Osprey - General Military - Knight - The Warrior and ... - Brego-weard

his own ransoms, neglecting to protect his prince. Whilst Marshal's biographer glosses
over the details he does include one occasion where the prince admonishes William lor
leaving him alone on the battlefield to pursue his own glory, and it appears that this
lay at the heart of the rift between the two in 1182 which saw Marshal leave the
prince's service lor a spell.
The melee tournament was, then, an opportunity lor the individual knight to
practise and demonstrate his individual combat skills and for military households
to learn to act together, and it reinforced their sense ol cohesion and cooperation.
It was also a place in which they could develop small-unit tactics in relatively salety.
Just as with the other great knightly recreation, the hunt (which we discuss in more
detail below), by ranging across the hills, fields and through the woods of the
tournament field the knight would learn much about the control of his horse and
the use of terrain for advantage. William Marshal's contemporary Count Philip ol
Flanders would purposefully enter the melee late, after the other households and teams
had become scattered and disordered, sweeping the field and making easy pickings ol
the tired and preoccupied knights. The Young King's household sutlered from this
tactic on a number of occasions before they adopted it themselves. Although this was
primarily a scheme lor the tournament field, it might also have taught those who saw
it a lesson about the value of retaining a reserve on the battlefield.
The joust, which began as a warm-up exercise and an opportunity for young
knights to show their worth without being outclassed and picked oil by more
experienced tourneyers, allowed the warrior to show his individual prowess to an
appreciative audience. By the 14th century it was the dominant form ol tournament,
in no small part because it was much easier to control, required much less land and was
lar less damaging on property and the purse. All ol the action took place in front ol
the spectators, as opposed to the melee where they would only see the initial massed
charge and then glimpses of the action as the teams spread out across the countryside.
This made it much easier to integrate into the pageants that were very much a part of
courtly life at this time. As a result the tournament became far more a sport than a true
combat, with the rules and equipment evolving in order to minimize the risk to the
participants. The changes meant that different skill sets were required: William
Marshal's rough and ready grappling techniques would not have seen him win here.
Even with the development of foot tourneys, in which combatants used sword, pollaxe
and, by the beginning ol the 17th century, pike, such competitions became increasingly
removed from the real experience of battle.
There is no doubt that tournaments and the various off-shoots had a role in
maintaining and developing the skills of the knight - certainly Richard I thought so,
reversing his lather's ban on tournaments in England in part because it had left the