sir Launcelot mounted his horse and rode into a forest and held no high way. And as he looked afore him he saw a fair plain, and beside that plain stood a fair castle, and before that castle were many pavilions of silk and of divers hue; and him seemed that he saw there five hundred knights riding on horseback; and there was two parties; they that were of the castle were all in black, their horses and their trappings black; and they that were without were all upon white horses with white trappours. And every each hurled to other, whereof Sir Launcelot marvelled greatly. And at the last him thought that they of the castle were put unto the worst; and then thought Sir Launcelot for to help the weaker part in increasing of his chivalry. And so Sir Launcelot thrust in among the parties of the castle, and smote down a knight, both horse and man, to the earth: and then he rushed here and there and did marvellous deeds of arms; but always the white knights held them nigh about Sir Launcelot, for to weary him and win him. And at the last, as a man may not ever endure, Sir Launcelot waxed so faint of fighting, and was so weary of great deeds, that he might not lift up his arms for to give one stroke.”

Cabriolet of the Fourteenth Century.

Now for some extracts to illustrate the prize of the tournament: “Turn we unto Ewaine, which rode westward with his damsel, and she brought him there as was a tournament nigh the march of Wales. And at that tournament Sir Ewaine smote down thirty knights, wherefore the prize was given him, and the prize was a jerfawcon and a white steed trapped with a cloth of gold.” Sir Marhaus was equally fortunate under similar circumstances:—“He departed, and within two days his damsel brought him to where as was a great tournament, that the Lady de Vaux had cried; and who that did best should have a rich circlet of gold worth a thousand besants. And then Sir Marhaus did so nobly that he was renowned to have smitten down forty knights, and so the circlet of gold was rewarded to him.”

Again:—“There was cried in this country a great just three days. And all the knights of this country were there, and also the gentlewomen. And who that proved him the best knight should have a passing good sword and a circlet of gold, and the circlet the knight should give to the fairest lady that was at those justs. And this knight Sir Pelleas was the best knight that was there, and there were five hundred knights, but there was never man that Sir Pelleas met withal but that he struck him down or else from his horse. And every day of the three days he struck down twenty knights; therefore they gave him the prize. And forthwithal he went there as the Lady Ettarde was, and gave her the circlet, and said openly that she was the fairest lady that was there, and that he would prove upon any knight that would say nay.”

A Tournament.

The accompanying woodcut is a reduced copy of the half of one of the many tournament scenes which run along the lower part of the double page of the MS. romance of “Le Roi Meliadus,” already so often alluded to. They are, perhaps, the most spirited of all the contemporary pictures of such scenes, and give every variety of incident, not out of the imagination of a modern novelist, but out of the memory of one who had frequented deeds of arms and noted their incidents with an artist’s eye.

For an actual historical example of the tournament in which a number of knights challengers undertake to hold the field against all comers, we will take the passage of arms at St. Inglebert’s, near Calais, in the days of Edward III., because it is very fully narrated by Froissart, and because the splendid MS. of Froissart in the British Museum (Harl. 4,379) supplies us with a magnificent picture of the scene. Froissart tells that it happened in this wise:—“In ye dayes of King Charles there was an Englisshe knyght called Sir Peter Courteney, a valyaunt knight in armes, came out of Englande into Fraunce to Paris, and demanded to do armes with Sir Guy of Tremoyle[394] in the presence of the king or of suche as wolde se them. Sir Guy wolde not refuce his offre, and in the presence of the kyng and of other lordes they were armed on a daye and ran togeyder one course; and then the kyng wolde not suffre them to ryn agayne togeyther, wherwith the English knyght was ryt evyl content, for, as he shewed, he wolde have furnysshed his chalenge to the uttrance; but he was apeased with fayre wordes, and it was sayde to hym that he had done ynough and ought to be content therewith. The kyng and the duke of Burgoyne gave hym fayre gyftes and presentes. Than he returned agayne towardes Calays, and the lorde of Clary, who was a friscay and a lusty knyght, was charged to convey hym.” One night they lodged at Lucen, where lived the Countess of St. Paul, sister to King Richard of England, whose first wife had been a cousin of Sir Peter’s, and who therefore received them gladly. In the course of the evening the countess asked Sir Peter whether he was content with the entertainment he had met with in France. Whereupon the knight complained of the interruption of his combat, swore he should say wherever he went that he could find none in France to do armes with him; that had a French knight, for example the Lord of Clary then present, come into England and desired to do armes, he would have found enough to answer his challenge. The Lord of Clary having Sir Peter then placed under his safe conduct by the king, held his tongue till he had brought him within the English territory about Calais; then he challenged Sir Peter, and next day they met. “Then they toke their speares with sharpe heades wel fyled, and spurred their horses and rune togeyder. The fyrst course fayled, wherwith they were bothe sore displeased. At the seconde juste they mette so togeyder, that the Lord of Clary struke the Englysshe knyght throughe the targe and throughe the shoulder a handfull, and therwith he fell from his horse to the erthe.... Then the Lord of Clary departed with his company, and the Englysshemen led Sir Peter Courtney to Calays to be healed of his hurtes.”