Boo
The melee (also Buhurd , MHG. , Altfrz. Bouhourt or melee to hurter "encounter."; Cf. . English to hurt , perhaps by fränk. Bihurdan Fencing) or gyrus was applied on skill medieval tournament format . The exact definition of this knightly fighting game is controversial in the professional world.
In contemporary written sources, even real military confrontations between equestrian associations are referred to as Buhurte. Other sources make a clear distinction between the more playful Buhurt and the (the) more dangerous Turnei .
Buhurt, Turnei and Tjost
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The medieval tournament culture knew three forms of the tournament: the more peaceful boo, the group fight with sharp or blunt weapons (Turnei) and the individual fight with the lance and the sword ( Tjost ). Buhurte were probably mainly widespread in the German culture, in any case most of the evidence of these fighting games come from the Reich territory.
Originally the Buhurt could have been carried out with sharp weapons. Although quite different equestrian games are named as Buhurt in contemporary written sources, a clear distinction is often made between Buhurt and Turnei. Ez would have been a turnei if they had their harnasch . However, the Buhurt cannot always be clearly differentiated from the Turnei. An exact definition of this medieval term is therefore impossible.
Even playful mock battles between two larger groups of knightly warriors could quickly turn into serious conflicts. Numerous knights and servants lost their lives here. Shortly after tournaments began in the High Middle Ages (late 12th century), the first tournament bans were issued. The church even threatened the participants with excommunication and with the refusal of a Christian burial. However, religious dignitaries also took part in tournaments, such as the abbot of the Lesterps monastery near Limoges (around 1200).
The simulated mass struggle seems to have been so widespread at that time that the boourt was further developed into a peaceful equestrian game, in which the mastery of equestrian arts was more important than martial virtues. So you could bypass the tournament bans and continue to play the fighting games, which are also very popular with the common people. Older traditions, for example from the Germanic prehistory, may have been resumed here.
In the German culture, the boo was probably even the older form of tournament, the French gymnastics was apparently adopted a little later. This is probably related to early medieval Carolingian cavalry exercises . Buhurte can be found in written sources as early as 1150. The turnei was accordingly often referred to as the Gallic fight or French sage .
The early "knight tournaments" in Central Europe were actually mostly Buhurte, which often took place in connection with aristocratic weddings and sword guiding. For this purpose, a spacious "playing field" was marked out. Live weapons tournaments were usually held after the actual celebration.
However, the numerous bans on actual gymnastics remained largely ineffective. Some knightly warriors even recognized the two serious forms of tournament as a lucrative source of income and therefore participated in numerous tournaments in the manner of modern professional athletes .
In contrast to the Turnei, Buhurte were mostly ridden without armor and with blunt weapons or wooden sticks. At most, the shield was used to push one's opponent away or to push him off the horse. Despite the rather peaceful nature of the game, there were also some fatal accidents here, but these were much rarer than in Turnei or Tjost. The focus was on mastering the horse, demonstrating good dressage and one's own riding skills. In addition to the function as a knightly exercise, the show character of the various forms of tournaments came to the fore.
The contemporary sources suggest, however, that there must have been serious disputes even during many boourts. Broken bones and especially knee injuries are mentioned frequently. However, even peaceful boourts have been documented during real fighting. Apparently, during long breaks in the fighting or armistice, the nobles of both sides met for boos in order to bridge the forced inactivity.
Numerous negative experiences often forced the organizers to forbid the use of sharp weapons even during gymnastics. During the tournament at Chalon-sur-Saône (1274), for example, numerous English and French noblemen had killed each other. In the Codex Manesse , the miniature of Dietmar the Setter depicts a deadly jostling with the sword. In the background three frightened women are watching the bloody events.
From around 1300 the knighthood lost more and more of its military importance. The booths and tournaments served more and more as a welcome opportunity for noble self-expression. The conditions of participation became more and more exclusive. The knightly aristocracy defended one of the last terrain that was left to them.
It was not until the end of the 15th century that the three forms of the knightly fighting game were summarized under the name "tournament". Originally, this term meant the actual armed conflict between equestrian warriors, i.e. the emergency. In 1149, Wilhelm von Saint-Thierry reported in his report on the life of Bernhard von Clairvaux of "tournaments" for practicing knightly maneuvers and skills.
The term buhurt is interpreted very differently by today's historians . Some researchers see this form of tournament as a moderate preliminary stage to gymnastics. Here you could get loot and ransom, as with the joust and the Turnei. Other experts believe that the boo was actually just a relatively harmless show ride. Buhurte were often held in the manner of parades in honor of high-ranking personalities. Such equestrian games were also used to entertain festival parties. However, all authors agree that this type of tournament was the least dangerous.
Buhurte was certainly carried out in different ways throughout the Middle Ages. There were also regional differences here. The fact that the Buhurt was often interpreted as a show event and actual knightly exercise is proven by the fact that Knights Templar were also allowed to ride Buhurte. The two more serious forms of tournament were strictly forbidden to them according to the rules of the order .
Buhurt and Turnei
A fundamental difference between the Turnei and the Buhurt was the formal invitation period. Buhurte could be set up spontaneously, you actually only had to mark out a playing field.
The gymnastics tournament had to be announced three to six weeks in advance in order to enable as many knightly fighters as possible to participate. The knights and servants often traveled long distances and needed time to complete their equipment. Markets developed around the tournament venues, medical care and the accommodation of the participants with their horses, squires and servants and the spectators had to be organized. Last but not least, the numerous prostitutes also presented the organizers with major organizational problems. Occasionally, some of these ladies are said to have been offered as a prize ( Magdeburg , 1280). In reality, however, one could never win the hand of a king's or princess' daughter.
Proof of knighthood also took more and more time. Originally, foot fighters who were not knightly were also allowed to take part in "tournaments", later strict rules of participation were created with the condition of proof of ancestry.
A division of the participants into equally strong groups was not absolutely necessary for the Buhurt. It could also be a formation ride without a combat character. In the gymnastics, the warriors were usually divided into nations or feudal associations , sometimes also drawn by lot.
Overall, the Turnei was much more strictly regulated than the Buhurt. However, there were certainly numerous intermediate forms, each of which was renegotiated. Most of the smaller, regional fighting games of the Middle Ages were more like Buhurte. A sovereign or feudal lord could actually have no interest in his knighthood decimating one another in dangerous tournaments. On the other hand, numerous high nobility took part in these battle simulations and individual battles.
The knighthood tried to integrate numerous elements of noble high culture into its life. But the high nobility also took over a lot of the way of life of their knightly vassals, who often rose from bondage. The tournament system illustrates a dense network of interdependencies, the basis of which was feudalism .
If you look at the Buhurt as the older form of tournament, the different definitions of the term in the written sources can also be explained. Originally, all group maneuvers of equestrian associations were apparently referred to as Buhurte, the real battle as well as the simulation and the formation ride. Only after the French, regulated gymnastics was adopted, the term buhurt usually only seems to define the relatively harmless mass tournament forms.
From the 13th century, people began to pay more attention to the safety of participants and spectators in the gymnastics and jousts. The swords were increasingly no longer sharpened or replaced by weapons made of wood or whalebone . In a lance fight, a “little tournament crown” significantly reduced the risk of injury. The tournament increasingly lost its character as a military exercise. The mass tournament forms gave way more and more to the exhibition fight between individual warriors, the joust. This most attractive part of the tournament has also been defused. One was often content with the effort to break one's lance on the opponent's shield instead of knocking him out of the saddle.
Procedure
Like the gymnastics and jousting, the boo was part of a tournament and, as a kind of battle simulation, it was also a preparation for deployment in war. A squire could earn his spurs (necessary tests to achieve the knighthood, the outward sign of which were the spurs) except in the field here as well.
Boo
The actual course of a boo is largely speculative. Possibly it was a kind of prelude to the actual gymnastics, in which older and more fearful knights and servants could take part. Various, relatively harmless equestrian games were probably summarized under this term. It is controversial among experts whether winners were determined at the Buhurt, whether closed associations competed against each other and whether blunt weapons were used.
Vil ritterlîch was the antphanc in
front of mîner hostel something
of a buhurt, which was grôz.
with shields vil manc grôzer stôz would have
fallen there, there is war.
von Küenringen mîn her Hadmâr
enpfie me with a buhurt dâ……
dâ wer grôz whurts not marrying:
the young dâ according to brîse rites
Ulrich von Lichtenstein : Vrouwen dienest ( women's service ), (1255).
This description of a booze indicates that prizes and booty could be won in this knightly fighting game and that the fighting was very rough.
In the Middle High German “Prosa- Lancelot ” (Heidelberg handwriting) the warlike lance fight between two warring army groups is also referred to as a buhurt. This definition can be found similarly in other sources. The term obviously denoted quite different activities of larger equestrian associations, the emergency as well as the military parade on horseback. In the context of tournaments, however, the Buhurt was considered the most harmless form of the knightly fighting game.
Turnei
The battle groups often differed by different colored cloth ribbons and were put together by lottery from the knights involved. Some of them were recruited from so-called tournament communities. Once the groups were formed, the number of fights and the price of victory were fixed. Horses, armor and weapons were often handed over to the winner by the defeated knight, but ransom payments could also be negotiated. Many a defeat could cost poor knights their economic existence, only particularly wealthy winners could afford to leave the loser his belongings and to forego a ransom. Under the guidance of a captain each , both groups rode towards each other, formed group and one-on-one fights and tried to push the opponent off the horse by skillfully handling the horse (quick turning, turning, etc.) and using the weapon or hands. A battle atmosphere was created by loud shouting and noise when they hit each other.
The tournaments were often so bloody and chaotic that rulers like Eduard I had to set rules of conduct. There it says: "No knight or squire who serves at the tournament should wear a pointed sword or a pointed dagger or staff or piston - only a broad sword for tournament use". At the height of the 12th century, a knight could take part in a tournament every two weeks. Professional knights like William Marshall , who is said to have captured over 500 knights at the end of his career, were able to become rich and respected men.
Injuries from horse falls, heat stroke, or blows and stabs from weapons were common. It was not until the 13th century that the lances were fitted with crowns and the swords blunted. The battle cry hurta ("drauf"), which is often used in booing and gymnastics, is the etymological root of the adjective "speedy".
Buhurt as a sport
Buhurt or mêlée is now practiced as a sport. Around 300 members from 21 countries are organized in the International Jousting League. In Germany, the International Jousting League is represented by the German Jousting Association.
Web links
literature
- Beate Ackermann-Arlt: The horse and its epic function in Middle High German “Prosa-Lancelot” (= work on early medieval research. 19). de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 1990. ISBN 3-11-011882-3 (At the same time: Münster, University, dissertation, 1986).
- Richard Barber, Juliet Barker : Tournaments. Jousts, Chivalry and Pageantry in the Middle Ages. Boydell Press, Woodbridge 1989, ISBN 0-85115-470-0 .
- Björn Böhling: Medieval knight tournaments, representation of the development of European tournaments in the high and late Middle Ages. GRIN, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-638-68865-9 .
- Joachim Bumke : Court culture. Literature and Society in the High Middle Ages (= dtv. 4442). 2 volumes. 3. Edition. Deutscher Taschbuchverlag, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-423-04442-X .
- Peter Czerwinski: The battle and tournament representations in the German courtly novels of the 12th and 13th centuries. For the literary processing of military forms of the aristocratic monopoly of force. Berlin 1975, (Berlin, Free University, dissertation, 1975).
- Josef Fleckenstein (Ed.): The knightly tournament in the Middle Ages. Contributions to a comparative history of forms and behavior in chivalry (= publications by the Max Planck Institute for History. 80). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1985, ISBN 3-525-35396-0 .
- Alexander von Gleichen-Rußwurm : The Knight's Mirror. History of the noble world in the Romanesque Middle Ages. Hoffmann, Stuttgart 1918.
- Volker Honemann (Ed.): German narrative literature of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Studies presented to Roy Wisbey on his sixty-fifth birthday. Niemeyer, Tübingen 1994, ISBN 3-484-10219-5 .
- Peter Jezler , Peter Niederhäuser, Elke Jezler (eds.): Knight tournament. History of a festival culture. (Book accompanying the exhibition “Knight's Tournament - History of a Festival Culture”, Museum zu Allerheiligen, Schaffhausen). Quaternio, Lucerne 2014, ISBN 978-3-905924-23-7 .
- Werner Paravicini : The knightly courtly culture of the Middle Ages (= encyclopedia of German history. 32). 2nd Edition. Oldenbourg, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-486-55009-8 .
- Ursula Peters : Women's Service. Studies on Ulrich von Lichtenstein and the reality content of the Minne poetry (= Göppingen works on German studies. 46). Kümmerle, Göppingen 1971, (also: Berlin, Free University, dissertation, 1970).
- Andreas Schlunk, Robert Giersch: The knights. History, culture, everyday life. (Book accompanying the exhibition "The Knights" in the Historisches Museum der Pfalz Speyer). Theiss, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-8062-1791-2 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Björn Böhling: Knight tournaments in the Middle Ages. 3.2.2. Reactions of the Church and the Monarchy to tournaments.
- ↑ Medieval Sourcebook: Statuta Armorum (The Statutes of Arms), c. 1260. Another version by David Crouch: Tournament. Hambledon and London, London et al. 2005, ISBN 1-85285-460-X , p. 201.
- ↑ Joachim Ehlers : The knights. History and culture (= Beck series. 2392). Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-50892-8 , p. 82 ff.
- ↑ Duden. Etymology. Dictionary of origin of the German language (= Der große Duden. 7). Bibliographisches Institut, Mannheim 1963, p. 278.
- ^ International Jousting League , accessed May 6, 2012
- ↑ German Tjostvereinigung , accessed 6 May 2012