Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/854

 824 TOURNAMENT TOURNAY With the institution of chivalry and knight- hood, however, the tournament lost many of its objectionable features ; and as an incentive to martial exploits and to a generous emula- tion in all knightly offices, it began during the period of the crusades to be tolerated, and eventually was encouraged in most countries of Christendom. The church, which had pro- hibited persons from engaging in tournaments on pain of excommunication, and had denied Christian burial to such as lost their lives in them, finally relaxed its opposition, and until the latter part of the 15th century the sport continued in full activity. It thenceforth be- came gradually transformed into a court pa- geant, often of the most magnificent and cost- ly description ; but the death of Henry II. of France of a wound received at a tournament in 1559 occasioned its abolition in all parts of Europe, although for nearly a century later it continued to be occasionally revived at court festivities. The decay of chivalry, the intro- duction of firearms, and the gradual disuse of defensive armor, together with the rise of the commercial spirit and the new civiliza- tion thereby extended over the world, were the real causes of its decline. Whatever may have been the nature of the combats in tour- naments at the origin of the practice, they soon became for the most part encounters be- tween mounted adversaries (whence the deri- vation of the term, as illustrative of the agil- ity required by the combatants in turning or managing their horses), who were knights or at least candidates for knighthood, as esquires or pages. A joust was, properly speaking, a combat between two knights, while the tour- nament included several jousts, or an encoun- ter of several knights on a side. In the course of time numerous regulations, having the au- thority of a code of laws, prescribed the man- ner in which tournaments should be conducted ; and, except where national pride or rivalry, or personal enmity, inflamed the combatants, no serious result was likely to happen. They were generally held at the invitation of some prince upon the birth or nuptials of royal persons, during royal progresses, or at high court festivals, and heralds were sent into the neighboring kingdoms to invite the knights to be present. These frequently came from dis- tant countries, attended by splendid retinues ; and on the appointed day the galleries encir- cling the lists, or level enclosed space in which the knights contended, were gay with banners and costly draperies and crowded with spec- tators, conspicuous among whom were the ladies, whose approving smiles were the re- wards most esteemed by the victors. In the flourishing period of tournaments two kinds of arms were employed, those made expressly for the purpose, consisting of lances with the points blunted or covered with pieces of wood, called rockets, and swords blunted or rebated ; and those ordinarily used in warfare, termed armes d entrance, which in many cases were not permitted by the judges of the tournament. The blows, whether of lance or sword, were required to be directed at the head and breast, and no combatant was permitted to strike an adversary after he had raised his visor, or to wound his horse. Each knight in attendance was obliged to prove his noble birth and rank, which were originally proclaimed by the her- alds with sound of trumpet ; whence the word blazonry, signifying the art of deciphering the heraldic devices on a coat of arms, from the German llasen, to blow. At a later period the emblazoned shields of the knights, suspended at the barriers or entrance of the lists, sufiiced to indicate their rank and family. If upon the accusation of any lady present the bravery or loyalty of a knight was impeached, he was ex- cluded by the heralds from the contest. The heralds having proclaimed the laws of the tour- nament, at the sound of the trumpet the whole body of knights, each with his attendant squire, entered the lists in a glittering cavalcade, dis- tinguishable only by their emblazoned shields or by the favors of their mistresses suspended from their crests, after which the martial ex- ercises of the tournament began. At the word of the heralds, Laissez-aller, the opposing com- batants rode at each other in full career, stri- ving to direct their lances fairly upon the hel- met or shield of their adversaries, that one being adjudged the victor who broke most spears " as they ought to be broken," who held his seat the longest, and who showed most en- durance in keeping his visor closed. Some- times dismounted knights encountered each other with swords or axes. The prizes were an- nounced by the judges, selected from the older knights, but were awarded by ladies. A favor- ite form of the tournament was the so-called pas- sage of arms, in which a party of knights, as- suming the office of challengers, offered combat to all who dared oppose them. Of this, as also of the melee or encounter of bodies of knights attended by their squires, a splendid description is given in Scott's " Ivanhoe." The later tour- naments were comparatively harmless. TOURNAY, or Tonrnai (Flem. Doorniclc), a town of Belgium, in the province of Hainault, on both banks of the Scheldt, 45 m. S. W. of Brussels ; pop. in 1870, 31,003. It has seven suburbs, fine streets and quays, a gymnasium, an episcopal seminary, an art academy, and many churches, including a cathedral with five towers and fine paintings. The church of St. Brice contains the tomb of Childeric I., and the "golden bees," supposed to have belonged to his royal robes, which Napoleon substituted for thefleurs de Us of the Bourbon vestments. Carpets, woollen cloths, hosiery, and linens are manufactured. Under the Romans Tournay was included in Gallia Belgica under the name of Turnacum or Tornacum. In the 5th and 6th centuries it was a residence of the Mero- vingian dynasty. It afterward successively belonged to Flanders and France. In 1520 it was annexed to the Spanish Netherlands, and,