Knightly tournaments in Kraków’s Barbican
Knightly tournament in the Middle Ages used to be military training, competition and spectacle. We can compare it to present day great events on stadiums. People living those times, especially poor folks, didn’t have many amusements. The only chances to have fun were great competition arranged by cities, rulers and mighty aristocrat. Watching struggles, commenting, sometimes free food let them have a rest, physical and mentally. For the competitors of the struggles the tournament was an essence of the idea of knights. Fight bravely, nobly, respect the opponent, glorify ladies, present your bravery, honour, make the name for yourself – this is the ethos which led the fighters. At the beginnings tournaments, as military competitions was meant to be a part of a training, preparation for a real fight on the battlefield. The roots of the tournaments go back to the 9th century. In 842 during the meeting of two Carolingian rulers, Louis the German and Charles the Bald, war games were carried out. It was a simulation of a clash of 2 horse teams, similar to military manoeuvres.
Change in a way of arranging of the tournaments, transfer of the event to cities and setting up tribunes caused that the tournament became available for everyone. Together with the public troubadour appeared. In their songs, poems and books, from the regular clash the tournament became a place of presenting feelings. A knight, fighting for his lady was expressing his adoration for her this way. Ladies of noble birth, without a stain upon her honour could support a man, to present him with sash or a wristband.
The winner of a tournament used to win fame and popularity as the one present day movie stars have. He was admired by ladies, and the same important, treated by their families as a potential ally. Many fathers of wealthy noblewomen were thinking if it is worthwhile to have a brave warrior as a son-in-law. Arrangement of a tournament was very expensive, an organizer had to entertain many competitors, their families and retinues, and moreover fund prizes for the winners. However the costs were compensated with other aspects. Main advantage was a promotion of name of the organizer among knights, what was translated into popularity. Only the generous ruler, even extravagant could be famous and popular. These were distinctive features of the chivalry, almost as important as braveness and religiosity. The tournament was a chance to gain new followers or mitigation or alleviation of enemies’ dislikes. For the knights and the public it was the same as Olympic games for ancient Romans. In this case Eastern Europe was a bit delayed. The first known tournament on Polish lands, in Silesia, took place in 1243, and was arranged by rowdy prince Bolesław II the Bald. It was mentioned in Book of Henryków. Moreover we are aware of the fact that excellent ruler and candidate for the throne in 13th century – Henry IV Probus loved such entertainments. Inter Alia, in Poland tournaments was arranged by the way of Elisabeth Richeza of Poland in 1303 and Casimir III the Great in 1333 enthronement celebrations. A special tournament was arranged on great congress of monarchs in Kraków in 1364. Apart from king of Poland, there were also emperor Karl, rulers of Denmark, Cyprus and Hungary. Gradually the excitement with tournaments spread across whole Europe. Knightly tournaments started to be arranged by the way of weddings, engagement, birth, triumphs, enthronements and congresses. The fact of lifting of the excommunication from the tournaments participants in 1316 by pope John XXII caused even higher interest in such competition. Despite the huge dislike to all battles, the Church realised that they cannot fight with an element of the culture from the epoch. Additionally it was cause by significant decrease in competitors’ mortality rate because of they started to use equipment different from the military one. Spears and swords were blunted, fair play rules complied and number of referee increased. Moreover the purpose of a single clash wasn’t to throw the opponent down from horse but to smash a lance on his shield. All these things caused that the knightly competition became a game more than a real fight. Of course there were still accidents but much fewer. The golden age of the tournaments was coming.
The 15th century was a period of greatest flourishing of tournaments. Battlefield was still the most important area of knights’ objectives however during the tournaments they could present their skills in use of weapons. Even in those days the tournaments used to have great settings which made it unforgettable event. The turn of the 15th century was a period of flourishing of new styles of waging a war. A lance and heavy armour were no longer required. The tournaments, as a part of knights' training, began to disappear. Only some of rulers, like Henry VIII, Francis I of France and Emperor Maximilian I perpetuated the tradition of tournaments. Knights’ clashes gradually god rid of fight character and became full of splendour shows, which had no nothing to do with previous duels, it were rather parades or theatre performances. In the second half of the 20th century in Europe, a renaissance of an interest in knightly tournament came. The vogue came to Poland in 90’s. Groups of the Middle Ages fans begun to recreate the tradition, costumes, fights, ethos and all the aspects the knightly culture contained. They started to unite in knightly guilds and the knightly tournament became a historical educational spectacles.
Since 2004 our museum together with the Eagle’s Nest Brotherhood have been arranging encounters with knights in Kraków’s Barbican, a unique monument of defensive architecture from the end of 15th century. The entertainment refers to whole glorious tradition of the tournaments and aims to approach audience great heritage of the European civilisation – knightly culture. At the same time the shows are great fun.
