The author of "Ivanhoe" has made the tournament a picture familiar to all readers of romance. It therefore needs no long description here. It was held in honor of some great event—a coronation, wedding, or victory. Having practiced well during squirehood at the quintain, the knight, clad in full armor, with visor barred and the colors of his lady on crest and scarf, rode into the lists, for which some level green was chosen and surrounded with a palisade.
For days before, his shield had been hanging in a neighboring church, as a sign of his intention to compete in this great game of chivalry. If any stain lay on his knighthood, a lady, by touching the suspended shield with a wand, could debar him from a share in the jousting. And if, when he had entered the lists he was rude to a lady, or broke in any way the etiquette of the tilt yard, he was beaten from the lists with the ashwood lances of the knights.
The Knight.
The simple joust was the shock of two knights, who galloped with leveled spears at each other, aiming at breast or head, with the object either of unhorsing the antagonist, or, if he sat his charger well, of splintering the lance upon his helmet or his shield. The mellay hurled together, at the dropping of the prince's baton, two parties of knights, who hacked away at each other with ax and mace and sword, often gashing limbs and breaking bones in the wild excitement of the fray. Bright eyes glanced from the surrounding galleries upon the brutal sport; and when the victor, with broken plume, and battered armor, dragged his weary limbs to the footstool of the beauty who presided as Queen over the festival, her white hands decorated him with the meed of his achievements.
The Normans probably dined at nine in the morning. When they rose they took a light meal; and ate something also after their day's work, immediately before going to bed. Goose and garlic formed a favorite dish. Their cookery was more elaborate, and, in comparison, more delicate, than the preparations for an English feed; but the character for temperance, which they brought with them from the Continent, soon vanished.
The poorer classes hardly ever ate flesh, living principally on bread, butter, and cheese,—a social fact which seems to underlie that usage of our tongue by which the living animals in field or stall bore English names—ox, sheep, calf, pig, deer; while their flesh, promoted to Norman dishes, rejoiced in names of French origin—beef, mutton, veal, pork, venison. Round cakes, piously marked with a cross, piled the tables, on which pastry of various kinds also appeared. In good houses cups of glass held the wine, which was borne from the cellar below in jugs.
Squatted around the door or on the stair leading to the Norman dining hall, was a crowd of beggars or lickers, who grew so insolent in the days of Rufus, that ushers, armed with rods, were posted outside to beat back the noisy throng, who thought little of snatching the dishes as the cooks carried them to table!
The juggler, who under the Normans filled the place of the English gleeman, tumbled, sang, and balanced knives in the hall; or out in the bailey of an afternoon displayed the acquirements of his trained monkey or bear. The fool, too, clad in colored patchwork, cracked his ribald jokes and shook his cap and bells at the elbow of roaring barons, when the board was spread and the circles of the wine began.