Old English Sports, Pastimes and Customs

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urs who flocked to see these gallant feats of arms. Tournaments were fights in miniature, in which the combatants fought simply to exhibit their strength and prowess. There was a great deal of pomp and ceremony attached to them. The lists, as the barriers were called which inclosed the scene of combat, were superbly decorated, and surrounded by pavilions belonging to the champions, ornamented with their arms and banners. The seats reserved for the noble ladies and gentlemen who came to see the fight were hung with tapestry embroidered with gold and silver. Eve

the combatants, who were each armed with a pointless sword and a truncheon hanging from their saddles. When the word was given by the lord of the tournament, the cords were removed, and the champions charged and fought until the heralds sounded the signal to retire. It was considered the greatest disgrace to be unhorsed. A French ear

ere commonly used, and the object of the sport was to ride hard against one's adversary and strike him with the spear upon the front of the helmet, so as to beat him backwards from his horse, or break the spear. You will gather from these descriptions that this kind of sport was somewhat dangerous, and that men sometimes lost their lives

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were usually held in honour of the ladies, who received as their right the respect and devotion of all true knights. This respect for women had a softening and ennobling influence, which was of great value in times when such influences we

sports, and appointed five places for the holding of tournaments in England, namely, at some place between Salisbury and Wilton, between Warwick and Kenilworth, between Stamford and Wallingford, between Brackley and Mixbury, and between Blie and Tykehill. But in almost every part of England tournaments or jousts have been held, and scenes enacted such as I

m, a writer in the sixteenth century, tells us what accomplishments were required from the complete English gentleman of the period. "To ride comely, to run fair at the tilt or ring, to play at all weapons, to shoot fair in bow, or surely in gun; to vault lustily, to run, to leap, to wrestle, to swim, to dance comely, to sing, and play of instruments cunningly; t

ere not thought to be so by those who listened to them. The Mystery play only lasted one day, and consisted of one subject, such as The Conversion of St. Paul. Noah and the Flood was a very popular piece. His wife is represented as being much opposed to the perilous voyage in the ark, and abuses Noah very severely for compelling her to go. Sometimes the authors thought it necessary to introduce a comic character to enliven the dullness of the performance. But, in spite of humorous demons, these mysteries ceased to attract, and plays called Moralities were introduced, in which the actors assumed the parts of personified virtues, &c., and you might have heard "Faith" preaching to "Prudence," or "Death" lecturing "Beauty" and "Pride." The first miracle play performed in England was that of St. Catherine, which was acted at Dunstable, 1110 A.D.; and another early piece was the play called The Image of St. Nicholas. These were of a religious nature and were per

ular pieces composed of comic stories, jokes, and dialogues, interspersed with dancing and tumbling. The whole per

ormation; but in Cornwall the people formed an earthen amphitheatre in some open field, and as the players did not learn their parts very well, a prompter used to follow them about with a book an

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ildish to a modern audience, but they helped to enliven an

less, and the stories of Greek and Roman mythology were ransacked to provide scenes and subjects for the rural pageant. All this must have afforded immense amusement and interest to the country-folk in the neighbourhood of some lord's castle, when the king or queen was expected to sojour

favourite tree of the disappointed lover. The pageant founded on this old classical legend commenced with a man, who acted the part of Apollo, chasing a woman, who represented Daphne, followed by a young shepherd bewailing his hard fate. He, too, loved the fair and beautiful Daphne, but Apollo wooed her with fair words

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rth. Apollo resigns her to the humble shepherd, and then she runs to her Majesty t

did not always think very highly of the performances of her subjects at Coventry, and was heard to exclaim, "What fools ye Coventry folk are!" but I think her Majesty must have been pleased at the concluding address of the players at Sudeley. After the shepherds had acted a piece in which the election of the King and Queen of the Bean formed a part, they knelt before the real Queen, and said, "Pardon, dread Sovereign, poor shepherds' pastimes, and bold shepherds' presumptions. We call ourselves kings and queens

castle could afford. For an account of the strange conduct of Orion and his dolphin upon this occasion, we refer our readers to Sir Walter Scott's Kenilworth, and the lover of pageants will find much to interest him in Gascoigne's Princely Progress. In many of the chief towns of England the members of the Guilds were obliged by their ordinances to have a pageant once every year, which was of a religiou