On the day fixed for the combat, the two adversaries, accompanied by their seconds and by a priest, appeared in the lists mounted and armed at all points, their weapons in their hands, their swords and daggers girded on. They knelt down opposite to one another with their hands clasped, each in his turn solemnly swearing upon the cross and upon Holy Writ (Fig. 127) that he alone was in the right, and that his antagonist was false and disloyal; and he added, moreover, that he carried no charm or talisman about his person. A herald-at-arms then gave public notice at each of the four corners of the lists to the spectators of the combat to remain perfectly passive, to make no movement, and to utter no cry that could either encourage or annoy the combatants, under pain of losing a limb, or even life itself. The seconds then withdrew, and the camp-marshal, after seeing that both antagonists were fairly placed, and had their proper share of the wind and the sun, called out three times, “Laissez-les aller!” and the fight began (Fig. 128).
Fig. 128.—“How both parties are out of their tents, armed and ready to do their duty at the signal from the marshal, who has thrown the glove.”—From a Miniature in the “Cérémonies des Gages de Bataille,” a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, in the National Library of Paris.
The judicial duel never commenced before noon, and was only allowed to last till the stars appeared in the sky. If the defendant held out till then he was considered to have gained his cause. The knight who was beaten, whether killed or merely wounded, was dragged off the ground by his feet, the fastenings of his cuirass were cut, his armour was thrown piece by piece into the lists, and his steed and his weapons were divided between the marshal and the judges of the duel. Indeed sometimes, as, for instance, in Normandy and in Scandinavia, according to ancient usage, the vanquished champion was hung or burnt alive, according to the nature of the crime; while if he had fought as the champion of another person, that person was usually put to death with him.
The Church, although she allowed a priest to be present in the lists, never even granted a tacit approval to these judicial duels; she excommunicated the successful duellist, and refused the rites of burial to his victim; nor was she alone in condemning this barbarous custom; the lay authorities did all in their power, but without very much success, to restrict the number of these sanguinary appeals. St. Louis, in a celebrated decree of 1260, substituted trial by evidence in place of the judicial duel, but he found himself only able to enforce this reform within the area of his own dominions, and imperfectly even there, for long after his reign it is on record that the Parliament of Paris ordered certain criminal cases to be decided by personal combat.
When at last, in the fifteenth century, the custom of the judicial duel fell into disuse, the nobility still retained and practised single combat (Fig. 129). A personal affront, often an extremely slight one, a quarrel, a slight to be avenged, were enough to bring two rivals or two enemies to blows. This combative custom, which made a man’s strength and personal skill the guardians of his honour, was sustained and encouraged by the spirit of chivalry and by that of German feudalism. Sometimes, however, the practice was considered justifiable on other grounds. History, for instance, has honourably recorded the “Battle of the Thirty,” which took place in 1351, between thirty knights of Brittany, under the Sire de Beaumanoir, and thirty English knights; and another equally bloody struggle of the same kind between Bayard and ten other French knights, and eleven Spaniards, before the walls of Tranni. The national honour alone was the motive of these two celebrated duels; but they were only the exceptions to the rule. It almost seems as if the nobility, in their efforts to cling to the shadow and the memory of the rapidly-expiring traditions of chivalry, became more inveterate in their adherence to the cruel system of duelling. In the sixteenth century, under the last monarchs of the house of Valois, the Place Royale and the Pré aux Clercs were often watered with the blood of the best families of France. In vain did Henry IV. and Louis XIII. issue the most stringent edicts against this barbarous custom; in vain did the decree, called the decree of Blois, render nugatory all letters of pardon granted to duellists, “even if they were signed by the king himself.” In spite of everything, the nobles, upon whose privileges the monarchy daily made fresh encroachments, had recourse to duelling as if to assert their connection with a chivalric and adventurous past, and the most trivial, ridiculous, and shameful motives served as pretexts for a renewal of the sanguinary struggles, which had been originally inspired by a generous courage and a loyal sympathy with justice.
Fig. 129.—Single Combat to be decided by the judgment of God.—From a Miniature in the “Conquêtes de Charlemagne,” a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, in the National Library of Paris.
But we must go back to the time of the zenith of the Middle Ages to see its tournaments, its tilts, and its passages of arms. In the halcyon period of chivalry, its sham fights, its courteous tournaments, and its warlike exhibitions, occasioned many an accident, and brought about many a fatal result. History mentions a tournament in Germany where sixty persons perished in a struggle waged with weapons deprived of edge and point. No question of mere gallantry, no point of honour, was involved in the oldest tournaments on record (the tournament was first alluded to in the chronicles of the reign of Charles the Bald); no pomp of drapery, no brilliancy of banner, adorned them then. No princesses, no noble ladies, showed themselves in all their pride of beauty and of dress around those ancient lists. The tournament (in old French tournoiement) of those days was merely a violent athletic pastime, in which the iron men of that period measured their strength one against the other with sword strokes, with lance thrusts, and with mace blows. But as the customs of chivalry gradually softened the manners of the nobility, so the primitive coarseness and roughness of these trials of strength became modified and regulated. Tradition declares that the tournament properly so called was first inaugurated in Brittany in the tenth century by Geoffrey, the Sire de Preuilli.
