Tournaments

Tournaments

Tournaments, Tilts, and Justs. These exercises were always performed on horseback, (although the riders when both were dismounted, might continue the combat on foot,) and were called Justs, because they partook of the nature of regular battle, or because the knights directed their horses straight at each other and Tournaments from the French "Tourner," because great skill was required in handling the charger.

Single Knights tilted with each other, butwhen two parties engaged in a sort of general action it was termed a tournament. The weapons used were lances, swords, maces, and axes The lances were sometimes sharp, but more usually had a blunted head, called from its peculiar shape a Cronel. Combats fought entirely on foot are by some writers termed tournaments but improperly. They were always judicial combats, fought " en champ clos" with axes and daggers. When any knights wished to distinguish themselves by holding a Tournament they caused notice to be given that they would be ready at such a place to meet all comers in the lists, sometimes even naming how many courses they would run with the lance, and how many strokes exchange with sword or axe.

Both those who gave and those who acceptedthese challenges, appeared armed cap-a-pie, with their Surcoats, Wreaths, Crests, Mantles, Shields, and with their horses Barbed and Caprisoned ; their Esquires carrying their pennons of arms before them. A Knight on coming near the barriers, blew a horn in token of defiance, when the attendant Heralds received his name, bearings, and proof of his gentle blood ; though these points were not always insisted on. This being settled, the champions charged each other from opposite ends of the lists after having saluted the President of the Tourney and the Ladies, and if either of them was luihorsed, lost his lance, stirrup, helmet, or wounded his opponents horse, he was vanquished; if both parties broke fairly their lances on each other, in the courses which they had agreed to run they parted on equal terms.