Medieval Knights were Men of War
Medieval knights were primarily warriors. Some knights spent their whole lives seeking adventure in battle, not just for their own country and king but as roving 'free lances'. By the fourteenth century, warfare was an opportunity for social advancement. Success in battle might be generously rewarded by a grateful commander.
For medieval knights to win the victories they desired they had to take their warlike pursuits very seriously. Knights spent much of their time in martial sports. Tournaments and jousts provided an excellent means of practicing their skills before entering a real battlefield.
Critics of Medieval Tournaments
Henry II regarded tournaments as pretexts for conspiracy by the barons and at times these mock battles were closely connected with baronial uprisings. In several cases, knights holding tournaments had their lands seized.
Medieval tournaments were famous for eating, drinking and love-making, eliciting the disapproval of the Church. The Church declared that tournayers, their aiders and abettors and those who carried merchandise or provisions to tournaments were to be excommunicated regularly every Sunday.
According to the National Jousting Society 'English contests became so savage that the Church of England eventually forbade the Christian burial of those killed in tournaments.
'Knights and the Tournament
In the thirteenth century, Abbot Samson of Bury St. Edmund forbade a band of young knights to hold a tournament and made sure of compliance by locking the town gates to keep them from the field. The young men swore not to compete and came the next day to dine with the abbot. After dinner they sent for more wine and caroused and sang, ruining the abbot's afternoon nap. Finally they marched out, broke open the town gate and held their tournament. The abbot excommunicated the lot.
In 1252 a joust proved fatal for one of the combatants and suspicions of murder arose. Upon drawing the iron point of a lance from the dead man's throat, the lance was found not to be blunted as it should have been. Suspicion turned to certainty when it was learned the dead man had wounded the opposing horseman in a previous tournament.
William Marshal, considered the ablest jouster of his age, was joined in the thrill of the tournament by his eldest son, Gilbert. Unfortunately Gilbert fell from the saddle when his bridle broke. He caught his foot in the stirrup, was dragged across the field and fatally injured. The tournament degenerated into a brawl, one of Gilbert's retainers was killed and many knights and squires were badly wounded.
Romantic Notions of Medieval Knights and Tournaments
Despite the close link between warfare and the tournament, or perhaps because of it, the romantic notion of the knight and the tournament reaches to us from the past.
In 1467 Sir John Paston wrote to his brother, 'My hand was hurt at a tourney at Eltham on Wednesday last. I would that you had been there to see it for it was the goodliest sight provided by so few men that was seen in England this forty years.' (1)Chaucer's unfinished Tale of Sir Topaz portrays a chaste brave knight preparing to do battle for the sake of love.
Jean Froissart, chronicler of medieval France, declared knightly prowess to be 'the light of noble men, and as the log cannot spring to life without fire, so the noble man cannot come to perfect honor, or to the glory of the world without prowess.' (2)
(1) Private Life in the Fifteenth Century
edited by Roger Virgoe, Weidenfeld & Nicolson
(2) English Life in Chaucer's DayRoger Hunt, Putnam Pub Group
The Three EdwardsThomas B. Costain, Popular Library
Life in a Medieval CastleJoseph & Frances Gies, Harper & Rowe
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