Tournament

“ A tournament is a martial sport or exercise which the ancient cavaliers used to perform, to show their bravery and address. It is derived from the French word tourner, to turn round, because, to be expert in these exercises, much agility, both of horse and man, was necessary. Tournaments made the principal exercises of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; but being at length productive of mischievous consequences, the princes of Europe gradually discouraged and suppressed them. ”

“ CHAPTER VI Much that is fanciful and unreal has been written about the tournament, and it is only in recent times that the knowledge of the subject has been placed on a more scientific basis, through the labours and researches of Querin von Leitner, Cornelius Curlitt, Boeheim, Dillon, Haenel and others, who have built on the valuable foundations laid by earlier writers on the subject. ”

“ For here was no fair fist, fashioned for jousting, with heralds and poursuivants to tend the combatants and enforce the rules of the tournament—no minstrels to make memorable the names of the men who bore themselves well. ”

“ The tournament was, from the first, held to be a sport for men of noble birth, and on the Continent, where nobility was more exactly defined than in England, the lists were jealously closed to all combatants but those of the privileged class. In the German lands, questions as to the purity of the strain of a candidate for admission to a noble chapter are often settled by appeal to the fact that this or that ancestor had taken part in a tournament. ”

“ Above all, the element of good sportsmanship and fair play should enter into every game, no matter how strenuous the playing, and the slogan of the whole team should be, “Put the ball in the basket.”
Basket Ball Games or Tournament.
An umpire who is competent and fair should have entire jurisdiction over the game. The game should be conducted in an orderly fashion, according to the rules.
For a series or tournament, a set number of games should be played, such as two out of three; the winner is then the champion. ”

“ But the tournament was no longer a seemly and ordered battle. The ranks of the two companies were confused together, so that every man fought against his fellow, and none might tell whether he struck his comrade or his foe. The four lovers did well and worshipfully, so that all men deemed them worthy of the prize. ”

“ All raisons d’être for the tourney beyond those of exercise and pastime had long since passed away, through the continuous decline in the importance of the man-at-arms in warfare, the ever-increasing efficiency of firearms, and the necessity for greater mobility of armies in the field.
The history of the tournament would not be complete without some account of the revivals attempted in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They lack, however, a sense of reality, being, in fact, merely more or less well-staged plays. ”

“ There are ancient romances of great historic value, in that they give nearly contemporaneous details of the tournament of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and represent many features which may be regarded as correct in the light of a close comparison with other records. ”

“ The contemporary literature in France and England concerning the tournament of the sixteenth century is much less voluminous than that written in the fifteenth, and the narrations of chroniclers greatly lack that technical knowledge which characterizes the work of their predecessors, who belonged to a higher class of society. ”

“ Splendid as are these illuminations, they yield to those which follow; especially to that which immediately succeeds, and which displays the preparation for a tournament to be conducted upon a very large scale. We observe throngs of combatants, and of female spectators in boxes above. ”

“ The guardian nodded.
“I can’t see how you can hope even to get a place in the tournament. Tennis is a game of skill requiring years to make one proficient, and how you can expect to get into shape to play in a tournament five weeks hence is beyond me.” ”

“ Every kind of military combat made in conformity to certain rules, and practised by the knights and their esquires for diversion or gallantry, was anciently called a tournament: yet these amusements frequently differed materially from each other, and have been distinguished accordingly by various denominations in the modern times. They may however, I think, be all of them included under the four following heads; tilting and combating at the quintain, tilting at the ring, tournaments, and justs. ”

“ A mock fight, as at a tournament. ↑ Tourney. A tournament; a mock fight or martial sport of the middle ages for exhibiting prowess and skill in arms. ↑ Barriers. The palisades enclosing the ground where a tournament, tilting, or other martial contest or exhibition was held; the lists. Hence, a masque or entertainment in the form of a tournament. Ben Jonson wrote an entertainment presented at Court, Jan. 6, 1610, called Prince Henry's Barriers. ↑ Device. Something devised or fancifully invented for dramatic representation.
"The song is heard, the rosy garland worn ”

“ The new Tournament, or bloodless battle, is so arranged that, while it requires both skill and dexterity in one game, the other is both simple and amusing. One will require considerable shrewdness in an old chess or whist player, while the other can be played by small children. ”

“ There would be a big crowd of mountaineers and there would be sports of all kinds, and games, but the tournament was to be the feature of the day.
“A tournament?” “Yes, a tournament,” repeated the little sister, and Marston was going to ride and the mean thing would not tell what mediaeval name he meant to take. And the Hon. Sam Budd—did the Blight remember him? (Indeed, she did) —had a “dark horse,” and he had bet heavily that his dark horse would win the tournament—whereat the little sister looked at Marston and at the Blight and smiled disdainfully. And the Wild Dog—DID she remember him? ”

“ Men who carry weapons have in all ages played at the game of war in time of peace. But the tournament, properly so called, does not appear in Europe before the 11th century, in spite of those elaborate fictions of Ruexner's Thurnierbuch which detail the tournament laws of Henry the Fowler. ”

“ The physical strain on those taking part in a tournament must have been great, and the combatants weary at the end of a long day; nevertheless they joined the ladies in the evening, when the successful competitors received the prizes from their hands; and after the banquet came the dance.
The century saw the mingling of the tourney with the pageant; the mêlée had been much supplanted by the joust, which demanded more individual skill, for in the throng and confusion of the mêlée the element of chance helped certain of the combatants to a distinction beyond their real deserts ”

“ Clephan’s researches cause us to modify our views on certain aspects of the Tournament, I feel quite certain that all who have previously written on these lines will admit the new light he has brought to bear. The audience he directly appeals to is small, but they will yield to students in no other branch of history or art in their keen devotion to their subject ”

“ A tournament was usually given upon the occasion of any great meeting, for either military or political purposes. Sometimes it was the king himself who sent his heralds through the land to announce to all noblemen and ladies, that on a certain day he would hold a grand tournament, where all brave knights might try their prowess. At other times a tournament was determined on by a body of independent knights; and messengers were often sent into distant countries to invite all gallant gentlemen to honour the passage of arms. ”

“ There was a banquet in the evening, at which Lord Eglingtoun expressed the hope that this attempt at a revival of the tournament might result in its being continued among the nobility and gentry of these islands. ”

“ It was a project of mine to replace the tournament with something which might furnish an escape for the extra steam of the chivalry, keep those bucks entertained and out of mischief, and at the same time preserve the best thing in them, which was their hardy spirit of emulation. I had had a choice band of them in private training for some time, and the date was now arriving for their first public effort. ”

“ That this early tournament playing, accustoming young men to watch their strokes and play carefully, must aid in remedying this evil among the rising players hardly needs to be pointed out, while the new opportunity of meeting equal or better players must also promote skill and brilliancy in play. ”

“ It pictures the entry on horseback of the two baron-leaders into the lists, wearing chain-mail [Pg 16] and pointed bascinets, and with their horses trapped; they bear no weapons. The King of Arms, in civil dress, is standing between them holding their banners, one in each hand. Trumpeters are seen in the background.
The presence of ladies graced the tournament, and they were treated with great deference; the names and deeds of the successful champions were submitted to them, and it was they who awarded and presented the prizes. The days of combat usually closed with the banquet and the dance. ”

“ When you have acquired a certain knowledge of the game and can play the various strokes in the correct way, then, as I have said, tournament and match play is the very best method of improvement. I would emphasize the need for a certain standard of efficiency, because I am convinced that at the present time there are too many weak players competing at open meetings. The style of these players has only to be watched to be condemned, and their knowledge of the game is hopelessly limited. ”

“ This gave opportunity for displaying knightly powers and courage, for gaining the smiles and good-will of the ladies, and likewise for the settling of private quarrels. The tournament, too, was the greatest of all amusements during feudal times and brought together the largest gatherings and the greatest displays. Fairs were held in connection with them in which [Pg 270] there was great merry-making, where jugglers and strolling players and musicians found place and drunkenness and gambling and the like prevailed. ”

“ As we have already stated, the usages of the tournament often varied; nothing, for example, could be more unlike the warlike sports of Germany in the thirteenth century, as related in the “Niebelungen,” nothing could be more unlike those sanguinary and ferocious struggles, than the Provençal and Sicilian tournaments of the fifteenth century, described in such glowing language by good King René in the magnificent manuscript which he spent his leisure in illuminating with miniatures. ”

“ The tournament and the just, and especially the latter, afforded to those who were engaged in them, an opportunity of appearing before the ladies to the greatest advantage; they might at once display their taste and opulence by the costliness and elegancy of their apparel, and their prowess as soldiers; therefore, these pastimes became fashionable among the nobility ”

“ Another correspondent asks for information as to the best way to get up a tennis tournament, and now that we are on the subject of tennis, his query might just as well be disposed of. A tournament, like anything else, demands time and care in preparation if it is to be a success. Don't put off everything until the last moment, or the day will surely be a failure ”

“ But we must go back to the time of the zenith of the Middle Ages to see its tournaments, its tilts, and its passages of arms. In the halcyon period of chivalry, its sham fights, its courteous tournaments, and its warlike exhibitions, occasioned many an accident, and brought about many a fatal result. History mentions a tournament in Germany where sixty persons perished in a struggle waged with weapons deprived of edge and point. ”

“ If the idea of having a tournament is being discussed with a view to holding it later in the summer, find out what players will be in the neighborhood at that time, and try to invite players to visit the locality at about that period. If you only have a week or ten days in which to make your preparations (for a small tournament) , try to fix on a day when there will be nothing else of importance going on near by. The chief object of the managers or of the committee should be to secure as large an attendance as possible, for a crowd will encourage the players to better effort. ”

“ As a matter of fact, no objection ever seems to be raised to a competitor who transgresses this rule, and we remember to have seen a nimble player skipping about like an electrified eel outside the magic circle, until stopped by a barrier of chairs at the edge of the big arena.
At the Military Tournament the play is for the best out of three hits, i.e. the man who scores the first two points wins. At the German Gymnasium the competitor who first scores five wins the bout. ”

“ The arrival of a third person sets the lists for a tournament, and offers the prize for a verbal victory. But where there are only two, the armour is laid aside, and there is no call to thrust and parry. ”

“ The following quotation from an ancient manuscript romance, in the Harleian collection, entitled Ipomydon, [483] plainly indicates the performance of the tournament in an open field; and also, that great numbers of the combatants were engaged at one time, promiscuously encountering with each other: we learn [Pg 130] moreover, that the champion who remained unhorsed at the conclusion of the sports, besides the honour he attained, sometimes received a pecuniary reward. ”

“ At tournaments, whether held by royal licence or not, the combatants were divided into two camps or parties; and they gathered together large concourses of spectators, who were too apt to become strong and eager partisans, as we see at the football games of to-day; the unpopular side being sometimes assailed with volleys of stones, some discharged from slings. ”