The Tournament—Its Periods and Phases

by R. Coltman Clephan

Much that is fanciful and unreal has been written about the tournament, and it is only in recent times that the knowledge of the subject has been placed on a more scientific basis, through the labours and researches of Querin von Leitner, Cornelius Curlitt, Boeheim, Dillon, Haenel and others, who have built on the valuable foundations laid by earlier writers on the subject. In France the subject has received but scant attention in recent times.

The contemporary literature in France and England concerning the tournament of the sixteenth century is much less voluminous than that written in the fifteenth, and the narrations of chroniclers greatly lack that technical knowledge which characterizes the work of their predecessors, who belonged to a higher class of society. The contrast, indeed, in their treatment of these meetings is very marked, in that comparatively little attention is devoted by the later writers to the martial sports themselves, while the pageantry and dresses closely connected with them absorb most of the matter of their narrations. This is perhaps an indication of a diminished public interest in the tournament in these countries; and but for the fuller and more circumstantial German records it would be difficult to present any comprehensive account of its ramifications during the sixteenth century and to the time when it fell into disuse. There are many records relating to the tournament in the College of Arms, London, and among the Ashmolean, Harleian and Cottonian MSS.[171]; whilst the Chronicles of Hall and Holinshed also afford much information. De Pluvinal, in Maneige Royal, published in 1625, gives some interesting particulars of jousting in its later stages, and Ménestrier, in Traité des Tournois, Jousts, Carrousels, &c., when it had almost ceased being practised.

The institution had attained its highest development in most of the countries of chivalry in the first half of the fifteenth century, and the sixteenth saw its rapid decline. It had become more and more a mere sport and pastime, and had lost much of its former dignity in being so closely associated with mummeries and the pageant. All the safeguards instituted in the fifteenth century had become accentuated in the sixteenth to a degree making serious accidents very rare; and the introduction of barriers in combats on foot, and the employment of lances in these contests, apart from the preliminary casting, so often described in the narrations of such encounters of the fifteenth century, had greatly changed their character, and made them much less dangerous.

In admitting cavaliers to the tournament kings of arms were particular to exclude all who were not of noble birth, with the requisite number of descents. The bâton of illegitimacy, however, was no bar to the admission of the bastards of princely houses, who were generally accepted in society on an apparently equal footing with nobles of the highest rank.

The prizes awarded were often a wreath, a ring, a sword, helmet, jewel or a charger; at a joust held at Weimar in 1534 they consisted of a spur, a sword and a lady’s slipper, all of gold.

Many new forms of jousting were introduced in Germany late in the fifteenth and during the sixteenth centuries, though most of them were derived from three main courses with but trivial differences from them. Some of the variants were conceived with a view to the introduction of some striking or humorous novelty; and, in fact, the passion for theatrical effect then prevailing in Germany, brought about some extraordinary mechanical absurdities as applied to jousting. The intricacies of the various courses would seem to have been somewhat perplexing even to the generations by whom they were practised, and they are, of course, much more difficult to disentangle now.

It was in Germany that the bulk of the jousting harnesses of the sixteenth century were made, and in that country the contemporary literature over the period in question concerning the tournament is most considerable.

The tournament records of the emperor Maximilian I and those of the ruling princes of the German Empire are of the first importance in the history of the tournament of the period, for it was at the courts of these sovereigns that such sports were most practised in their various phases, and when they reached their greatest development. The tournament, with its attendant pageants and mummeries, played a leading part in the weekly routine of the relaxation and amusements of these princes and their chivalry, a part perhaps second only to the chase; and these records bring the actual details of the various courses vividly before us in the many carefully executed drawings representing them which have been preserved. Most of them deal with the tournament of the sixteenth century, though some of the combats of the last quarter of the fifteenth are recorded and illustrated; and while, perhaps, none of the drawings are strictly speaking contemporaneous with the events they depict many of them were copied from older pictures, so that taken as a whole the details given are more reliable than most of the other sources of information.

The most precious among these tourney-books is the Freydal of Maximilian I, a work of the year 1515, in which the emperor’s combats in the lists, with the accompanying mummeries, are pictured.

The allegorical name “Freydal” is one of those assumed by the emperor in his knightly character. Maximilian was born in 1459, elected emperor in 1494, and died in 1520. He began his jousting career when quite a youth, and took a leading and personal part in the compilation of Freydal, dictating some of the text to his secretary Max Trytssaurwein in 1511; and, indeed, he corrected some of the proofs with his own hand. He selected for the book the examples of the various courses in which he was engaged, in almost all of which he appears as the victor. These instructions as to the choice of the subjects of the plates are of great value to the student, and are given in [Appendix D]. The personal character of the work adds much to its interest and importance in the history of the tournament.