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Originally Posted by Jim McDougall
Absolutely Michael!!! and thank you so much for this topic! This is what is even more exciting than many of the arms themselves is this kind of esoterica seldom, if ever, discussed in the literature. I had never heard of these before.
It sounds like perhaps in these tournaments certain knights had 'sponsors' ? Obviously the 'cliche' of the lady showing favor to a certain knight with an item of hers carried by him is well known in the books and movies etc. but this sounds almost like sports sponsoring .
I especially enjoy the great excerpts from these references you and Jasper have shown and the examples. Fascinating!
Kronkew has perfectly described another aspect or phenomenon of the study of medieval knightly battles I had not been fully aware of, that there are few, if any, archaeological remnants of these battles . I do look forward to more entries on this and the attachments.
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Hi Jim,
After all I have read and studied in Anglistics seminars year after year in the 1970's and early 1980's (I took my State Exam at Regensburg University in 1982), and I sure had my fill reading on idealized medieval
Minne - which meant the absolutely idealistic, high-held and untouchable ideal of
platonic love to an already married (usually to a king!) and hence completely out-of-reach courtly lady - a kind of ove of course totally unaccepted by the instution of The Roman Catholic Church. Such a love basically bound to fail was the famous tale of Guinevere (the wife of King Arthur) and Sir Lancelot of the Lake (du Lac) from Thomas Malory's magnum opus
Morte d'Arthure.
Nobody won, they all died in gruesome gores. All those both endlessly and mercilessly reiterated stereotype rituals (e.g.
They walked in the blood of their enemies up to their knees, ... then they hearde (!) masse in the morning, etc. etc.): to me they were nothing but a manifestation of a long-since unstoppabable decline of knightly ideals once held as high as the mystic Holy Grail was for hundreds of years. To hear and see them presented so low down and trampled into the dirt thus openly just blew my mind ... It was both a bitter and tragic swan song on knightly ideas once so noble ...
Anyone here has ever read the original 15th c.Medieval Englisch version of
Le Morte d'Arture? Malory wrote it during many years of imprisonment. If you did not, you sure a very lucky guy retaining a sound, sober and sane mind.
Now, was there jealousy in those days? Oh yeah, those folks sure shared all the most basic ardent feeings of the human soul and mind! And they were ready to massacre literally anybody for the strong feelings in their souls ... and to take the final blame as well.
Was there financial sponsoring? The sources do not mention such a term way too profane for the medieval mind - but yes, this one humble
Mediavist here on the forum is absolutely sure because all those basic human feelings shook the Medieval world and and its knights to the very
bone of their earthly existence 500 years ago!
With my very best wishes,
Michael