Mounted knight salute with lance

[janner]

I would add that few jousting helms had a visor, it would be more appropriate to that worn for the melee.

In terms of saluting, as mentioned, a knight gained victory in the joust by shattering their lance on their opponent. So, having handed the stump to their squire, they would more likely do a flourish with their right hand.

[Mark G]

Very good point.
The goal was to shatter your lance. Not to knock the other block off his horse.

[Erpingham]

Very good point.
The goal was to shatter your lance. Not to knock the other block off his horse.

This will depend on which set of rules Stephen chooses for his fictitious tournament.  Some score unhorsing, others just score lance breaking.  See for example Tiptoft's rules from the 15th century

http://www.thehojos.com/~stmikes/tiptoft.htm

I also found this when searching, which, if you can get past the gender studies element, says some interesting stuff on the Tudor joust.

https://www.academia.edu/8985081/Scoring_Masculinity_the_English_Tournament_and_the_Jousting_Cheques_of_the_early_Sixteenth_Century

[Patrick Waterson]

I also found this when searching, which, if you can get past the gender studies element, says some interesting stuff on the Tudor joust.

https://www.academia.edu/8985081/Scoring_Masculinity_the_English_Tournament_and_the_Jousting_Cheques_of_the_early_Sixteenth_Century

For those who cannot, key snippets are:

"Tournaments were well established by the early sixteenth century with conventions and rules governing how they should be organised and conducted. The joust was fought between two individuals, the knights riding from opposite ends of the lists to encounter each other with lances. The joust became a more formalised competition as rules were introduced, including score cheques and prizes. These prizes presented by the Queen and her ladies might include a falcon, a gold clasp, a gold crown or even a diamond ring. Score cheques showed the scores of each of the knights that took part. Points were awarded for unhorsing a knight, striking an opponent's helmet and breaking the most spears."

and

"Score cheques are the only class of record specifically created by the tournament in England. The scores were marked in strokes by a king of arms, on a scoring tablet, termed a cheque. The scoring board itself was in the form of a parallelogram; with three horizontal lines with the middle line showing the number of courses run (usually between two and eight). The attaints were noted on the top line and they were often differentiated as hits on the body or head, which had a different value in the table. The middle line inside the parallelogram represented the number of lances broken and the bottom line those ill broken. There are only half a dozen score cheques that survive from the reign of Henry VIII held in the College of Arms. The earliest surviving jousting cheques are those in Herald's College Manuscript M.3 recording the scores made at jousts held by Edward duke of Buckingham in honour of the marriage of Prince Arthur in 1501."

In essence, Tudor tournaments appear to have been more like modern fencing, in which the idea is to score valid hits on the opponent but not necessarily put him on the ground.  Arthurian horseback duelling as delineated in (e.g.) Malory was far more intent on putting the man down and on occasion involved impaling the horse (whether intentionally or not is unclear).  It also tended to involve both participants dismounting to continue on foot with swords if immediate ascendancy was not established by the lance.  One may note that these single combats were not tournaments as such (Arthurian tournaments tended to be a bit predictable as Lancelot would win anyway) but seem to have been the sort of encounter expected when one knight duelled another for honour, a lady's hand, who gets to cross the bridge, etc.

[Stephen Wendell]

Sorry it's taken me so long to reply, fellows. I seem to have missed the second page...

[Stephen Wendell]

In terms of saluting, as mentioned, a knight gained victory in the joust by shattering their lance on their opponent. So, having handed the stump to their squire, they would more likely do a flourish with their right hand.

Stephen panics... reaches for his author's license...

[Stephen Wendell]

Very good point.
The goal was to shatter your lance. Not to knock the other block off his horse.

This will depend on which set of rules Stephen chooses for his fictitious tournament.  Some score unhorsing, others just score lance breaking. 

Oof... Erpingham saves the day!

[Stephen Wendell]

In essence, Tudor tournaments appear to have been more like modern fencing, in which the idea is to score valid hits on the opponent but not necessarily put him on the ground.  Arthurian horseback duelling as delineated in (e.g.) Malory was far more intent on putting the man down and on occasion involved impaling the horse (whether intentionally or not is unclear).  It also tended to involve both participants dismounting to continue on foot with swords if immediate ascendancy was not established by the lance.  One may note that these single combats were not tournaments as such (Arthurian tournaments tended to be a bit predictable as Lancelot would win anyway) but seem to have been the sort of encounter expected when one knight duelled another for honour, a lady's hand, who gets to cross the bridge, etc.

And Patrick's closing paragraph tidies up.

Indeed, the story is Malory inspired and Lancelot wins anyway. It's darn near finished. I'll let you all know here when I post it.

As always, Ancients, I salute you!

[Jim Webster]

In essence, Tudor tournaments appear to have been more like modern fencing, in which the idea is to score valid hits on the opponent but not necessarily put him on the ground.  Arthurian horseback duelling as delineated in (e.g.) Malory was far more intent on putting the man down and on occasion involved impaling the horse (whether intentionally or not is unclear).  It also tended to involve both participants dismounting to continue on foot with swords if immediate ascendancy was not established by the lance.  One may note that these single combats were not tournaments as such (Arthurian tournaments tended to be a bit predictable as Lancelot would win anyway) but seem to have been the sort of encounter expected when one knight duelled another for honour, a lady's hand, who gets to cross the bridge, etc.

And Patrick's closing paragraph tidies up.

Indeed, the story is Malory inspired and Lancelot wins anyway. It's darn near finished. I'll let you all know here when I post it.

As always, Ancients, I salute you!

Over a two year period I fought through the entire Pendragon role playing campaign.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendragon_(role-playing_game)

Trust me in this, anybody who plays through the entire thing ends up loathing Lancelot with a passion. He's never there when there's proper fighting and he's always just that one little bit better than everybody else.
But is as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

[Patrick Waterson]

Having touched on Pendragon myself, Jim, I know what you mean - it seems Greg Stafford made a deliberate choice to keep Lancelot out of the players' way because otherwise in the early stages he would steal the show and make the players look and feel totally insignificant (which sort of happens from behind the scenes anyway) and in the later stages of Boy King some of the more capable player characters might upstage or even kill him, which would make a complete mess of the carefully contrived narrative.

Indeed, the story is Malory inspired and Lancelot wins anyway. It's darn near finished. I'll let you all know here when I post it.

I look forward to it.

[Jim Webster]

Having touched on Pendragon myself, Jim, I know what you mean - it seems Greg Stafford made a deliberate choice to keep Lancelot out of the players' way because otherwise in the early stages he would steal the show and make the players look and feel totally insignificant (which sort of happens from behind the scenes anyway) and in the later stages of Boy King some of the more capable player characters might upstage or even kill him, which would make a complete mess of the carefully contrived narrative.

Due to the fact that we went down the 'foedorate' route and some of our families had a lot of Saxon in them by the time the campaign ended we'd bred knights who were big enough to take on Lancelot 

[Patrick Waterson]

Impressive characters!  Acquiring an early Frisian destrier would also help to give an edge, as would a carefully built-up passion.  But nothing really beats the well-equipped hardened campaigner with some decent ancestry behind him.

[Jim Webster]

Impressive characters!  Acquiring an early Frisian destrier would also help to give an edge, as would a carefully built-up passion.  But nothing really beats the well-equipped hardened campaigner with some decent ancestry behind him.

By the time of the final battle between them, after Camlann, he had a passion of 'Hatred Lancelot' of 20 :-)

[Patrick Waterson]

By the time of the final battle between them, after Camlann, he had a passion of 'Hatred Lancelot' of 20 :-)

By all the gods (or the one true God), that must have taken some dedication!  Poor old Lancelot.

Changing the subject slightly, I worked out that the Pendragon system could, with very few adjustments, make quite a good Homeric period game.  Substitute Hurled Spear for Lance, Charioteer for Horsemanship and Hate (Greeks/Trojans) for Hate Saxons and with a few minor adjustments you are practically there.  The individual and group-in-battle combat systems transfer like a charm and about the only major social change is to get rid of courtly love and substitute abduction.

The system also fits WW1 fighter combat quite well, but that is another story.

[Jim Webster]

After Camlann he declared himself Bretwalda and the first Saxon overlord accepted over all of Britain 

After the battle when Lancelot wanders in bewailing the fact that he'd missed it, he was challenged to a duel, killed in fair combat, and then Guinevere was tried for adultery, found guilty and if memory serves me correctly, executed by being drowned in a marsh under a hurdle (which was at one point traditional)

But yes, it would translate easily enough to the heroic option.
I thought of re-running it from 408AD until the battle of Camlann but as historically as possible but it took two years last time!

Jim