TOURNAMENT or TOURNEY. Of the mediaeval defi nitions of the tournament given by Du Cange (Glossarium, s.v. "Tourneamentum"), the best is that of Roger of Hoveden, who described tournaments as "military exercises carried out, not in the spirit of hostility (nullo interveniente odio), but solely for practice and the display of prowess (pro solo exercitio, atque os tentatione virium)." It apparently originated in France, and more than one chronicler records the violent death, in 1°66, of a French baron, Geoffroi de Preulli, who, according to the testimony of his contemporaries, "invented tournaments." In England, at least, the tournament was counted a French fashion, Matthew Paris calling it conflictus gallicus.
By the I 2th century the tournament notwithstanding the con demnation of the Council of the Lateran, had grown so popular in England that Henry II. found it necessary to forbid the sport which gathered in one place so many barons and knights in arms. In that age we have the famous description by William Fitz Stephen of the martial games of the Londoners in Smithfield. He tells how on Sundays in Lent a noble train of young men would take the field well mounted, rushing out of the city with spear and shield to ape the feats of war. Divided into parties, one body would retreat, while another pursued striving to unhorse them. The younger lads, he says, bore javelins disarmed of their steel, by which we may know that the weapon of the elders was the headed lance. William of Newbury tells us how the young knights, balked of their favourite sport by the royal mandate, would pass over sea to win glory in foreign lists. Richard I. relaxed his father's order, granting licences for tournaments, and Jocelin of Brakelond has a long story of the great company of cavaliers who held a tourna ment between Thetford and Bury St. Edmund's in defiance of the abbot. From that time onward unlicensed tourneying was treated as an offence against the Crown, which exacted heavy fees from all taking part in them even when a licence had been obtained.
In 1299 life and limb were declared to be forfeit in the case of those who should arrange a tourney without royal licence, and offenders were to be seized with horse and harness. As the tournament became an occasion for pageantry and feasting, new reason was given for restraint : a simple knight might beggar him self over a sport which risked costly horses and carried him far afield. Jousters travelled from land to land, offering and accepting challenges. Thus Edward I., before coming to the throne, led 8o knights to a tournament on the Continent. Before the jousts at Windsor on St. George's day in 1344 heralds published in France, Scotland, Burgundy, Hainault, Flanders, Brabant and the domains of the emperor the king's offer of safe conduct for competitors. At the weddings of princes and magnates and at the crowning of kings the knights gathered to the joustings, which had become as much a part of such high ceremonies as the banquet and the minstrelsy.
Regulations.—About 1292 a "Statute of Arms for Tourna ments" enacted new laws. Swords with points were not to be used, nor pointed daggers, nor club nor mace. None was to raise up a fal
len knight but his own appointed squires, clad in his device. The squire who offended was to lose horse and arms and lie three years in gaol. Disputes were to be settled by a court of honour of princes and earls. That such rules were needful had been shown at Rochester in '251, where foreign knights were beaten by the Eng lish and so despitefully treated that they fled to the city for refuge. On their way the strangers were faced by another com pany of knights who handled them roughly and spoiled them, thrashing them with staves in revenge for the doings at a Brackley tournament. Even as early as the 13th century some of these tour naments were mere pageants of horsemen. For the Jousts of Peace held at Windsor Park in 1278 the sword-blades were of whalebone and parchment, silvered; the helms were of boiled leather and the shields of light timber. But the game could make rough sport. Many a tournament had its tale of killed and wounded in the chronicle books. We read how Roger of Lemburn struck Arnold de Montigny dead with a lance thrust under the helm. The first of the Montagu earls of Salisbury died of hurts taken at a Windsor jousting, and in those same lists at Windsor the earl's grandson Sir William Montagu was killed by his own father. William Longespee in 1256 was so bruised that he never recovered his strength, and he is among many of whom the like is written ; injuries were often caused when dismounted adversaries continued the combat on foot. Blunted or "rebated" lance-points came early into use, and by the i4th century the coronall or cronell head was often fitted in place of the point. After 1400 the armourers began to devise har ness with defences specially wrought for service in the lists. But the joust lost its chief perils with the invention of the tilt, which, as its name imports, was at first a cloth stretched along the length of the lists. The cloth became a stout barrier of timber, and in the early 16th century the knight ran his course at little risk. Locked up in steel harness, reinforced with the grand-guard and the other jousting pieces, he charged along one side of this barrier, seeing little more through the pierced sight-holes of the helm than the head and shoulders of his adversary. His bridle arm was on the tilt-side, and thus the blunted lance struck at an angle upon the polished plates. Mishaps might befall. At the close of the famous tournament which formed part of the rejoicings for the peace of Cateau-Cambresis in 1559 Henry II. of France died from the stroke of Gabriel de Montgomeri, who failed to cast up in time the truncheon of his splintered lance. The result of this tragedy was a considerable diminution in the popularity of the tournament. But the 16th century tournament was, in the main, a bloodless meeting, as befitted a spectacle arranged as much for the delecta tion of women as of men. Prizes, usually consisting of arms and armour, rich robes and great silver vessels were at the close pre sented to the victors by the Lady of the Tournament.