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Chaucer's knight and the medieval tournament

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Notes

  1. Terry Jones,Chaucer's Knight, the Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary (London, 1980).

  2. J. A. Burrow,TLS 15-2-'80); V. J. Scattergood,British Book News, July 1980; T. A. Shippey,Quarto, January 1980; D. S. Brewer,TES, 1-2-'80, who notes that “Mr. Jones quotes some striking evidence which will call for fuller discussions”. The present paper should be read in this light.

  3. The best summary is Sydney Anglo, “Financial and Heraldic Records of the English Tournament”,Journal of the Society of Archivists II (1962), 183–95. See also the same author's “Archives of the English Tournament”,ibid. II (1961), 153–62.

  4. For examples seeThe Antient Chronicles of Sir John Froissart, trans. Lord Berners (London, 1814–16), IV, pp. 170–5;The Chronicles of Enguerrand de Monstrelet, trans. Thomas Johnes (n.p., Haford Press, 1809), I, pp. 8–20; III, pp. 365–7; Viscount Dillon. “On a MS. Collection of Ordinances of Chivalry of the Fifteenth Century, belonging to Lord Hastings”,Archaeologia LVII (1900), 35–8; S. Bentley,Excerpta Historica (London, 1831), pp. 176–96, 200–2, 208–9. F. H. Cripps-Day,The History of the Tournament in England and in France (London, 1918), pp. xliii–lix. Tiptoft's rules are in Cripps-Day, pp. xxvii–xxx.

  5. See e.g. Monstrelet, I, pp. 8–20, 26–8, 48–50, 250–1; III, pp. 367–9; Dillon, pp. 36–8; Bentley, pp. 182–3, 200–1, 210–12.

  6. Monstrelet, I, pp. 29–32, gives the challenge of the Duke of Orleans to Henry IV in 1402 to bring one hundred knights to fight in a mêlée against him, an invitation which was refused. For a very detailed general account of the mélée and its organisation see “Traictie de la forme et devis d'ung tournoy, par le Roi René” printed in Cripps-Day, pp. lxvii-lxxxviii; also Kervyn de Lettenhove, “Le tournoy entre le sire de Jonvelle et le sire de Commines”,Bulletin de la commission royale d'histoire de Belgique, 3rd Ser. XI (1870), 482–6. The early tournament is dealt with in N. Denholm-Young. “The Tournament in the Thirteenth Century”, inStudies in Medieval History presented to Frederick Maurice Powicke (Oxford, 1948), pp. 240–68. SeeMemoires d'Oliver de la Marche, ed H. Beaune and J. d'Arbaumont (Paris, 1883–8), III, pp. 194–5, for an example of a mêlée as late as 1468; also Cripps-Day, pp. lii–liii, for a person-to-person mounted swordfight called a “tourney”.OED definestournament as: “ Originally, A martial sport or exercise of the middle ages, in which a number of combatants, mounted and in armour, and divided into two parties, fought with blunted weapons and under certain restrictions, for the prize of valour; later, A meeting at an appointed time and place for knightly sports and exercises.”Tourney is merely glossed “ Tournament”, the fifteenth/sixteenth-century meaning, “single mounted combat with broadswords” being unmentioned.

  7. See Viscount Dillon, “Tilting in Tudor Times”,Archaeological Journal LV (1898), 307–11.

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  8. Ed. Sir Travers Twiss,The Black Book of the Admiralty (London, Rolls Series 55, 1871–6), I. pp. 300–29. Discussed in W. H. Black,Illustrations of Ancient State and Chivalry (London, 1840). pp. xvi– xxii.

  9. On the influence of Woodstock's ordinances see George Neilson.Trial by Combat (Glasgow, 1890), who gives an example of a judicial duel in England as late as 1492. Later cases are cited in R. C. Clephan,The Tournament, its Periods and Phases (London, 1919), pp. 164–8.

  10. The fatal outcome of duels is discussed below. Chaucer's phrase “foughten . . . in lystes” recalls the phrase “fightyng within listes” in the English title of Woodstock's ordinances. The same phrase recurs several times in the preamble. The verb “fight” was avoided in reference to other chivalric encounters, in favour of verbs or phrases like “combat”, “do arms”, “perform a feat of arms”, and it may be that “to fight in lists” was a technical term for “to fight a duel”.

  11. Denholm-Young, pp. 243, 248.

  12. Bentley, pp. 198, 200.

  13. The Canons and Decrees of the Sacred and Œcumenical Council of Trent, trans. J. Waterworth (London, 1848), pp. 274–5.

  14. Twiss, I, p. 319.

  15. Ibid., I, p. 325.

  16. See e.g. F. W. D. Brie (ed.)The Brut (London, EETS O S 131, 136, 1906–8), II, pp. 343–4, 368, 370, 437; A. R. Myers (ed.),English Historical Documents IV, 1327–1485 (London, 1969), pp. 487–8; Monstrelet, I, p. 62.

  17. In view of the foregoing, the earlier statement that the knight had been at fifteen “mortal betailles” is less likely to refer to single combats than to actual battles (and certainly not to the mêlée, as Mr. Jones suggests); cf.Piers the Plowman: Text C, ed. W. W. Skeat (London, EETS O.S. 54, 1873), Passus XVIII, lines 289–90; “the kynde is of a kny3t oþer for a kynge to be take . . . among here enemys in morteils bateles.” There is certainly no justification for concluding that the Knight is “a very efficient and merciless killer” (p. 77).

  18. The evidence has been set out in Neilson, pp. 183ff; W. H. Schofield,Chivalry in English Literature (Cambridge, Mass., 1912), pp. 38–45; Stuart Robertson, “Elements of Realism in theKnight's Tale”,JEGP XIV (1915), 226–55; Johnstone Parr, “The Date and Revision of Chaucer'sKnight's Tale”,PMLA LX (1945), 317–24.

  19. See Robert A. Pratt, “Chaucer's Use of theTeseida”,PMLA LXII (1947), 598–621.

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  20. Cf. the illustrations in Viscount Dillon and W. H. St. J. Hope (ed.),Pageant of the Birth Life and Death of Richard Beauchamp Earl of Warwick (London, 1914), pp. 10, 27, 43, 58–9, 62, 67.

  21. Cf. Cripps-Day, pp. xxxvi-xxxviii; La Marche, III, pp. 123–201; Bentley, pp. 204–8.

  22. Cripps-Day, p. xlii.

  23. E.g.ibid., pp. xliii–xliv: Bentley, p. 180.

  24. This was done, for instance, by Edward IV in 1467 in Smithfield, when he forbade the throwing of lances as too dangerous (see Bentley, p. 211).

  25. For the Statute of Arms seeStatutes of the Realm (London, 1811–28), I, pp. 230–1, and the discussion in Denholm-Young, pp. 257–68.

  26. See note 6 for examples, Sir John Paston had a copy of the statute transcribed into hisGrete Boke (see A. I. Doyle, “The Work of a late Fifteenth-Century English Scribe, William Ebesham”,Bulletin of the John Rylands Library XXXIX (1957), 305–6).

  27. A major relevant publication which appeared after this paper had gone to press is: Malcolm Vale.War and Chivalry (London, 1981).

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    G. A. Lester

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Lester, G.A. Chaucer's knight and the medieval tournament. Neophilologus 66, 460–468 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01998991

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