ISSN 2421-2679 18 History of the Chivalric Tournament: A New Approach

Sydney Anglo

mock combats. When dealing with some specifc aspect of their work (such as the Orders of Knighthood, armorial bearings, or the tournament itself) they evidently felt a compulsion not only ome sixty years ago, Ruth Harvey – in her to set it within an historical framework but more study, Moriz von Craûn and the Chivalric especially to establish how it began. Tis appetite World – boldly declared that the tournament for discovering antecedents – rather akin to the S“has always been reckoned the most typical and zeal of modern genealogists – was voracious and absolute manifestation of the chivalric outlook” uncritical. In 1555, for example, Jean Le Feron’s (Harvey 1961: 112). Tis statement, though book on the institution of the heralds scarcely in a work sometimes deemed authoritative, ever reached anything more modern than the raises several major problems. Te very word age of Charlemaigne because the author was ‘tournament’ comprised many diferent types of an archetypal seeker afer origins. For the men activity throughout its history. How long is ‘always’? largely responsible for organizing tournaments it And it is hard to know what the ‘chivalric outlook’ was a major preoccupation to establish who had might have been, or how the ‘tournament’ was its ‘invented’ them. Could it have been the ancient typical and absolute manifestation. Yet writers on Greeks, the Trojans or the Romans? Perhaps chivalry, from the seventeenth century onwards – Uther Pendragon or his son King Arthur deserved with the notable exception of Kenelm Digby – have the honour? Or an Angevin baron Geofrey de countenanced notions of this kind. For Richard Preuilly, active in the mid-eleventh century, who Barber “the tournament may be fairly described as was sometimes thrust forward as the inventor. But the central ritual of chivalry” (1980: 155); for Larry eventually it was the German king Henry the Fowler Benson it was “the most characteristic expression of (c. 876-936) who won the most support, and this chivalric ideals” (1980: 1); and for Maurice Keen its was thanks to the printing press. Henry’s claims popularity and the way it brought knights together were advanced by Georg Rüxner whose popular from far and wide made it a “powerful force Turnierbuch was frst published in 1530. Rüxner towards generalising both the standards and the went further by including a plausible account of rituals of European chivalry” (1984: 82). Certainly 36 major German ‘national’ tournaments between it is in studies of chivalry that we most frequently 939 and 1487 which were accepted as genuine and encounter embryonic histories of the ‘tournament’ cited by many later writers. Unfortunately, more and of the various modes of mock combat than half of these tournaments were fabrications associated with it. Tis is because it is much easier but, as the sports historian Joachim Rühl has to write a brief generalized survey of almost any observed, Rüxner must have subject, however complex it may be, than to pursue all its ramifcations, incongruities and complexities earned a fortune by entering the antecedents of families in a book1. of noble descent who were only too proud to see their Even before the advent of the printing press, and famous ancestors, along with hitherto unknown progenitors, listed in his book (1990: 166). long aferwards, heralds and other interested parties were busy gathering information about An interesting alternative view of the origins of the ISSN 2421-2679 tournament was later suggested by the historian such a well-known volume as Fleckenstein’s Das 19 Claude Fauchet who maintained that, from about ritterliche Turnier im Mittelalter (1985) is simply a the beginning of the eleventh century, romances miscellany. It is ofen cited and it has been described came into vogue and inspired knights to defend by one otherwise-reliable scholar as “the book on the weak and oppressed; and it was, he argued, the European tournament”. But it is difcult to see in imitation of those ancients, that knights in the how this can be the case when it is wholly confned courts of contemporary princes more willingly to the Middle Ages and – of its 20 chapters – 16 made profession of valour and virtuous strength. relate to Germany. Similarly, the fashionable and But, because the knights were not always engaged very weighty exhibition catalogues which purport in wars, the great kings and lords sometimes to ofer a solution to the problem of diversity do published abroad “des assemblees d’armes: appellez no such thing. Any readers who work their way

Tournois” (1606: 9v). On this view the inspiration through these handsome compilations might be History of the Chivalric Tournament: A New Approach was deemed to be both romantic and military: forgiven for thinking that tournaments were an but the ne plus ultra of romanticism came with exclusively German phenomenon. Indeed, the Charles Mills in his History of Chivalry (1825) only exhibition (and its associated catalogue) when he assured his readers that all their “most which made a serious attempt at international delightful imaginings of chivalry are associated coverage was Lena Rangström’s Riddarlek och with the tournament” where they would see Tornerspell. Tournaments and the Dream of Chivalry (Stockholm, 1992) in which the essays in fancy’s mirror the gay and graceful knight displaying were necessarily brief. Tere have, of course, also on his plumed steed the nobleness of his bearing, and been some important monographs by scholars the lady of his afections smiling upon his gallant skill, while the admiring people in rude and hearty joy shout such as Martina Neumeyer, Évelyne van den Neste, their loud acclaims (1825: I, 259). and Noel Fallows – but they invariably deal with a particular period, area, or type of source; and they Te history of the chivalric tournament poses do not have the space to pursue the subject as it some seemingly inextricable problems. As moves away from the lists and towards the theatre. I have stated elsewhere, the metamorphosis Given the range, bulk and disparity of the sources “from violence to variety show”, although a pan- involved and the impossibility of organising them european phenomenon, did not proceed at the into a coherent narrative, it is not surprising that, same pace in all countries nor always in the same within the last century, there have been only three ways. In France it evolved into the Ballet du Cour; attempts to write what purport to be general in England into the court masque; and in Italy histories of the tournament. Te frst was Francis into the opera. Even more problematic is the fact Henry Cripps-Day’s Te Tournament in England that the sources available at diferent periods and and France (1918) which – though limited in diferent places are ofen so divergent in type geographically and despite ending with a cursory and quantity that we must ask whether it is even chapter on the sixteenth century – remains possible to put together a coherent general history useful for its solid annotation and appendices of of the tournament? Certainly these difculties documents and calendars. A year later Richard have been tacitly recognised by scholars who have, Coltman Clephan published Te Tournament. since the seventeenth century, largely proceeded Its Periods and Phases which is one of the most by writing essays on specifc aspects of the subject; disjointed works ever written on its subject but by researching local history; by concentrating on included German material which was not, at regional activities; by publishing and commenting the time, easily found in English sources. And on primary sources; and by delimiting the period fnally, seventy years further on, Richard Barber under scrutiny. In this way, the subject has and Juliet Barker published their Tournaments. been broken up into myriad fragments; and the Jousts, Chivalry and Pageants in the Middle Ages modern tendency has been to deal with such which tackles the intransigent subject by devoting historical complexities by organising conferences separate chapters to diferent geographical areas and then publishing the individual contributions and to some specifc topics such as the dangers as a collection. Much of this work is erudite and of tournaments, spiritual condemnation, and interesting, but it is generally very disparate. Even tournaments as social occasions. Te book ranges ISSN 2421-2679 20 widely but is uneven, sometimes inaccurate and history, if he had thought of it. Other manuscript – because it ventures only timidly beyond the collections comprise documents which have been ffeenth century – leaves unresolved too many copied, and re-copied, one from another and thus issues concerning the history of ideas. form clusters (or families) of miscellanea. Tese, again, constitute an ample class of record; and one of the best-known English examples is Lansdowne An Alternative Strategy MS 285 put together for Sir John Paston from around 1468 and scrupulously analysed, many Tese fragmented and partial studies bring me to years ago by G. A. Lester. Tis manuscript contains the principal question. Is it even feasible to write a many texts relating to the ofcers of arms, their general history of the tournament? Is there any way duties and their fees; to public ceremonial such to harmonize chronology, place, style, the tempo as knightly creations and coronations; to the of change, and all the other divergent components proclamation of jousts, along with specifc letters of the subject? Perhaps not. But it might still be of challenge, rules, regulations, and detailed possible to achieve a more satisfactory result narratives. For scholars, it is a wonderful thesaurus: than hitherto if we were to proceed by way of even though a good many of the items contained the changing types (and quantities) of evidence therein may be found both in earlier and later available, while relating these to surviving pictorial manuscripts. and artefactual sources. Ten there are challenges and responses to If we turn frst to the ‘pre-history’ of tournament challenges which survive from at least the historiography (that is to the greater part of thirteenth to the late seventeenth century (and written material produced prior to the mid- even beyond), and these yield information not eighteenth century), it is obvious that what we only on rules, regulations, and scoring, but also have are, for the most part, haphazard collections on changing purposes and social attitudes2. And of materials compiled mainly by the ofcials who the way that such challenges become increasingly would themselves generally be called upon to allegorical (and concerned to establish a dramatic organise such events – that is by heralds. Tus setting for a wholly rehearsed and choreographed we have numerous copies of challenges and combat) enables us to follow tournaments from

Sydney Anglo Anglo Sydney formularies from diferent parts of Europe: “Cries open feld to theatre – throughout Europe. for Jousts of Peace”; “Cries for a tournament”; Te habit of amassing documents continued and “Proclamations for the award of prizes” – with the advent of the printing press. In 1535, for augmented by miscellaneous descriptions of example, there appeared Le fondement et origine individual combats. Such manuscripts relating des Tiltres de Noblesse which, though quite short, to what we loosely term ‘tournaments’, together still manages to include an account of empires, with rules and regulations for judicial combat and kingdoms, duchies, counties, and other lordships; single combats of honour, survive in abundance the manner of creating ofcers of arms; and from the early fourteenth century onwards; miscellaneous information on such subjects as and these were ofen gathered together by later blason, single combat, jousts, the Bouhort, the Pas scholars and bound up as miscellaneous volumes. ou Barriere, the award of prizes at tournaments, For example, some of the richest collections of and the organization of a royal funeral. In other original challenges and related materials were put words, the author was putting into print precisely together in the seventeenth century by antiquaries the kind of manuscript miscellany heralds had such as François-Roger Gaignières: but they are habitually compiled for themselves. With regard not arranged systematically. Each is really an to the tournament itself, the greatest example of independent omnium gatherum compiled from this agglomerative approach is in the frst volume whatever documents a particular herald (or of Marc Vulson de la Colombière’s Le Vray Téâtre antiquary) might have been able to lay his hands d’Honneur (1648), compiled when the old forms upon and each may, therefore, contain unique of contest had fnally been transformed into quite challenges, responses, and narratives. Tey are not diferent activities. histories. Tey are simply materials from which a Another evolution may be traced in what may scholar might have started to write some sort of loosely described as literary sources. Certainly ISSN 2421-2679 for the earliest chivalric mock combats the the pas d’armes of René d’Anjou and the series of 21 documentary and fnancial records are so limited Burgundian festivals so fully described by Olivier that we are forced to rely on what are known as de la Marche and Matthieu d’Escouchy. romances, and we have largely to gamble on their As for fction? Well some later writers – Spenser value as evidence of what really happened when for example – are well-nigh useless, apart from knights met in tournaments. Whatever their demonstrating all too clearly what they cannot tell literary merits the early romances are a hard and us; but there are others, like Antoine de la Sale in stoney soil for the historian to till, even though the ffeenth century, and Sir Philip Sidney in the some episodes of combat are evidently based upon late sixteenth, who are extremely knowledgeable frst-hand observation. Indeed Léon Gautier, and circumstantial, and convey a good deal of the industrious nineteenth-century historian technical information for the historian of chivalric

of chivalry, was able to reconstruct a credible combat. Literary sources cover tournaments from History of the Chivalric Tournament: A New Approach composite account of an early tournament on the the beginning to the end of their history but are basis of details selected from several romances. scattered and sporadic. By contrast, treatises on On the whole, though, these poems remain fghting techniques (and lance-play in particular) proportionately more the products of imagination are very informative but only become prolifc than of experience and their principal value from the mid-ffeenth century - afer which is, paradoxically, for providing sources for the there is a long sequence of texts (in Portuguese, themes of later tournaments when the contests Spanish, Italian, German, and French) which were evolving as dramatic entertainments. Even take us well into the seventeenth century. Tese a sophisticated study such as that by Ruth Harvey text-books were written by men of considerable on Moriz von Craûn does not, in fact, provide a practical experience – such as Duarte King of clear idea either of chronology or of what early Portugal, Ponç de Menaguerra, Juan Quixada tournaments were really like. de Reayo, Federico Ghisliero, and several others On the other hand some poems purport to be – and allow us to understand a good deal about biographical and have encouraged extrapolation jousting and foot combat which we cannot fnd in by historians although they should not inspire the literary sources. Tey demonstrate dramatically confdence of anyone who has ever had dealings the changing nature of the combats as they move with eye-witness reports - especially as recorded away from physical danger to the safety of the decades later by a third party. Te exploits of horse ballets, as we may see exemplifed in treatises William the Marshal, for instance, tell us something on horsemanship culminating in Pluvinel’s Le about tourneying in the twelfh century but, as Maneige royal (1623). Similarly, the works of Larry D. Benson observed, many years ago: Bartolomeo Sereno, Giovan’ Battista Gaiani, and Bonaventura Pistoflo underline the increasing Since the tournaments described by Jean the Minstrel gentleness of barriers and foot combats as these had taken place more than half a century before, and exercises approximated increasingly to the dance. since these accounts were based largely on William’s recollections as passed on to the poet by his son and Jean A comparative study of the artefacts associated d’Erlée, we must approach this record with considerable with all the diferent modes of fghting can also caution (1980: 7). provide valuable information about changes of purpose and habits: from violent confict until Even this caveat is an understatement and, the fnal transformation into pure theatre: from biographically-speaking, we are not on frmer metal to pasteboard; or from heavy metal-tipped ground until we reach descriptions of the feats of lances to blunted fimsy staves baked in ovens warriors such as Jacques de Lalaing, Gaston de to ensure that they would be brittle enough to Foix or Bayard in the lists. shatter at the slightest impact. Unfortunately, apart In the same way – apart from remote precursors in from inventories and some brief observations in the poetic accounts recorded in the Roman du Hem manuscript, there is little analytical treatment of and the Tournoi de Chauvency towards the end of arms and armour in relation either to real warfare the thirteenth century – signifcant narratives of or to tournaments until René d’Anjou’s Traicté de specifc tournaments are rare until the ffeenth la forme et devis d’ung tournoy composed around century when we have detailed descriptions of 1460. Ten again there is almost nothing until ISSN 2421-2679 22 the more comprehensive, though unillustrated, battles such as the seven engravings illustrating De exercitiis of Pero Monte in 1509; followed by the principal scenes of the Discordia Superata. the Inventario iluminado of the Real Armeria of Torneo combattuto in Ferrara in 1635 – a brilliant Madrid; and then, in 1568 by Jeremias Schemel’s tournament conceived wholly as a theatre monumental and magnifcently illustrated, spectacle with a poetic text by Ascanio Pio di Turnierbuch manuscript copies of which are Savoia, music composed by Antonio Goretti, and preserved in Vienna and Wolfenbüttel. However, stage machinery created by the architect/engineer what can be done with such sources and with the Francesco Guitti. Te chivalric tournament had imaginative examination of surviving artefacts has come a long way. been demonstrated by scholars such as Boccia, A history not merely based upon such materials Riquer, and Gamber. but using them as a structure would cover the entire Te same is true of factual narratives which become history of the subject. It would illuminate the whole increasingly informative – both in relation to of Europe. It would clarify both relationships and challenges, responses, rules, organization, and the irrelation. And it would enable us to understand actual combats fought – with some of the ffeenth- exactly what we know and what we do not know century sources being well-nigh exhaustive. I am since, for example, a gap in our knowledge of one thinking here, for example, of such chroniclers as geographical area which appears when we use one Saint Remy, Olivier de la Marche, and Matthieu type of source might be flled simply by considering d’Escouchy; and also of Rodriguez de Lena’s a diferent kind of evidence. Certainly, the long extraordinary eye-witness account of the Passo journey of the tournament from violent combat to Honroso in 1434. But, in these narratives – for all theatrical performance, would be more completely their detailed concentration on arms, armour, and documented and far more subtly gradated than on the fghting itself – there is also an increasing hitherto. But they are neither as mysterious nor attention to detail on costume, procedure, mise- unbridgeable as they might at frst seem. From the en-scène, and theatrical performance. And many standpoint of the historian of ideas – of chivalry, of descriptions of contestants ‘entering the lists’ the transformation of knights into gentlemen, and might just as accurately be described as simply of the development of court ballet and opera – the ‘listing the entries’: with long processions of job is well worth doing.

Sydney Anglo Anglo Sydney fashily-clad knights riding in ever-more fantastic and elaborate pavilions and pageant cars. Te passage from manuscript to print enables us to Bibliography trace this aspect of the history of tournaments far into the seventeenth century and even beyond; Primary Sources and some of the published narratives of later combats (enhanced with magnifcent engravings) Bretel, Jacques, Le Tournoi de Chauvency, Ed. are substantial presentation volumes. Here we Maurice Delbouille, Liège, Vaillant-Carmann, can document with precision the transformation 1932. of the chivalric tournament into pure spectacle; Duarte, King of Portugal, Livro da ensinança de the ways in which they were choreographed as bem cavalga toda sela, Ed. Joseph M. Piel, Lisbon, entertainment; and the increasing role of music, Livraria Bertrand, 1944. dance, and scenography, especially in France, Italy Fauchet, Claude, Origines des Chevaliers Armoiries and Germany. et Heraux, Paris, Adrian Perier, 1606. Finally, as I have already suggested, the volume and Gaiani, Giovan’ Battista, Discorso del tornear a quality of graphic illustration grew enormously: piedi, Genoa, Giuseppe Pavoni, 1619. and pictorial sources merit particular scrutiny. Ghisliero, Regole di molti cavagliereschi essercitii, Tey reveal changing styles and preoccupations Parma, Erasmo Viotto, 1587. in perhaps the most efective manner available La Curne de Saint-Palaye Jean Baptiste de, to the historian of European tournaments – Mémoires sur L’Ancienne Chevalerie, Paris, ranging from crude but suggestive stereotypical Duchesne, 1759-81. manuscript illustrations of the mêlée and joust to La Sale, Antoine de, Le Petit Jehan de Saintré, Eds. masterly representations of mock, choreographed Pierre Champion - Fernand Desonay, Paris, ISSN 2421-2679 Editions du Trianon, 1926. Fleckenstein, Josef (Ed.), Das ritterliche Turnier 23 Le Feron, Jean, De la primitive institution des roys im Mittelalter, Göttingen, Vandenhoek und héraldz et poursuivans d’armes, Paris, Maurice Ruprecht, 1985. Menier, 1555. Gassier, J. M., Histoire de la Chevalerie Française, Menaguerra, Ponç de, Lo Cavaller, Ed. Pere Paris, Germain Mathiot, 1814. Bohigas, Barcelona, Barcino, 1947. Gautier, Léon, La Chevalerie, Paris, Sanard et Monte, Pero, Exercitiorum atque artis militaris Derangeon, 1884. collectanea, Milan, Giovan’Angelo Scinzenzeler, Harvey, Ruth, Moriz von Craûn and the Chivalric 1509. World, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1961. Pio di Savoia, Ascanio, Discordia Superata. Torneo James, G. P. R., The History of Chivalry, London, combattuto in Ferrara, Ferrara, Suzzi, 1635. Colburn and Bentley, 1830.

Pistoflo, Bonaventura, Il Torneo, Bologna, Jazler, Peter - Peter Niederhäuser - Elke Jezler History of the Chivalric Tournament: A New Approach Clemente Ferroni, 1627. (Eds.), Ritterturnier. Geschichte einer Festkultur, Pluvinel, Antoine de, Le Maneige royal de Monsieur Luzern, Quaterno Verlag, 2014. de Pluvinel, Paris, Crispian de Pas, 1623. Krause, Stefan - Matthias Pfafenbichler (Eds.), Quixada de Reayo, Juan, Doctrina del arte de la Turnier.1000 Jahre RitterspieleI, Vienna, Hirmer cavalería, Ed. Noel Fallows, Liverpool, Liverpool Verlag, 2017. University Press, 1996. Lester, G. A., Sir John Paston’s ‘Grete Boke’, René d’Anjou, Oeuvres Complètes, Ed. Comte de Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 1984. Quatrebarbes, Cosnier et Lachèse, Angers, 1845- Mills, Charles, Te History of Chivalry or knighthood 46. and its time, London, Longman, 1825. Rüxner, Georg, Anfang, Vrsprung unnd Neumeyer, Martina, Vom Kriegshandwerk Herkommen des Turnier im Teutscher Nation, zum ritterlichen Teater. Das Turnier im Siemern, Hieronymus Rodler, 1530. mittelalterlichen Frankreich, Bonn, Romantische Sarrasin, Le Roman du Hem, Ed. Albert Henry, Verlag, 1998. Paris, Société d’Édition “Les Belles Lettres”, 1938. Rangström, Lena (Ed.), Riddarlek och Tornerspel. Sereno, Bartolomeo, Trattati del uso della lancia a Tournaments and the Dream of Chivalry, cavallo, del combattere a piede alla sbarra, Naples, Stockholm, Te Royal Armoury, 1992. Gargano et Nucci, 1610. Riquer, Martí de, L’Arnès del cavaller: Armes i Vulson, Marc, Sieur de la Colombière, Le Vray armadures catalanes medievals, Barcelona, Ariel, Téâtre d’Honneur et de Chevalerie, Paris, 1968. Augustin Courbé, 1648. Roy, J. J. E., Histoire de la Chevalerie, Tours, M. Mame et Companie, 1839. Rühl, Joachim K., “German Tournament Secondary Sources Regulations of the 15th Century”, Journal of Sport History, vol. XVII, n. 2, Summer, 1990: 163-82. Anglo, Sydney, “Financial and Heraldic Records of Van den Neste, Évelyne, Tournois Joutes, Pas the English Tournament”, Journal of the Society of d’Armes dans les villes de Flandre à la Fin du Archivists, vol. II, n.5, April 1962: 183-95. Moyen Age, Paris, École des Chartes, 1996. Anglo, Sydney, Te Martial Arts of Renaissance Warre-Cornish, Francis, Chivalry, London, George Europe, London, Yale University Press, 2000. Allen and Company, 1901. Benson, Larry D., “Te Tournament in the Wozel, Heidrun - Jurgen Karpinski (Eds.), Romances of Chrétien de Troyes & L’Histoire Turniere, Berlin, Militärverlag der deutschen de Guillaumes Le Maréchal”, Eds. Larry Dean Demokratischen Republik, 1979. Benson - John‎ Leyerle, Chivalric Literature, Kalamazoo, Mich., 1980: 1-24. Cripps-Day, Francis Henry, Te History of the Notes Tournament in England and France, London, 1 See Bibliography under Fauchet; Vulson; La Curne Bernard Quaritch, 1918. de Saint-Palaye; Gassier; Mills; James; Roy; Roy; War- Fallows, Noel, Jousting in Medieval and Renaissance re-Cornish. Iberia, London, Yale University Press, 2010. 2 See, for some examples, Anglo: 1962.