Institute for Medieval Studies

Session	842
Title	Arms, Armour, and the Arts of Combat, IV: The Tournament
Date/Time	Tuesday 5 July 2022: 16.30-18.00
Sponsor	Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Organiser	Karen Watts, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Moderator/Chair	Jacob H. Deacon, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Paper 842-a	'This is the best knight who has ever been': Comparing Depictions of Early Tournaments in the History of William Marshal and Gautier de Tournay's History of Gilles le Chin (Language: English) James Titterton, Department of History, School of Arts, Languages & Cultures, University of Manchester Index Terms: Language and Literature - French or Occitan; Military History; Social History
Paper 842-b	Per lancia rotta bonissima: Investigating Scoring and Targets in 15th-Century Italian Jousts (Language: English) Samuel Bradley, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds Index Terms: Manuscripts and Palaeography; Military History; Social History
Paper 842-c	Staging War and Victory: The Battle-Tournament of Amboise, 1518 (Language: English) Marina Viallon, École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Université de Recherche Paris Sciences et Lettres Index Terms: Military History; Performance Arts - General; Politics and Diplomacy
Abstract	The tournament was the pinnacle of medieval chivalric expression. This panel will assess various aspects of different types of tournament across western Europe. James Titterton will begin with an analysis of literary depictions of tourneys and tourneyers in chivalric biographies and how their authors use tournaments to establish the chivalric, masculine, and aristocratic aspects of their subjects. Samuel Bradley then offers a study of acceptable target areas in Italian jousts and their corresponding worth in measuring a participant's martial skill, as well as what the prizes for the display of such skill amounted to. In our final paper Marina Viallon will present the week-long 'battle-tournament' held at Amboise in 1518 to commemorate the baptism of the dauphin of France and the wedding of Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne, King Francis I's niece, to the Duke of Urbino.