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These poetic jousts or encounters of wits were a favourite amusement of the cultured princesses of the Renaissance and their courtiers.
Sir Lancelot got them lodgings with a rich burgess, and so privily and closely did they keep the house that none knew that they were there. On the day of the jousts the trumpets began to blow in the field where they should be held. King Arthur sat on a great scaffold which was raised at one end, to judge who did best in the jousting.
'Tis enough for me, under fortune's favour, to prepare myself for her disgrace, and, being at my ease, to represent to myself, as far as my imagination can stretch, the ill to come; as we do at jousts and tiltings, where we counterfeit war in the greatest calm of peace.
On that very day the only daughter of Joan and Louis died. But the king not wishing to sadden the brilliant ceremony with show of mourning, kept up the jousts and tournaments for three days, and in memory of his coronation instituted the order of 'Chevaliers du Noeud'. But from that day begun with an omen so sad, his life was nothing but a series of disillusions.
The declared admirers wore their mistresses' liveries, their arms, and sometimes even took their names. Their office was, never to quit them in public, and never to approach them in private; to be their squires upon all occasions, and, in jousts and tournaments, to adorn their lances, their housings, and their coats, with the cyphers and the colours of their dulcineas.
"I have stayed longer than I intended, and I should not have mentioned these accusations, which I regard as wholly groundless, unless you had reproached me." And he quitted the chamber, leaving Anne in a strange state of perplexity and terror. What happened at the Jousts. The first of May arrived; and though destined to set in darkness and despair, it arose in sunshine and smiles.
At what time suppose ye the two kings will be here? Sir, said they, afore All Hallowmass. Then the king let purvey for a great feast, and let cry a great jousts. And by All Hallowmass the two kings were come over the sea with three hundred knights well arrayed both for the peace and for the war.
But in almost every part of England tournaments or jousts have been held, and scenes enacted such as I have described. Sometimes two knights would fight in mortal combat. If one knight accused the other of crime or dishonour, the latter might challenge him to fight with swords or lances, and, according to the superstition of the times, the victor was considered to be the one who spoke the truth.
Forthwith Bradamante entered an inn hard by, where Brunello was already seated, and if she at once marked him amongst other men he no less knew her, for many a time he had seen her at jousts and tourneys. Thus, both feigning, they fell into talk, and held discourse upon the castle and the knights who lay imprisoned therein.
When the two kings proceeded to sign, in their tent, the treaty they had just concluded, "the King of England," according to Fleuranges' Memoires, "himself took up the articles and began to read them. After the diplomatic stipulations were concluded, the royal meeting was prolonged for sixteen days, which were employed in tourneys, jousts, and all manner of festivals.
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