We may here observe, that the rules of chivalry, at this time, would not admit of any person, under the rank of an esquire, to enter the lists as a combatant at the justs and tournaments; for which reason the burgesses and yeomen had recourse to the exercise of the quintain, which was not prohibited to any class of the people: but, as the performers were generally young men whose finances would not at all times admit of much expense, the quintain was frequently nothing better than a stake fixed into the ground, with a flat piece of board made fast to the upper part of it, as a substitute for the shield that had been used in times remote; and such as could not procure horses, contented themselves with running at this mark on foot. The following representation of a lad mounted on a wooden horse with four wheels, and drawn by two of his comrades tilting at the immoveable quintain, is taken from a MS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, dated 1344. [464]
30. Fixed Quintain—XIV. Century.
Others, again, made use of a moveable quintain, which was also very simply constructed; consisting only of a cross-bar turning upon a pivot, with a broad part to strike against on one side, and a bag of earth or sand depending from the other: there was a double advantage in these kind of quintains, they were cheap and easily to be procured. Their form, at an early period in the fourteenth century, is represented in the engraving above, and by the following from the same manuscript. Both these quintains are marked, I know not why, with the figure of a horse-shoe.
31. Moveable Quintain—XIV. Century.
VII.—MANNER OF EXERCISING WITH THE QUINTAIN.
But to return: Stow, in his Survey of London, having related the above-mentioned disturbance from Matthew Paris, goes on as follows: "This exercise of running at the quintain, was practised in London, as well in the summer as in the winter, but especially at the feast of Christmas. I have seen," continues my author, "a quintain set upon Cornhill by Leadenhall, where the attendants of the lords of merry disports have run and made great pastime; for he that hit not the board end of the quintain was laughed to scorn, and he that hit it full, if he rode not the faster, had a sound blow upon his neck with a bag full of sand hanged on the other end." [465] But the form of the modern quintain is more fully described by Dr. Plott, in his History of Oxfordshire: [466] "They first set a post perpendicularly into the ground, and then place a slender piece of timber on the top of it on a spindle, with a board nailed to it on one end, and a bag of sand hanging at the other; against this board they anciently rode with spears. Now I saw it at Deddington in this county, only with strong staves, which violently bringing about the bag of sand, if they make not good speed away, it strikes them in the neck or shoulders, and sometimes knocks them off their horses; the great design of this sport being to try the agility both of horse and man, and to break the board. It is now," he adds, "only in request at marriages, and set up in the way for young men to ride at as they carry home the bride; he that breaks the board being counted the best man."