3. Courses run with lances tipped with coronals, in which the jousters charged along a tilt which was between them. In this course the chief object in view was the splintering of lances.
There are many variants in the first two groups.
These three classes were practised more or less in all the countries of chivalry in the sixteenth century, though outside Germany it was the joust at the tilt which was commonly run. In the Fatherland and Austria these courses were known respectively as the Gestech or Stechen, Scharfrennen or Rennen, and the Welsch Gestech or Italian joust.
The type of joust run in the lists without a barrier or tilt, the lances tipped with coronals, is a very old one, though it had been subjected to a gradual modification and the application of safeguards as the centuries had advanced. The horses were blindfolded, so that they should not flinch or jib at the moment of impact, and so deflect the aim of the rider; and the animals were also sometimes rendered deaf by the stopping of their ears with wool, and they were often muzzled. Except in the case of one German variant of this class, the legs of the riders were without armour, these limbs being sufficiently protected by the saddle-steels. A chamfron, sometimes spiked, covered the face of the horse, and a crinet its neck. A cushion or mattress (Stechkissen or Bourrelet), filled with straw, hung from the saddle-bow, covering the chest of the animal, to act as a buffer when there were collisions, which frequently happened in the absence of a tilt; and, indeed, in such cases one or both chargers, with their riders, often fell. An illustration of this cushion is given in the Tourney Book of René d’Anjou, and another by Boeheim in his Waffenkunde, drawn after an actual example, which is believed to have belonged to Maximilian I, and now forms part of the superb collection of arms and armour at Vienna. The horse was usually barded in leather, which did not extend to the front, and a trapper, painted with various devices, covered its body. The saddle employed in Class 1, which weighs about 10·2 kilos., has a high squared plate in front reaching to the jouster’s breast, and there are short steels, though no cantle; so that unhorsing was of frequent occurrence. The head-piece of this class was the great jousting-helm. This course involved much more skill and initiative in the jouster and a more careful training of the horse than did the joust at the tilt. This class of joust was much practised in Germany under the general name “Gestech” or its abbreviation “Stechen,” and was in three forms:
(a) Das Gestech im hohen Zeug or Hohenzeuggestech, known in France as Joûte à la haute barde.
(b) Das gemeine deutsche Gestech. La Joûte Allemand.
(c) Das Gestech im Beinharnisch. Joûte au harnois de jambe.
The joust in Germany was a ruder sport than that practised in other countries, and unhorsing very frequently took place.
Hohenzeuggestech is an older form of the group, its main object being the splintering of lances. In this course the jouster sat high up on his horse in a saddle formed like a well, and his body being well supported on all sides unhorsing was impossible as long as the animal kept its legs and the girths held. This form of saddle had been employed in the Kolbenturnier or baston course (i.e. a duel on horseback with heavy bastons or maces), which prevailed during the fifteenth century and which has been described. The protection on the saddle front in Hohenzeuggestech rises over the rider’s breast, a broad band of iron encircles his body, and the steels are long and broad. The saddle weighs about 12 kilos. The horse ran blindfolded in a leather bard and trapper of cloth; the rider’s legs and feet were encased in hose and well-padded shoes, no armour being necessary, as the saddle-steels afforded ample protection. The mobility of both man and horse must have been much restricted by the heavy armament and by the blindfolding and the thick cushion over the breast. The heavy Flemish horses “did not vanish from their posts like lightning and close in the centre of the lists like a thunderbolt,” but charged at an amble.
[Plate III] pictures Maximilian armed for Hohenzeuggestech, as shown in Freydal, Plate 98.