The Tournament—Its Periods and Phases

by R. Coltman Clephan

In the Turnierwaffensaal at the Johanneum, Dresden, is a fine realistic representation of a Scharfrennen, the jousters mounted and in complete armour down to the smallest detail. They are facing each other, with lances in rest. The armour is etched and gilt, and every detail is original except the under-garment, the hose and well-wadded shoes. The period is about the middle of the sixteenth century.

[Plate VI] illustrates Maximilian II, mounted and armed for Scharfrennen in 1564. The armour is in the Collection at the Musée d’Artillerie, Paris.

[Plate VIII (1)] pictures a Rennen, held at Minden, between the Kurfürst August of Saxony and Johann von Ratzenberg. This particular joust was termed a “Gedritts,” signifying that the victor in the first encounter had still to dispose of a second antagonist in order to gain the prize; three were thus engaged, and hence the name. The Kurfürst’s second adversary was Hans von Sehönfeld. The jousting-salade, large vamplate, jousting-cuisses and other details are clearly shown. Numerous illustrations of Scharfrennen are present in Freydal and in the Saxon tourney-books. There are many variants from the main course, the most important being Geschiftrennen, la course à la targe futée. It is of two kinds, Geschifttartscherennen (tartsche, a shield) and Geschiftscheibenrennen (scheibe, a plate or disk); the wearing of a shield or a large plate or disk of iron over the breastplate being the main distinction between them. In both cases, when the centres of the shields were fairly struck by a lance a mechanism was set in motion by the freeing of a spring, which in Geschifttartscherennen dissolved the shield itself into fragments, the pieces flying over the jouster’s head in wedged-formed particles. In Geschiftscheibenrennen, on the right impact having been attained the iron plate remained in its place and only the wedge in the centre flew out. The mechanism of the first-named was much more complicated than that of the latter.

Unhorsing was another of the objects in view in both cases. Both courses would seem to have had their origin in the game of Running at the Ring. There is an illustration of the mechanism at the back of the shield given in a picture-codex in the Armeria at Madrid, dating about 1544.[184] The general equipment in both cases was the same as in Scharfrennen.

Illustrations of Geschifttartscherennen are given in Freydal, both with leg-armour and without. In plates of that work. Nos. 29 and 45, the shields are seen flying in pieces in the air and both riders are unhorsed; while in Plate 5, here reproduced in our [Plate VII], both riders keep their seats, but the shields are seen dissolving into fragments over the heads of the jousters. There is but one illustration of Geschiftscheibenrennen in Freydal, viz. in Plate 41. There are also illustrations in the Triumph of Maximilian.

In Bundrennen, often called Pundtrennen, Course appelée Bund, the jouster here also endeavoured to strike the centre of his opponent’s shield, but the main object was unhorsing. This was the most dangerous of all the courses, in the fact that a disrupting shield was employed, like that used in Geschifttartscherennen, but without any protecting beaver beneath it, so that the sharp lance was apt to glance off into the jouster’s face or a fragment of the disrupted shield fly into it, sometimes injuring the nose or eyes. This course, says the Weisskünig, “was certainly amusing to look upon, though with often sorrowful results to one or other of the combatants.”[185] In one of the plates of Freydal (No. 25), illustrating this course, the emperor and his opponent are both seen as being unhorsed; while in other plates (Nos. 21, 62, 73, 93 and 204) the shields spring disrupted into the air, but the jousters retain their seats.

Anzogenrennen, Course au pavois,[186] is a kind in which a very long shield was employed, which was firmly fixed to the beaver by a large screw with a considerably projecting head. The immediate object was unhorsing, or at least the splintering of lances. A picture in the tourney-book of Duke William IV of Bavaria furnishes a good illustration of the course as run in the year 1512, and there are later examples in the tourney-books of the Saxon Kurfürsts. The arms and lower limbs are unarmoured, the harness the same as that employed in Scharfrennen. The shield is very long, extending from the slit for vision in the salade down to below the abdomen. The part over the breastplate conforms to the contour of that piece, while below it the shield becomes concave in form. There is usually a spike in the centre. There are twenty-five illustrations in Freydal (Plates Nos. 9, 17, 50, 58, 89, 97, 141, 180 and 240), all of which exhibit the opponents of Maximilian as being unhorsed; while in Plate 169 both riders retain their seats. In other plates both jousters are unseated.

Krönlrennen was a freak, probably of Maximilian’s, first run in 1492. It is called “Halbierung” in the tourney-book of Kurfürst August of Saxony, and is a blending together of the courses Scharfrennen and Gestech, in that one jouster wore the armour usually employed in Scharfrennen, but used the lance headed with a coronal appertaining to the Gestech; the other, the harness for the Gestech with the sharp lance. The objects of the course were unhorsing and the splintering of lances. Plate 6 in Freydal illustrates Krönlrennen, and there is an excellent example given in the tourney-book of August of Saxony, Plate I.

In Pfannenrennen the combatants ran without body-armour, except for a square metal shield on the breast, and the horses wore hoods.

Feldrennen closes the list under Scharfrennen. “Hoasting” armour was employed; the saddle was that used in jousting at the tilt. The horses were not always blindfolded, and the immediate object in view was the splintering of lances.