The Mémoires D’Olivier De La Marche teem with spirited descriptions of numerous fêtes d’'armes held at the Burgundian court during the reign of Duke Philippe le Bon, which are full of detail; and several of them bear the impress of having been written by an actual eye-witness, with ample opportunities for getting information, and with a sufficiency of technical knowledge for placing the scope and minutiæ of the encounters accurately and vividly before us. They also afford invaluable details of the costumes of the period, giving minute particulars of the dresses, and all matters connected with the lists. The Seigneur de la Marche was a Burgundian, born about 1425; he was appointed a page to his master the Duke in 1447, and was dubbed chevalier after the battle of Montlehéry. He distinguished himself before Ghent in 1452, was appointed a commissionary to the forces in 1456, was made a prisoner at Nancy in 1476, and died in 1502. The Mémoires cover a period of about fifty-three years, and form a very valuable contribution to the history of the tourney. They were first published in 1562.[108] Jean de Féore, Seigneur de St. Remy, describes some of the pas d’armes of the century; and the Traité de Tournois, by Louis de Bruges, written in the reign of Charles VIII, of France, deals with others of a later period. The Beauchamp Peageants[109] afford some excellent illustrations of jousts and combats on foot and on horseback. They are reproduced in the History of the Life and Acts of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, by John Rouse, the Warwickshire antiquary and historian, who died on the 14th of February, 1491, the seventh year of Henry VII. Earl Richard was born in 1381 and died in 1439. Hefner’s plates, Nos. 109 and 138, also picture jousts and tourneys of this period.
The Romance of Petit Jehan de Saintré,[110] written in 1459, by Antoine de la Sale, contains fifteen large and fine illustrations of jousts, combats on foot, etc., which, as far as we can judge, fairly represent such knightly encounters of the period. Hewitt[111] mentions the equipments and colours, as shown on fol. 39: “Near Knight.—Armour, iron-colour; feet, black; crest, red flower with gold leaves; saddle, bridle, and stirrup-leather, red; trapper, blue, marked with darker blue and lined with white fur. Far Knight.—Armour and feet as before; crest, gold with red feathers; saddle, buff; trapper, dark with black markings; bells, gold. Chanfreins both ridged and spiked, gold; the rest iron. The barrier is red and marked with a deeper red. It will be observed that, except the helm, the whole armour differs in nothing from the usual war suit.” The Mémoires of the Sire de Haynin[112] afford some interesting details in connection with pas d’armes.
The rules of the tourney promulgated by René d’Anjou, King of Naples, Sicily and Jerusalem, and Duke of Lorraine, in Tournois du Roi René, are most important. They contain many restrictions in the use of weapons, and all tend towards restraining the violence and disorder which had hitherto prevailed, and towards rendering these warlike games less dangerous; and they inculcate a spirit of chivalry, thus doing away greatly with much of the brutality of the former age. René thought lances too cumbersome for the tourney, and considered the proper weapons to be rebated swords and maces. The famous duel between the dukes of Brittany and Bourbon is described. But little jousting took place at Aix, the mêlée being preferred. There are several splendid manuscripts of the King’s writings extant, four of them at Paris, illuminated by the King himself, and they go into the minutest details of all which concern the tourney as practised at Aix.
“The Ordinaunce, statutes and rules made by John Lord Typtofte, Erle of Worcester, Counstable of England by the Kinges commaundment, at Windsor the 29 of May ao sixto Edwardi quarti (1466), to be observed and kepte in all manner of Justes of pees royall with in this realme of England.”[113]
There are several copies of the rules extant. The version here given, in an abridged form, is taken from the Antiquarian Repertory. It was copied from a MS. M. 61 in the Herald’s College.[114]
Another copy may be seen in Nugae Antiquae, by Park, which is referred to in Archæologia, or the year 1813.[115] They are also printed in Dr. Meyrick’s Critical Essay on Antient Armor, III, 179-86, with valuable notes from the MS. M. 6, in the Herald’s College.
These rules run:—
“Firste, whoso breaketh most speares, as they ought to be broken, shall have the price.
Item, whoso hitteth thre tymes in the heaulme, shall have the price.
Item, whoso meteth two tymes coronoll to coronoll, shall have the price.