Collective Training: Tournaments. 3 pts

[Longmane]

pt 1

The Art Of Warfare In Western Europe  During The Middle Ages – J F Veruggen

Collective Training: Tournaments

Even in the Middle Ages it was thought that tournaments were of quite recent origin. Their inventor was said to have been a certain Geoffrey of Preuilly, who died in 1066. Actually they go back to rather primitive collective games, although it is possible that the classic form encountered in the twelfth century had been introduced in the eleventh.

Military leaders have always tried to reproduce war conditions as closely as possible in their training exercises. The Romans attempted to do this in their manoeuvres, and the Germans had military games for the whole population. Tacitus speaks of this with reference to the Tencteri: hic lusus infantium, haec juvenum aemulatio: 'here lies the diversion of infancy, the rivalry of youth'. They are also mentioned at the court of Theodric, king of the Ostrogoths, and Isidore of Seville records that the Visigoths liked sham battles and held military games daily. Einhard reports riding exercises and weapon practice, which according to Frankish custom were carried out by Charlemagne's sons, while the emperor himself liked riding and hunting as his ancestors had done, 'for no one matches the Franks in these arts'.

During the struggle between the sons of Louis the Pious there were group exercises and military games among the Franks following the celebrated Oaths of Strasbourg of 14 February 842. These cavalry games were often held by the troops of Louis the German and Charles the Bald, probably at Worms: causa exercitii, for the training of their own followers. In the presence of spectators ranged on both sides of a place which had been prepared for the spectacle, equal numbers of Saxons, Gascons, Austrasians and Bretons rode at each other at full tilt, as though they were going to join battle. But a moment before they met, one of the parties made a turn and pretended to escape the attacking enemy by flight, while the horsemen protected themselves with their shields. Then it was the turn of the fugitives to attack the pursuers. Finally both young princes sprang on to their horses and with great exuberance took part in the game, encouraged by loud cheers from the crowd. Lance in hand, they charged first one group and then another of those who were fleeing.

This kind of mock battle is not yet like the eleventh—or twelfth century—tournament. The lances were held in the hand and were not used to administer a heavy blow. The attack was devised in the same spirit: there was no clash, it remained just a manoeuvre, in which equal numbers of fighters faced each other. But men from the same region were practicing together, attacking and retreating. It is evident from the summary of Vegetius' work on the art of war among the Romans, made by Hrabanus Maurus for King Lothar II, that such exercises were a normal thing among the Franks and he states that the art of horsemanship also flourished among them. 

Half a century after Nithard, the Council of Tribur mentions heathen games which sometimes had a fatal ending. In the tenth and eleventh centuries the Saxons and Thuringians followed the example of the Franks: foot-soldiers had formerly been their main arm, now they introduced cavalry, which quickly became skilled in the new manner of waging war. The Saxon rulers Henry I and Otto the Great were both praised by their biographer for their military games and their skill on horseback. Henry I surpassed all others in military exercises: in exercitiis quoque ludi tanta eminentia superabat omnes, ut terrorem caeteris ostentaret, and Otto practiced riding regularly.


In Flanders we find the earliest traces of tournaments in 1095. One was held near Tournai by the burgrave Evrardus, who had a number of gallant knights under him. Henry III, count of Louvain, invited one of his vassals, who was in the opposing camp, to enter the lists against him personally. Jocelyn of Vorst accepted his lord's challenge only after repeated pressure. Finally he couched his lance, spurred his horse savagely, and charged the count with the intent of unhorsing him, but the thrust struck the count in the heart, and he died instantly.

The counts of Flanders used tournaments to distract their knights from the private wars which were disturbing the peace in the county, and at the same time to give them a chance to practice. After he had restored peace and order in his county, Baldwin VII went abroad to get practice in the knightly profession of arms. His successor Charles the Good pursued the same policy, and went with 200 knights to tournaments in France, in Normandy and even outside France, to enhance his own fame as well as the might and honour of his land, and being a pious man, he atoned for the sins incurred through these ventures with rich gifts to the Church.

Even after the First Crusade the clergy were just as disturbed about these dangerous games as they had been over private wars, for they thought that both meant needless squandering of strength, and bloodshed, and that knights could test their prowess better against the Moslems in the Holy Land. The Council of Clermont in 1130 forbade tournaments because they entailed loss of human lives: anyone who perished in such a game was not to receive Christian burial. But the knights thought otherwise. For them the tournament was a training-school, a pastime, a source of income and a suitable opportunity for meeting men of their own class and their feats to be admired by noble ladies, which was not possible on the battlefield. They let themselves be daunted neither by the criticism of the clergy nor by the prohibitions of the Church.

The ablest clerical figures of the day vigorously attacked tournaments. St Bernard of Clairvaux wrote to Suger: 'Take the sword of the spirit, which is the Word of God, against these accursed gatherings which Robert the king's brother and Henry son of the count of Champagne want to hold after the coming feast of Easter'. These two lords had just returned from the Holy Land and wanted to hold a tournament. One of the biographers of St Bernard wrote that all those who perished in a tournament 'certainly go to Hell'. James of Vitry portrayed the opposing champions in a tournament as follows: 'They are jealous of each other and inflict vicious blows on each other. The victor takes horse and arms from the vanquished. Knights cause considerable damage and destroy whole harvests. The lord burdens his subjects with heavy taxes in order to meet these foolish expenses, and the immorality of the feast follows the slaughter'.

The judgement of Humbert des Romans was less harsh: 'Although tournaments are rightly forbidden because they are so dangerous for body and soul, and fighters often perish in them, yet they also have some advantages; some practices should be condemned and others allowed.'

Humbert condemns the dissipation, the gross expenditure, ruinous to the knights and their families, which come from pride and an idle desire for glory because men like to be thought brave and gallant. What was still more serious was that some noblemen seized the opportunity of carrying on personal feuds. Others transgressed the tournament rules and made their opponents a laughing-stock. There were also knights who consorted with women of evil repute after tournaments.

So there were three practices to be condemned, 'dissipation through unreasonable expense, desire for vainglory, and malicious intentions in battle'. But if a knight wanted to fight for God, he might take part in reasonable games so that he acquired skill in combat, for without practice one has no knowledge of the art of war. In tournaments the knights encouraged each other, and what they had long been doing for the vainglory of the world, they could also do for God in the worthy fight against the Saracens. In every case, wanton characters, the 'ribauds' and other evil persons were to be removed.

The Church's prohibitions were repeated without much success in an imposing series of Councils: in 1139 at the tenth General Council, at the Councils of Rheims in 1148 and 1157, at the Lateran Councils in 1179 and 1215, and at the Council of Lyons in 1245. Tournaments were also forbidden by Pope Nicholas III in 1279. They were, however, permitted twice during the reign of King Philip the Fair of France. The first occasion was after Pope Clement V had forbidden them on 14 September 1313. Pierre Dubois then wrote his treatise De torneamentis et justis to please the king and to answer the papal prohibition. The pope permitted them again before Lent in 1314, and later a little known edict of Pope John XXII allowed them again at Philip's request, when their decline had already begun.

[Longmane]

pt 2

In Flanders the reign of Philip of Alsace (1168–1191) saw the full flowering of tournaments and chivalry, which were closely related. About this time Counts Baldwin IV and V of Hainault were busily engaged in fighting in tournaments in countries bordering their own. A century later duke John I of Brabant reaped as great a success as Philip of Alsace, count of Flanders. Philip used special tactics in tournaments and acted as instructor to foreign princes, such as the young Henry of England. John of Brabant trained his knights so thoroughly in war-games that the victory at Worringen may be said to have been the result of that training.

Both princes lived the full chivalric life of their day: at the court of Philip of Alsace there were poets such as Chrétien de Troyes, Gautier d'Epinal and the unknown author of Li proverbe au vilain. Duke John was a patron of Adenet le Roi, and was praised by Jan van Heelu; he was also an occasional poet himself. Philip took part in two crusades and an expedition against Milan; John twice went on campaigns in Spain and travelled through England to fight in tournaments there. Philip died ingloriously of a common epidemic near Acre, and John of the consequences of a minor wound received in a joust.

Both had strong personal military ambitions. Philip's tactics in tournaments seemed lacking in chivalry, although his contemporaries approved them, and as far as he was concerned anything was permissible in dealing with an enemy. John wanted to settle the battle of Worringen sword in hand, and not with the help of ditches, and he preferred the destruction of robber-citadels to spectacular but useless expeditions to the Holy Land.

Through the influential example of these princes, tournaments flourished in the southern part of the Netherlands and in Lorraine, and Flanders, though they were chiefly held in France. France's renown in this respect was so great that the English chronicler Ralph Diceto called the tournaments conflictus gallici, and Ralph of Coggeshall spoke of a conflict more Francorum. Tournaments were forbidden in England by various kings, Henry II among them, because they gave rise to endless political troubles.

At the time of civil war during the reign of the weak king Stephen tournaments were popular. Later, Richard I, a man skilled in the art of war, saw that the French knights were better trained than his own, so he permitted knightly exercises. Being also an outstanding leader, Richard quickly succeeded in making up lost ground by his own example. This gave his fighting men such confidence that, according to the Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal, from then onwards they risked attacking forty Frenchmen with thirty knights, 'which never used to be the case'. Philip Augustus experienced this English confidence to his shame and sorrow at Fréteval on 13 July 1194, and at Gisors on 28 September 1198.

[Longmane]

pt 3 (last part)

Tournaments did not differ greatly from real combat on the battlefield; indeed some sources call the clash of knights in full charge a tornatio or tornoiement. The knights fought with their normal equipment, and there is no mention of the use of other weapons nor that the point of the lance or the cutting-edge of the sword were dulled. This was anyway not necessary between 1150 and 1250, when the defensive equipment of the knights was strong enough to prevent fatal accidents. Naturally there was a risk of being unhorsed and seriously hurt thereby but the danger was not much greater in the real battles of that time when few men were killed.

The main difference between tournaments and real battles lay in the fact that the engagement took place on terrain specially fixed by announcement or agreement. Knights came from far and wide with friends from their own country, or in a group under the command of their lord. Each of these troops took up position on their own 'ground', a piece of land marked out, from which the groups advanced to face each other in the tournament. This area was also a refuge for those who were exhausted and who had to withdraw from the lists. Again this was different from a real battle.

Another difference was the custom of laying down arms as soon as one side gave up the battle. But if the enemy did not entirely give up while some of them were fleeing, the pursuit was carried on. An armistice could be brought about by common consent and lasted until the resumption of the fighting, which was usually on the following day. At the end of the tournament a prize was awarded to the knight who had most distinguished himself by bravery or skill in unhorsing his opponents and taking them prisoner.

The actual engagement in a tournament took place on a flat piece of ground, not marked off. Each side left its own base and rode at the enemy: the knights fought in units, and their numbers varied according to the extent to which the nobility of the region were taking part.

Usually knights from the counties of Flanders and Hainault turned out together against the French in France. It was considered a scandal when, during a tournament between Gournay and Ressons, the newly knighted Baldwin of Hainault, later count Baldwin V, who had a grudge against count Philip of Alsace of Flanders, fought on the side of the French knights against the Flemings, instead of following the custom which demanded that the men of Hainault, Flanders and Vermandois fight together against the French. In their own regions, however, Flemings fought against Hainaulters, or the latter against Brabanters. Just as in real wars, tournaments served to foster local pride and increased moral solidarity in military units.

The knights were organized in conrois or units of varying strength, according to the power of the lord under whose banner they were fighting, or according to the extent of the participation of the nobility of a certain area. These units were drawn up in very close formation, the horsemen side by side, horse beside horse, and they had to advance and charge in an orderly manner.

Such units were so obviously superior to those not drawn up in an orderly way that they were able to turn an unfavourable balance of strength to their own advantage. In a tournament in which the knightly units of prince Henry, son of Henry II of England, fought against the French, the French knights had such confidence in their numerical superiority that out of pride they forgot about unity, and charged, pell-mell, only to suffer a crushing defeat. In the view of contemporaries, one of the greatest stupidities that could be committed was the separate individual charge made by knights who abandoned the protective ranks of the conroi in order to rush ahead into battle, for in so doing they destroyed the cohesion of the unit. If on the other hand they attacked in close order, there was no risk of the enemy breaking through.

Philip of Alsace, who was praised in the Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal as being one of the best knights of his time, and likewise the most courteous count of Flanders, employed sly tactics in tournaments, which shows that he really believed anything was allowable in the face of the enemy. From this it appears that there was a certain continuity in the policy of the counts concerning tournaments, and that the princes' example in knightly exercises directly influenced the art of war.

Philip was accustomed to using powerful contingents, some of which comprised very well-equipped foot-soldiers. During the tournament he evidently kept these units skilfully behind the scenes as though he had no intention of their taking part in the game, and patiently waited for an opportune moment while groups of heavy cavalrymen rushed at each other. Then, when the contestants were worn out by the struggle and the units had lost their original cohesion, he gave the signal to charge and fell upon the enemy's flank. This meant victory for him and magnificent booty for his knights. As prince Henry's tutor, he taught him these tactics, first making him pay dearly for the knowledge in an actual tournament.

The Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal mentions the dense conrois (seréement) in which the advance was made without disorder (disrei), in which the knights were arranged in close battle order (serré et bataillé se tindrent) and could fight in serried ranks (errèrent sagement et rangié e seréement) so that no one could get through them (onques nuls n' en trespassa outre) contrasting them to the units that advanced in disorder (a grant disrei), and in which knights recklessly broke rank in order to fight in front of the unit (poindre as premiers de la rote), which for that reason were severely censured (fols est qui trop tost se desrote). All this is clear evidence of real tactical units.

Philip of Alsace waited until the contestants were no longer fighting in steady ranks (desrengié), nor formed a fixed unit (destassé). He attacked them on the flank (lor moveit a la traverse) and made the foolish knights who had left their units his special prey. When Prince Henry's troops were in disorder (desrei) and his men exhausted, the count fell on them.

[Shizzle]

*J.F. Verbruggen :)