Tournaments, always dangerous, often bloody and sometimes fatal, were conceived solely to keep men of war continually on their mettle, especially in times of peace which offered no other exercise for their courage.
The purpose of these games, aptly called schools of prowess, was to train new warriors in the handling of arms and military maneuvers, to strengthen the veterans and to perfect them more and more.
In these schools of war, the masters themselves learned to recognize the talents of their pupils, maintained the habit of command, and studied movements and maneuvers with greater reflection, through experiences less perilous and less hasty than those conducted before the enemy. They applied themselves to making these maneuvers more regular and more secure. They also endeavored to invent new ones.
The origin of tournaments is commonly placed in the eleventh century; but one could trace it back to the time when nations, having begun to wage war methodically, established some rules and principles, and reduced it to an art: tournaments, however, should only be regarded as faint images and light trials of military expeditions and true combat.
Enterprises of war and Chivalry, especially those of the crusades, were announced and proclaimed with a display capable of inspiring all warriors with the ardor to participate and to share in the glory that was to be its reward. The commitment was sealed by acts which religion, honor, and love, either united or separate, rendered equally irrevocable.
Whether one was shut up in a place to defend it; whether one laid siege to it to attack it; or whether one found oneself face to face with the enemy in open country, inviolable oaths and vows from which nothing could dispense, equally obliged the leaders and those they commanded to spill all their blood rather than betray or abandon the interest of the State.
Besides these general vows, the piety of the time suggested others to individuals, which consisted of visiting various holy places to which they had devotion; depositing their arms or those of vanquished enemies in temples and monasteries; observing various fasts, and practicing different exercises of penance.
Valor also dictated singular vows, such as being the first to plant one's pennant on the walls or on the highest tower of the place one wished to master, to throw oneself into the midst of the enemy, to strike the first blow against them; in a word, to perform such a feat, to give such proof of audacity and sometimes of recklessness. The bravest knights always prided themselves on outdoing one another, through an emulation which always had as its object the advantage of the homeland and the destruction of the enemy.
A wise policy sought to multiply knights: it was therefore necessary to attach external advantages to this profession, to enhance its brilliance with honorable prerogatives, and to give those who practiced it a marked preeminence over all squires, and over all the rest of the nobility.
I shall begin with the distinctions of armor and attire.
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A strong and difficult-to-break lance, a hauberk or haubergeon, that is to say a double coat of mail woven of iron, proof against the sword, were the arms assigned exclusively to knights; the coat of arms, made of a simple armorial fabric, was the ensign of their preeminence over all other orders of the State and of war.
Squires themselves were not permitted to come to blows with them; and even if a squire had been allowed, covered in his weak and light cuirass, armed only with sword and shield, how could he have defended himself against an almost invulnerable adversary? The common people carried on journeys, and perhaps even in combat, only a kind of knife that hung along the thigh.
If the arms of knights and squires were enriched with precious ornament, the purest of all metals was reserved for those of the knights, for their spurs, for the trappings and harnesses of their horses.
Worked into fabric, they enriched their robes, their cloaks, and all parts of their clothing and equipment; it served in assemblies to make their persons and those of their wives recognized and distinguished, just as they were distinguished in speech and in acts, or other writings, by the titles of Don, Sire, Messire, Monseigneur, and by those of Dame, Madame and others.
Silver, destined for squires, who were addressed as Monsieur and Damoiseau, and for their wives, who were given the title of Damoiselle, also marked the difference that should be placed between them and persons of an inferior state, who wore only woolen fabrics, or at least without gold or silver.
Only knights had the right to wear, particularly for lining their cloaks, vair, ermine, and miniver; other less precious furs were for squires, and the most common for the people. Silk was forbidden to burghers and common folk.
A final distinctive particularity of knights, which I borrow from the manuscript of Joinville, will conclude this article.
Knights shaved the front of their heads, either for fear of being seized by the hair if they lost their helmet in combat; or because they found it uncomfortable under the iron coif and under the helms with which they were continually armed.
Nevertheless, these customs were not always uniform, and nothing has varied more, according to times and circumstances, than the regulations of Chivalry, especially concerning arms and clothing.
Source: Mémoires sur l'ancienne Chevalerie – Baptiste de la Curne de Sainte-Palaye