Tournament

A tournament, or tourney, is a chivalrous competition or mock fight. It is one type of hastilude. These shows are held often for coronations, the marriage of kings, births, baptisms, weddings of princesses, conquests, peace, alliances, or to welcome ambassadors and people of great worth, or for pure entertainment. The heralds and kings of arms are in charge of publicizing the tournament, and the herald passes from castle to castle, taking letters and posters to the most renowned champions and inviting all the brave along the way.

Origin and History

Equestrian warfare, and equestrian practice, does harken back to the Old Empire, just as the notion of chivalry harkens back to the rank of horsemen in those days; there may be an element of continuity connecting the tournament to the horse exercises of the Old Imperial cavalry. It is known that such cavalry games were central to military training in the post-Imperial kingdoms. In these early contests, the initial chasing and fleeing was followed by a general mêlée of all combatants.

The earliest known use of the word "tournament" comes from the peace legislation by [Count Baldwin III] of [Hainaut] for the town of [Valenciennes], dated to [1114], which refers to the keepers of the peace in the town leaving it 'for the purpose of frequenting javelin sports, tournaments and such like.' After a long decline, the tournament had a resurgence of popularity in Generica in the reign of the martial and crusading king, [Edward I (1272–1307)] and under his grandson, [Edward III (1327–77)], yet the tournament died out during the latter's reign. [Edward III] encouraged the move towards pageantry and a predominance of jousting in his sponsored events. In one such tournament held in Generica in [1342] at [Dunstable], the mêlée was postponed so long by jousting that the sun was sinking by the time the lines charged.

Practices

Tournaments might be held at all times of the year. The general custom is to hold them on Mondays and Tuesdays, though any day but Friday and Sunday might be used. The site of the tournament is customarily announced a fortnight before it is to be held. The most famous tournament fields attract hundreds of foreign knights from all over Imperia for the tournament season. Knights arrive individually or in companies to stay at one or other of the two settlements designated as their lodgings. The tournament begins on a field outside the principal settlement, where stands are erected for spectators. On the day of the tournament one side is formed of those 'within' the principal settlement, and another of those 'outside'.

Parties hosted by the principal magnates present are held in both settlements, and preliminary jousts offer knights an individual showcase for their talents. On the day of the event, the tournament is opened by a review in which both sides parade and call out their war cries. Then followed a further opportunity for individual jousting carried out between two lines of knights. The opportunity for jousting at this point is customarily offered to the new, young knights present.

At some time in mid morning the knights will line up for the charge. At a signal, a bugle or herald's cry, the lines ride at each other and meet with leveled lances. Those remaining on horseback turn quickly (the action which gives the tournament its name) and single out knights to attack. Squires are present at the lists to offer their masters up to three replacement lances. The mêlée tend then to degenerate into running battles between parties of knights seeking to take ransoms, and spread over several square miles between the two settlements which define the tournament area. Most tournaments continue till both sides are exhausted, or till the light fades. Some end earlier, if one side breaks in the charge, panics and runs for its home base looking to get behind its lists and the shelter of the armed infantry which protects them. Following the tournament the patron of the day offers lavish banquets and entertainment. Prizes are offered to the best knight on either side, and awarded during the meals.

Melee

File:Turnierbuch des René von Anjou 22.jpg

The two teams stand ready; each side has 24 knights with clubs, each with a banner-bearer (Ms. fr. 2693 56v/57r, King René's Tournament Book). There is a central spectators' box for the four judges, and one on each side for the ladies; inscribed over the boxes is plus est en vous, the motto of the Gruuthuse family of Bruges.<ref> The motto plus est en vous (meer is in u ) goes back to a tournament between Jean III de Gruuthuse and Jean de Ghistelles on 11 March 1393. Octave Delepierre, Précis des annales de Bruges (1835) 38f. René of Anjou's contemporary Louis de Gruuthuse himself was a famous competitor in tournaments during the 1440s.</ref>

File:Turnierbuch des René von Anjou 23.jpg

The tournament in progress (René d'Anjou), only the banners of Bourbon and Brittany are left in the field, the individual knights' banners are seen to the right.

Melee (Template:IPAc-en or /ˈmeleɪ/, French: mêlée Template:IPA-fr; in English frequently spelled as mêlée or melée) is a modern term for a type of mock combat in medieval tournaments. The "melee" was the "mass tournament" where two teams of horsemen clashed in formation. The aim was to smash into the enemy in massed formation, with the aim of throwing them back or breaking their ranks. Following a successful maneuver of this kind, the rank would attempt to turn around without breaking formation (widerkere or tornei); this action was so central that it would become eponymous of the entire tradition of the tourney or tournament by the mid-12th century.

The Middle High German term for this type of contest was buhurt (adopted in French as bouhourt); some sources may also make a distinction between melee or mass tournament and buhurt, as the latter could refer to a wider class of equestrian games not necessarily confined to the formal tournament reserved to nobility.Template:Clarify Some sourcesTemplate:Who distinguish between the buhurt as more playful and the turnei as, while still nominally "mock combat", much closer to military reality, often leading to fatalities.

The Old French meslee "brawl, confused fight; mixture, blend" (12th century) is the feminine past participle of the verb mesler "to mix" (ultimately from Vulgar Latin misculāta "mixed", from Latin miscēre "to mix"; compare mélange; meddle, medley). The modern French form mêlée was borrowed into English in the 17th century and is not the historical term used for tournament mock battles.Template:Clarify The term buhurt may be related to hurter "to push, collide with" (cognate with English to hurt) or alternatively from a Frankish bihurdan "to fence; encompass with a fence or paling").

Tournaments often contained a mêlée consisting of knights fighting one another on foot or mounted, either divided into two sides or fighting as a free-for-all. The object was to capture opposing knights so that they could be ransomed, and this could be a very profitable business for such skilled knights as William Marshal.

The melee or buhurt was the main form of the tournament in its early phase during the 12th and 13th centuries. The joust, while in existence since at least the 12th century as part of tournaments, did not play the central role it would acquire later (by the late 15th century).

Popularity

There is no doubting the massive popularity of the tournament as early as the sources permit us to glimpse it. The first English mention of tourneying is in a charter of Osbert of Arden, Lord of Kingsbury of Warwickshire, which reveals that he travelled to Northampton and London but also crossed the Channel to join in events in France. The charter dates to the late 1120s.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The great tournaments of northern France attracted many hundreds of knights from Germany, England, Scotland, Occitania and Iberia. There is evidence that 3000 knights attended the tournament at Lagny-sur-Marne in November 1179 promoted by Louis VII in honour of his son's coronation. The state tournaments at Senlis and Compiègne held by Philip III in 1279 can be calculated to have been even larger events.

Aristocratic enthusiasm for the tournament meant that it had travelled outside its northern French heartland before the 1120s. The first evidence for it in England and the Rhineland is found in the 1120s. References in the Marshal biography indicate that in the 1160s tournaments were being held in central France and Great Britain. The contemporary works of Bertran de Born talk of a tourneying world that also embraced northern Iberia, Scotland and the Empire. The chronicle of Lauterberg indicates that by 1175 the enthusiasm had reached the borders of Poland.

Despite this huge interest and wide distribution, royal and ecclesiastical authority was deployed to prohibit the event. In 1130 Pope Innocent II at a church council at Clermont denounced the tournament and forbade Christian burial for those killed in them. The usual ecclesiastical justification for prohibiting them was that it distracted the aristocracy from more acceptable warfare in defence of Christianity. However, the reason for the ban imposed on them in England by Henry II had to have lain in its persistent threat to public order. Knights going to tournaments were accused of theft and violence against the unarmed. Henry II was keen to re-establish public order in England after the disruption of the reign of King Stephen (1135–1154). He did not prohibit tournaments in his continental domains, and indeed three of his sons were avid pursuers of the sport.

Tournaments were allowed in England once again after 1192, when Richard I identified six sites where they would be permitted and gave a scale of fees by which patrons could pay for a license. But both King John and his son, Henry III, introduced fitful and capricious prohibitions which much annoyed the aristocracy and eroded the popularity of the events. In France Louis IX prohibited tourneying within his domains in 1260, and his successors for the most part maintained the ban.

Jousting

File:Jorg Breu Sr Tournament.jpg

The joust outlasted the tournament proper and was widely practiced well into the 16th century (sketch by Jörg Breu the Elder, 1510)

As has been said, jousting formed part of the tournament event from as early a time as it can be observed. It was an evening prelude to the big day, and was also a preliminary to the grand charge on the day itself. In the 12th century jousting was occasionally banned in tournaments. The reasons given are that it distracted knights from the main event, and allowed a form of cheating. Count Philip of Flanders made a practice in the 1160s of turning up armed with his retinue to the preliminary jousts, and then declining to join the mêlée until the knights were exhausted and ransoms could be swept up.

But jousting had its own devoted constituency by the early 13th century, and in the 1220s it began to have its own exclusive events outside the tournament. The biographer of William Marshal observed c.1224 that in his day noblemen were more interested in jousting than tourneying. In 1223, we have the first mention of an exclusively jousting event, the Round Table held in Cyprus by John d'Ibelin, lord of Beirut. Round Tables were a 13th-century enthusiasm and can be reconstructed to have been an elimination jousting event. They were held for knights and squires alike. Other forms of jousting also arose during the century, and by the 14th century the joust was poised to take over the vacancy in aristocratic amusement caused by the decline of the tournament.

Equipment

It is a vexed issue as to what extent specialized arms and armour were used in mêlée tournaments. A further question that might be raised is to what extent the military equipment of knights and their horses in the 12th and 13th centuries was devised to meet the perils and demands of tournaments, rather than warfare. It is, however, clear from the sources that the weapons used in tournaments were initially the same as those used in war. It is not by any means certain that swords were blunted for most of the history of the tournament. This must have changed by the mid 13th century, at least in jousting encounters. There is a passing reference to a special spear for use in jousting in the Prose Lancelot (c. 1220). In the 1252 jousting at Walden, the lances used had sokets, curved ring-like punches instead of points. The Statute of Arms of Edward I of England of 1292 says that blunted knives and swords should be used in tournaments, which rather hints that their use had not been general until then.

Pageantry

By using costumes, drama and symbolism, tournaments have become a form of art, which has raised the expenses for these events considerably. They have political purposes, to impress the populace and guests with their opulence, as well as the courage of the participants. Loyalty to a lord or lady is expressed through clothes and increasingly elaborate enactments. Tournaments also serve cultural purposes. As the ideals of "courtly love" have become more influential, women play a more important role in the events. They are often held in honour of a lady, who often participates in the playacting and symbolism. Mythology and storytelling are popular aspects of tournaments. An example of this is the tournament in [1468] that was organized by [Charles the Bold] to celebrate his marriage with [Margaret of York]. The tournament was supposedly at the bidding of the 'Lady of the Hidden Isle'. A golden tree had been erected with all the coats of arms of the participating knights. They were dressed like famous figures from legend and history, while their squires were dressed as harlequins. Chained in a black castle, he could only be freed with a golden key and approval of the attending ladies, before entering the lists.

In Marinea, the military aspect of the tournaments is secondary to the display of wealth. For a tournament honouring his marriage to [Clarice Orsini], [Lorenzo de Medici] had his standard designed by famous local artists. He also wore a large amount of jewelry, including the famous [Medici] diamond '[Il Libro]'.

Royalty also held tournaments to stress the importance of certain events and the nobility's loyalty. [Henry VII of England] and [Elizabeth of York] presided over a series of tournaments when their son [Henry VIII of England|Henry] was created [Duke of York]. Such tournaments are noted for their display of wealth. On the first day, the participants showed their loyalty by wearing the King's colours on their bodies and the Queen's colours on their helmets. They further honoured the royal family by wearing the colours of the King's mother, [Margaret Beaufort], on the next day.

In [1511], at the court of [Henry VIII of England], a tournament was held in honour of [Catherine of Aragon]. [Charles Brandon] came out of a tower which was moved onto the battlefield, dressed like a pilgrim. He only took off his pilgrim's clothes after the queen had given him permission to participate.

The decline of the true tournament (as opposed to the joust) has not been a straightforward process, although the word continues to be used for jousts, forced by the prominent place that tourneying occupies in popular romance literature.