PLATE VIII
A SCHARFRENNEN AT MINDEN IN 1545
A JOUST AT THE TILT IN AUGSBERG IN 1540
[CHAPTER VII]
L ’Histoire Du Bon Chevalier, Sans Paour et Sans Reproche, Gentil Seigneur De Bayart, gives some account of Bayard’s combats in the lists. The Chevalier was born in 1476 and died in 1524, and his first fights on foot and on horseback took place when he was a raw, growing stripling of eighteen. This was on the occasion when the Burgundian Chevalier, Claude de Vauldray, came to Lyons in 1494 to accomplish a deed of arms—“à course de lance et coups de hache”; and the young Bayard, though without possessing an equipment for the joust or means of procuring one, conceived the idea of engaging this redoubted champion in combat. The difficulty as to horse and armour was solved by the coming forward of a kinsman, L’Abbe d’Esnay, with the necessary cash. After several chevaliers of the French court had encountered De Vauldray, Bayard entered the lists to do battle. No particulars of the combat itself are given by the chronicler, but the account states that the youngster bore himself right gallantly; and the verdict of the ladies on the stand erected for their accommodation, expressed in the Lyonese dialect, “Vey-vo cestou malotru, il a mieulx fay que tous los autres.”
Soon the young Bayard, advancing towards fame and fortune, caused a proclamation to be made for a pas d’armes to be held at the town of Ayre, in Picardy, on the 20th July, 1494, Pour l’amour des dames. The articles of combat provided that “hoasting” armour be worn, and on the first day three courses be run with rebated lances and afterwards twelve strokes exchanged with the sword, all on horseback; on the morrow the combats to be on foot at barriers, high as the nombril, with lances and later with axes. Prizes were offered to the successful competitors as follows:—For the first day a bracelet of gold, enamelled with Bayard’s device, of the value of thirty ecus; and for the second day a diamond worth forty ecus. The proclamation runs:—