Another very important motive was money. Depending on the rules, the victor would obtain either whatever the loser was carrying on his person or everything he could cough up. Either way, the pickings, especially in the form of horses and armor, could be rich. The History of William the Marshal tells us that within one ten-month period the protagonist and his partner Roger de Gaugi defeated and captured no fewer than 103 opponents.54 Der Pleier, the somewhat mysterious thirteenth-century author of a long epic poem called Tandareis und Flordibel, mentions three aristocratic brothers who, along with their retainers, were able to capture 40–50 horses in each of the great tournaments in which they participated.55 In particular, young knights without means – in other words, cadet members of the great families with no prospect of inheritance – spent their time going from one event to the next, even if doing so meant traveling far and wide: a modern analogy would be successful golfers or Grand Prix drivers.
Finally, tournaments, in particular the larger and more important ones, resembled many other kinds of wargames in that they served as politico-social theater. As Geertz, in his role as the cloud column that preceded the Israelites during the Exodus, wrote: “[Tournaments] provided a metasocial commentary upon the whole matter of assorting human beings into fixed hierarchical ranks and then organizing the major parts of collective existence around that assortment. [Their] function, if you want to call it that, [was] interpretive . . . a medieval/aristocratic reading of medieval/aristocratic experience, a story they told themselves about themselves.”56 Stripped of social science jargon, this means that they were festive occasions when the values of chivalrous society, built around war and love, were played out for all to see. The fact that many meetings were international and helped spread the values in question all over Europe brings out the importance of this aspect of the matter even more.57
Early tournaments often opened with single combat – a wargame within a wargame. They themselves were fought by groups rather than by individuals: accordingly, it was first of all necessary to decide who would be on whose side. Normally good care was taken to ensure that numbers should be exactly equal, though the fact that different barons brought along retinues of very different sizes might make doing so difficult. Either the rule that no knight should fight against his lord had to be violated – there are indeed some indications that the relevant oaths were temporarily suspended58 – or else some men must have been disqualified. Attempts were also made to keep together men belonging to the same nationalities or originating in the same towns and provinces. The largest meeting of all is said to have taken place at Mainz in 1184 to celebrate the girding of the sons of Emperor Henry VI. No fewer than 20,000 knights are said to have participated.59 The History of William the Marshal describes a tournament in which 1,500 knights fought on each side.60 If so, then it must have been one of the largest of its kind; most occasions were much smaller. A “huge” tournament held by King Edward III of England in 1350 attracted 250 knights.61
Normally the day selected was a Monday. Whereas it was always necessary to arrange a place in which the tournament would be held, early on there were no courts. This allowed the fighting to spread over hill and dale, including both open spaces and wooded ones. The one real restriction was the provision of so-called recets. They are perhaps best described “security zones” in which one was free from attack and in which one’s prisoners could be kept until the day had ended. Sometimes one party used a town or castle as its base whereas the other set up camp at some distance outside the gates.
Tactically speaking, these tournaments were not free-for-alls but carefully organized affairs. On each side, the highest-ranking knight acted as the commander. Combatants fought in closed units, meaning that discipline was essential. In the words of Ulrich von Lichtenstein (c. 1255), “the troop that initiated the tournament rode in close order. They kept together just as one is supposed to do when advancing on the enemy.”62 Commanders repeatedly urged their men to stay in formation so as to charge the opponent, or force him to retreat, or break through his ranks, or take him in the flank. Sources such as The History of William the Marshal reserve their highest praise for companies that maintained good order even as the fighting proceeded.63 A knight who broke ranks was vulnerable. He might even endanger others who would be forced to come to his rescue, possibly putting themselves into an unfavorable position.
This apart, comparatively little is known about the tactics used. The first weapon used in any fight was the lance. It was longer and heavier than the javelins and spears previous cavalrymen had used, meaning that it could not be thrown. Underhand strokes and strokes with the lance pointing downward were also difficult if not impossible to carry out. Instead it was most effectively employed while held under the arm and pointing straight forward; that way the full weight of knight and horse could be brought to bear against the opponent. Parsifal’s brother Feirefitz boasts of having mastered all five different ways of using the lance, and here again the poet’s pidgin French provides a clear indication of the tournament’s origin.64 Apparently distinctions were made among frontal attacks, flank attacks, attacks on closed formations, and clashes between individuals. What is clear is that, as the fights became prolonged, the two troops, having exhausted their maneuvers, often became locked in hand-to-hand combat – horse against horse, man against man, and shield against shield. Clearly all this constituted very good training for war; in fact the need to make English knights equal to French ones was one reason why Richard authorized them.
The fighting continued either until one side was pressed back into its “security zone” – though that rarely happened – or else until nightfall. While the horsemen, their lances having been broken or torn away, hacked away at each other with axes and swords, those who had lost their mounts would continue the fight on foot. Sometimes the retainers on both sides, armed with clubs or even with bows and arrows, intervened. They might try to seize the combatants’ mounts by the bridle and drag them to the security zones: it hardly requires saying that the lives of low-class men engaged in such activities were not worth very much. The outcome was accusations and counter-accusations as well as cries of foul. Though there were no umpires, a participant who felt that the rules of play had been violated might appeal to his opponent’s superior and, with a little luck, win his case. Sometimes an agreement was concluded in advance to prevent such things from happening and make sure the fight would be fair.65 One late fourteenth-century English ordinance prohibited “they who shall come to see the Tournament” from bringing along sword, dagger, staff, mace, or stone.66
Given the importance of order and discipline, the side that succeeded in incapacitating the opponent’s commander enjoyed a clear advantage. So did the side that had maintained a reserve and brought it into action at the right moment at the right spot, as happened, for example, at Lewes in 1264 and at Evesham in 1265. In all this there was a strong resemblance between tournaments and real warfare – to the point that, especially in images dating to the period before 1200 or so, it is often hard to say what we really see. One mid-twelfth-century account describes the proceedings as follows:67
Had you been able to be present [at the tournament held by Alberonis, the Archbishop of Trier in 1148], what a wonderful show you would have seen! The knights, wearing full armor, engaged in mock warfare; the horses, wildly twisting and turning about within the smallest space; the combatants, storming at each other; the lances groaning as they broke; all accompanied by the shouting of the pursuers and the pursued. You would have seen pretend flights followed by sudden turnabouts; sweeping changes of fortune as attackers, drawn into their opponents’ formation and breathing closely into their necks, were suddenly enveloped from both sides; and you would have learnt a thousand other maneuvers and ruses as well.
French tournaments in particular were famous, or infamous, for the ferocity with which they fought, to the point that, in Germany, they were sometimes called Stritt (“war”). As so often, the difference consisted in that s
trategy – here understood in Clausewitz’s sense of using battles for winning a campaign – intelligence, reconnaissance, and logistics were left out. Also, though some tournaments did involve siege warfare, so important to medieval warfare as a whole, apparently most of the time it was regarded as burlesque rather than as a serious attempt to mimic the serious operations of war. On one occasion a “fortress of love” was built and “manned” by ladies who pelted the knights trying to take it with cakes.68 Above all, fewer men were killed rather than either being permitted to surrender and withdraw or be dragged off by the main force.
Starting in 1130, when the Council of Clermont prohibited them, the church always put its face firmly against the “despicable” tournaments.69 Later the prohibition was often repeated. Superficially it was a question of avoiding the bloodshed involved and preventing gatherings that might provide opportunities for all kinds of interesting entertainments. As one cleric explained in some detail, those who attended tournaments were likely to commit all seven deadly sins, from pride through gluttony to fornication.70 Tournaments also diverted knightly energies away from more useful pursuits such as going on crusades. The thirteenth-century German preacher Berthold of Regensburg compared knights who preferred tourneying to traveling to the Holy Land with the kind of women who wore yellow clothes and makeup.71 Beneath the surface there always existed a certain tension between God’s representatives on earth and the culture of chivalry of which the tournament was the symbol par excellence. Needless to say, the warnings went unheeded. Yet the contradiction between the two traditions should not be exaggerated. Here and there a priest refused burial to a person who had been killed in a tournament, but such cases seem to have been rare. Notwithstanding that they engaged in tournaments, most knights probably regarded themselves as good Christians. Many senior ecclesiastics were themselves noblemen and may have sympathized with their tourneying relatives. In 1316 Pope John XXII, a Frenchman who was the first of the Avignon pontiffs, bowed to the pressure of the French King Philip IV and withdrew his opposition. In 1471 a tournament was held in Rome’s St. Peter’s Square, right under the Pope’s nose.72
The relationship between tournaments and the various countries’ secular authorities was even more complicated, in some respects foreshadowing the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century duel. Medieval counts, princes, dukes, kings, and similar aristocrats all the way to the emperor inclusive were themselves knights. They partook of chivalrous culture, participated in tournaments, and sometimes became casualties. Particularly during the twelfth century, the list of those who died was impressive. In Germany alone in 1185, sixteen knights died within the span of a single year.73 Yet the danger of escalation was always present; mock warfare, either reflecting existing animosities or stirring up new ones, might escape control and turn into the real thing or something very close to it. The damage to participants and bystanders alike could be considerable. Besides, whereas tournaments could be used in order celebrate chivalry and the government exercised by the more important barons, they also provided good opportunities for malcontents to gather together and perhaps plan their next move. As at all times and places, any ruler who permitted large gatherings of well-trained, heavily armed men to take place without taking precautions was (and is) a fool. One who learnt this lesson to his cost was Edward II, who ended up by being deposed and killed. His son and successor, Edward III, was more successful in this respect.74 In 1400 a plot to kill another English monarch, Henry IV, on the occasion of a tournament at Oxford was only foiled at the last moment.
These factors – fear of escalation, the human and material damage that tournaments often caused, and the desire to bring them under stricter government control – combined to turn them into less spontaneous, more formal occasions. Possibly, too, we see here the influence of the judicial duel, on which more below. Starting during the second decade of the thirteenth century, the number of participants in each bout went down. Sharp weapons were sometimes replaced by blunt ones.75 Perhaps more importantly, the open space between two armies was replaced by specially designated courts. The earliest ones are mentioned in “The Good Gerhard” by Rudolf of Ems, a German poet who flourished during the first half of the thirteenth century.76 Later they became a standard feature of tournaments until no self-respecting baron could afford to be without one. As so often, the term for single combat, joust, was originally French. Later it entered other languages in more or less corrupt form. As so often, we do not know when the first jousts were held. Some modern authorities believe that originally they may have formed part of the above-mentioned vesprii, serving as an introduction for the “serious” business of the next day.77
What does seem clear is that jousts were less bloody and less risky than their predecessors. The same appears to be true of so-called round tables, a kind of feast first mentioned at about the same time and in which jousts played a central role. One indication of this fact is the growing presence of women, and indeed the promise that noble ladies would be present was sometimes used to attract participants.78 With the introduction of jousts, tournaments, and war started drifting apart, causing the value of the former as preparation for the latter to decline. Perhaps this explains why, after 1332, the contracts of English retainers no longer obliged them to tourney with their lords. As foot-soldiers were increasingly armed with pikes and crossbows and thus represented a growing danger to knights, they too were left out. At most, jousters were allowed to bring along two or three unarmed servants. Their primary function was to help the jousters mount their horses before combat, but they were also permitted to pull an opponent from his horse, lead a defeated opponent away, etc. To prevent misunderstandings, servants were made to wear a special cap or badge. In German lands, the higher a combatant’s rank the more servants he was allowed to have with him.
By Froissart’s day, things had reached the point when only blows against the opponent’s helmet or shield were allowed, whereas striking his horse was prohibited. Before the fighting could begin, knights were sometimes made to swear that, on pain of losing their arms and horses, they would obey these rules; two centuries earlier, any attempt to limit the fighting in this way would have been regarded as both preposterous and counter-productive. Yet another indication of the widening gap between mock warfare and the real thing is the growing number of references to horses specifically trained for the former.79 Though it took time – as late as 1405, a Spanish nobleman visiting France took note of the fact that as many as ten or twenty or thirty knights sometimes jousted on each side – increasingly tournaments became a matter of one combatant against another.80 Conversely, less is heard about riots and the like.
The addition, during the first years of the fifteenth century, of a barrier took the process a step further. Originally it consisted simply of a piece of canvas or rope running the length of the court. When that proved insufficient real partitions, about five foot high and often painted red, were constructed. A barrier put an end to all sorts of tactical maneuvers. At the same time it saved the horses from having to go against their nature and collide head on, thus avoiding all kinds of accidents that could result when they swerved or reared and making them easier to control. Jousters were warned to make sure their mounts kept at the right distance from the barrier, neither too close nor too far away. Trying to correct these errors at the last moment, they might miss their opponents altogether.
Given the need to hold a weapon with one hand and the reins with the other, carrying shields on horseback had always been difficult. As the addition of a barrier caused combat with axes and swords to come to an end, shields became smaller and, instead of being carried on the left arm, were bolted onto the breastplate. Meanwhile lances, having been turned from weapons of first resort into the sole ones, grew ever longer and heavier. Handbooks warned jousters against using lances that were too heavy for them, since the outcome could be hernias as well as pain in the back, head, and arms.81 The longer and heavier a lance, the harder it was to control and aim. This reached
the point when, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, armor began to be provided with a special gadget, known as the restre, for holding it in place; by preventing the lance from sliding backward, the restre also increased the force of the blow it delivered. Tournament armor also developed, becoming more elaborate as time went on.
For all the measures taken to civilize them, tournaments always remained somewhat dangerous – as is clear from the fact that, in one event held by the future Emperor Charles V in 1518, seven cavaliers lost their lives.82 Forty-one years later no less a person than King Henry II of France was felled by an accidental stroke of the lance. More and more often, though, tournaments were waged not with sharp weapons but with so-called armes de plaisance. Rather than capturing the opponent, the objective was to unhorse him, a form of combat also known as tilting. All this meant that encounters, instead of lasting minutes and sometimes even more, were over in a matter of seconds. Tactics were simplified and became less interesting than before: the turning and twisting, the attacks and feint retreats and counterattacks having disappeared, how many different ways were there to couch and aim a lance? Perhaps to compensate for these developments, elaborate point systems, like those used in present-day boxing, were introduced.83 So and so many blows were to be delivered, in such and such a way, with such and such weapons. Mid-fifteenth-century English rules, adapted from Italian ones, lay down that the best jouster of the day was he who knocked his opponent off his mount or sent both rider and horse crashing to the ground. In the absence of such a clear victor, the prize went to the combatant who twice accomplished the difficult feat of striking the coronal on the opponent’s lance; or to him who hit the sight of the opponent’s helmet three times; or broke the most lances.84
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