Hey Blog! Last Sunday I went up to the village of Bolsover to visit the castle, and witness the knight’s tournament just outside!
Bolsover Castle is an English Heritage site. The castle you can see today is 16th Century, built by the Cavendish family just before the English Civil War, so if you were hoping for an ancient mediaeval fortress you aren’t quite right. More like elaborate tapestry hangings, painted ceilings, and a dressage arena – the same man who built the house also invented this horse display skill. However, there was a castle built there in the mediaeval times, most likely complete with swords, bows, lances, siege engines and the rest. You can clearly see why they chose the site the moment you come up to the wall behind the “little castle” – you can see for miles! Certainly enough to see any army that seems like wanting to attack your stronghold, at least. We had been round the castle bits before, with a home-ed group, but on Sunday, there was a special event going on just outside the wall. The first thing we saw when we came in was a stilt walking jester, juggling clubs. Yeah, I know, I couldn’t do that, but wait until you hear the next bit!
Inside the gates were a number of tents, set up to the right, with a fence dividing the tournament and fighting arena on the left from the public area. We went to the excellent café and I had a hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows (totally unrelated to mediaeval history, as they didn’t have squirty cream out of a can then and cocoa beans weren’t brought over to Europe until the fifteen hundreds!). Next we went to the numerous tents full of weapons and armour which you could try on and handle. The armour certainly didn’t fit, but then I don’t suppose children aged 12 went into battle in full armour unless they were in the royal family! The weapons tent was a lot more interesting – I went in and the person guarding it to make sure some child didn’t come wandering in and then terrorise everyone by hacking at them with a massive great big sword in there said, “Pick a sword, and I’ll tell you what it is and why it was used.” Perfect! The one I chose was a hand-and-a-half sword, one where you are meant to fight with one hand and a shield, but can throw away the shield and use your second hand if needed. Here are some photos of me with the sword:
The first contest in the tournament was archery. There were four teams in the tournament: blue, red, green and gold. The squires shot for their knights in archery, and the blue team won. Then everybody moved off through the red doors into the castle and watched the jester, who turned out to be a fire-eater as well… That was crazy. He not only ate it, he also drank some flammable liquid, and then blew it out over the flames, and it went up in a huge cloud of fire. I don’t wish I could do that, as it probably tastes disgusting!
After a good half hour of fire eating and fire breathing, the show finished and we could go back to the tournament field and have our picnic while waiting for the next contest to start. This was sword-fighting in duals, where you made the opponent fall or lose his sword. Then you had to call out for the defeated to yield, and when he did, you had a victory. Back through the red doors again, and apparently the jester/fire-eater/stilt-walker/juggler/fire-breather is also a comedian, as he put on the funniest and craziest show that included making a tin of baked beans vanish by eating it, unicycling, fire-breathing standing on your head, and a lot more. Then came the first part of a falconry display, with a barn owl, lanner falcon, and Harris Hawk.
The third part of the tournament turned out to be another series of duals, first where each of the knights fought another over a bar, trying to hit the other’s head, then the same but with three lives each before one goes down. These lives were designated by feathered crests, and when all had been toppled the knight was ‘crestfallen’. Did you hear that penny drop?! Crestfallen means disappointed, and so knights are when they are ‘crestfallen’. The green team won this round. The second part of the falconry was with a goshawk, second Harris Hawk, dog (to drive out prey for the hawk to catch) and the best of the lot – a Gyrfalcon, a King’s status hawking bird. They are white with black specks, and look beautiful – a kind of fiercer hunting Hedwig!
The final part of the knight’s tournament was the grand melée, the free-for-all where knights and squires fought their opponents to win the tournament. The gold team won this, and the prize sword, making them the winners of the tournament. The red team’s squire, however, was knighted by the knight marshal, appointed to keep order over the knights. All in all, it was an awesome day, full of history and fighting and comedy; the only possible trouble being I wasn’t allowed to keep that nice big sword…!