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Tournaments (Under the head of Tournaments)

- Under the head of Tournaments it has been customary to include many varieties of contests, the fact being that on the proclamation of a tournament different kinds of encounters were indulged in on succeeding days. We must be careful to distinguish between tournaments and pas d'armes, on the one hand, and the serious challenges which were often made to assert or refute the justice of an accusation, on the other. Accidents often occurred at the peaceful encounters, but they were not intended, and we do not propose to deal with the judicial combats and duels.

The contests at these tournaments may be divided into horse and foot encounters. [OBSOLETE SPORT The first would include Tourneys and Jousting, which later on became, at least in this country, tilting, and running at the ring; while the foot combats were generally fought out with axes, lances and swords, and eventually became the sport known as BARRIERS.

It is difficult to say if we can call the challenges which Jacques Lalain sent out to various countries, and which are so fully described in his Life by Chastellain and in the Memoirs of Ollivier la Marche, sports.

Certainly the combats in which he took such a prominent part never actually led to fatal results, yet they were terribly earnest. So also, in the combat of Lord Scales and the Bastard of Burgundy, if it had been carried out to the bitter end, it is probable that the Bastard would have been slain. We are told that the English Duchess of Burgundy, sister of our Edward IV., never would attend at serious fighting, and Jacques Lalain was not allowed to spread his challenges in England, where the peaceloving Henry VI. evidently had quite enough of serious fighting without the fiery Burgundian's exploits.