“Pierre de Bayart, jeune gentil-homme et apprentif des armes, natif de Daulphiné, des ordonnances du roy de France, soubz la charge et conduicte de hault et puissant Seigneur monseigneur de Ligny, faisoit crier et publier ung tourney au dehors de la ville d’Ayre, et joignant les murailles à tous venans, au vingtiesme jour de juillet, de trois coups de lance sans lice, à fer esmolu, et en harnoys de guerre; et douze coups d’espée, le tout à cheval. Et au mieulx faisant donnoit ung brasselet d’or esmaillé de sa livrée, et du prix de trente escuz. Le lendemain seriot combatu à pied, a poux de lance, à une barrière de la halteur du nombril; et après la lance rompue à coups de hache, jusques à la discrétion des juges et de ceulx qui garderoient le camp. Et au mieulx faisoit donnoit ung dyamant du pris de quarante escus.”
On the first day, on the trumpet sounding, le bon Chevalier presented himself for the first course, his adversary being a neighbour from Dauphiny named Tartarin, in which the latter broke his lance within six inches of the head, thus forfeiting a point; and jousting between other cavaliers lasted until evening. On the second day Bayard fought at barriers against a Messire Honotin de Sucre, first with lances and afterwards with axes. Bayard struck his adversary two heavy blows over the region of the ear, the second of which bore him to the ground. Other foot encounters followed, after which the prizes for the two days were awarded by the judges to le bon Chevalier, as having done the best on both days, but he refused to accept them, and they were adjudged to other champions who came next in order of merit.[191] The Chevalier’s next tourney was at Carignan, in Italy, at which he gained the prize.[192]
Chapter XXII tells how le bon Chevalier fought at barriers at Andre with Don Alonce de Soto-Majori. Bayard had wished the combat to be on horseback, owing to some trouble in his legs which hindered locomotion; but the Spaniard insisted all the more on fighting on foot, and this was finally arranged to take place. The weapons selected were estocs and daggers, and the fight commenced with an exchange of thrusts with the former, in which Soto-Majori was slightly wounded in the face; then Bayard, making a feint, thrust his sword right through the neck of his adversary, inflicting a fatal wound. The Spaniard, in his death agony, clutched the body of the Frenchman with his arms and both combatants fell to the ground. Bayard then drew his dagger, crying, “Rendez vous, Seigneur Alonce, ou vous estes mort”; but he had hardly uttered the words when the Spaniard expired. The Chevalier then knelt down and thanked God for his victory.
The Chevalier’s next combat was at Monervyne, in the Kingdom of Naples, thirteen Spaniards against the same number of Frenchmen, which took place during a truce between the two armies, the leaders of this encounter being the Seigneur d’Oroze and le bon Chevalier respectively. A condition of the articles of combat was that any cavalier on being unhorsed should render himself a prisoner to the side opposing him. The fight began, and the Spaniards unchivalrously aimed their lances at the horses of their adversaries instead of at their riders; but, in spite of this dishonourable ruse, the honours of the battle are stated to have lain with the Frenchmen.
Other examples of Bayard’s prowess and chivalry in the tournament are given in the chronicle. The dates given by chroniclers of jousts and pas d’armes are apt to vary somewhat, partly owing to the different methods of computing the regnant years of a king.
A manuscript in the College of Arms, London, gives an account of the pas d’armes held at Westminster in honour of the marriage of Katharine of Arragon with Prince Arthur, the heir to the throne, in the seventeenth year of King Henry VII (1501). This narration is apparently the work of an official present at the meeting, and an abridged account of it follows here. Besides jousts and mêlées, there were fights at barriers, pageants, and mummeries most splendid, costly, fanciful and elaborate. A tilt was erected in the open space before Westminster Hall, and adjoining the lists were gaily decorated stands and galleries for the king, court and other spectators. For the knights, nobles and esquires taking part there were within the lists pavilions, which were removed before the jousting began. The first jousting is thus described:—
“And at furst curse ran the Duke of Bokyngham and the Lord Marquyes; and the duke brake his staff right well, and wt great sleight and stringht, upon the Lord Marquyes; and at the secunde curse the Lord Marquyes brake his staff oppon the Duke in like wise; and then the residue of the Lords and Knights ranne orderly togiders, and, for the most parte at every curse, other the on staf, other the other, or moost comonly bothe, were goodly and wt great art and strength, brokyn of meny pecys; that such a feld, and justs ryall, so noble and valiantly doon, have not been sene ne hard; the which goodly feats, and those of the descripcion apperyth weil pleynn, and more opyn, in the bokys of the Harolds of Armys.”
There is nothing said of the lances employed in the first day’s jousting, as to whether they were rebated or not, but the courses which follow on the succeeding days are expressly stated to have been run with pointed lances “at the large.”[193] We may thus assume that the running of the first day was at the tilt (else why its erection at all?), and that lances with coronals were employed. Afterwards there was a mêlée, the weapons being “armyng swords” (i.e. estocs). On the fourth day jousting was again followed by a tourney (mêlée).[194] The lances were tipped with coronals, and the weapons in the tourney were estocs, as before. Many of the cavaliers were unhorsed in the jousting and in the mêlée: “Sume of their swords were brokyn in two peces, and sume other their harneis was heuen off from their body, and felle into the feld.” Then the prizes, consisting of diamonds, rubies and rings of gold, were awarded.
In 1502 a “Solemne Triumphe” was held in the Tower of London.
Plate 118 in Das Turnierbuch Johan des Beständigen, Kurfürst of Saxony, depicts a course with sharp lances, run at Naumburg in 1505, between Duke Hans of Saxony and Georg von Brandestein. The duke keeps his seat, but his opponent is unhorsed. The armour is of the kind usually employed in this course (Scharfrennen).