Research Results For 'Oak'

ADULTERATION

Adulteration is a term not only applied in its proper sense to the fraudulent mixture of articles of commerce, food, drink, drugs, seeds, etc, with noxious or inferior ingredients, but also by magistrates and analysts to accidental impurity, and even in some cases to actual substitution.

The chief objects of adulteration are to increase the weight or volume of the article, to give a colour which either makes a good article more pleasing to the eye or else disguises an inferior one, to substitute a cheaper form of the article, or the same substance from which the strength has been extracted, or to give it a false strength.

Among the adulterations which were commonly practised around 1905 for the purpose of fraudulently increasing the weight or volume of an article are the following: Bread was adulterated with alum or sulphate of copper, which gives solidity to the gluten of damaged or inferior flour; with chalk or carbonate of soda to correct the acidity of such flour; and with boiled rice or potatoes, which enables the bread to carry more water, and thus to produce a larger number of loaves from a given quantity of flour. Wheat flour is adulterated with other inferior flours, as the flour from rice, bean, Indian-corn, potato, and with sulphate of lime, alum, etc. Milk was usually adulterated with water. The adulterations generally present in butter consisted of an undue proportion of salt and water, lard, tallow, and other fats; when of poor quality it was frequently coloured with a little annatto, and, at times, with the juice of carrots. Genuine butter should not contain less than 80 percent of butter-fat. Cheese was also coloured with annatto and other substances. Tea was adulterated chiefly in China with sand, iron-filings, chalk, gypsum, China clay, exhausted tea leaves, and the leaves of the sycamore, horse-chestnut, and plum, whilst colour and weight were added by black-lead, indigo, Prussian-blue (one of the deleterious ingredients used by the Chinese in converting the lowest qualities of black into green teas), gum, turmeric, soapstone, catechu, and other substances.

Coffee was mingled with chicory, roasted wheat, roasted beans, acorns, mangel-wurzel, rye-flour, and coloured with burned sugar and other materials. Chicory was adulterated with different flours, as rye, wheat, beans, etc, and coloured with ferruginous earths, burned sugar, Venetian red, etc. Cocoa and chocolate were mixed with the cheaper kinds of arrow-root, animal matter, corn, sago, tapioca, etc. Sugar was adulterated to some extent with flour. Tobacco was mixed with sugar and treacle, aloes, liquorice, oil, alum, etc, and such leaves as rhubarb, chicory, cabbage, burdock, coltsfoot, besides excess of salt and water. Snuffs were adulterated with carbonate of ammonia, glass, sand, colouring matter, etc.

Confections were adulterated with flour and sulphate of lime. Preserved vegetables were kept green and poisoned by salts of copper. The acridity of mustard is commonly reduced by flour, and the colour of the compound is improved by turmeric. Pepper was adulterated with linseed-meal, flour, mustard husks, etc. Colour was given to pickles by salts of copper, acetate of copper, etc. Ale was adulterated with common salt, Cocculus Indicus, grains of paradise, quassia, and other bitters, sulphate of iron, alum, etc. Porter and stout were mixed with sugar, treacle, salt, and an excess of water. Brandy was diluted with water, and burned sugar was added to improve the colour; sometimes bad whisky was flavoured and coloured so as to resemble brandy, and sold under its name.

Gin was mixed with excess of water, and flavouring matters of various kinds, with alum and tartar, were added. Rum was diluted with water, and the flavour and colour kept up by the addition of cayenne and burned sugar. For champagne gooseberry and other inferior wines were often substituted. Port was manufactured from red Cape and other inferior wines, the body, flavour, strength, and colour being produced by gum-dragon, the washings of brandy casks, and a preparation of German bilberries. Cheap brown sherry was mixed with Cape and other low-priced brandies, and was flavoured with the washings of brandy casks, sugar-candy, and bitter almonds. Pale sherries were produced by gypsum, by a process called plastering, which removes the natural acids as well as the colour of the wine. Other wines were adulterated with elderberry, logwood, Brazil-wood, cudbear, red beetroot, etc, for colour; with lime or carbonate of lime, carbonate of soda, carbonate of potash, and litharge, to correct acidity; with catechu, sloe-leaves, and oak-bark for astringency; with sulphate of lime and alum for removing colour; with cane-sugar for giving sweetness and body; with alcohol for fortifying; and with ether, especially acetic ether, for giving bouquet and flavour.

Medicines, such as jalap, opium, rhubarb, cinchona bark, scammony, aloes, sarsaparilla, squills, etc, were mixed with various foreign substances. Castor-oil has been adulterated with other oils; and inferior oils were often. mixed with cod-liver oil. Cantharides were often mixed with golden-beetle and also artificially-coloured glass.

The adulteration of seeds was largely practised also, the seed which forms the adulterant being of course of the most worthless kind that can be had. Thus turnip-seed was mixed with rape, wild mustard, or charlock, which are steamed and kiln-dried to destroy their vitality, so as to evade detection in the progress of growth; old and useless turnip-seed was also used fraudulently mixed with fresh seeds. Clover was also much mixed with plantain and mere weeds.

Acts against adulteration have been passed in various countries and at various times. In Britain there was a law against it as early as 1267.
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AGRICULTURE

Agriculture is the art of cultivating the ground, more especially with the plough and in large areas or fields, in order to raise grain and other crops for man and beast; including the art of preparing the soil, sowing and planting seeds, removing the crops, and also the raising and feeding of cattle or other live stock. This art is the basis of all other arts, and in all countries coeval with the first dawn of civilization. At how remote a period it must have been successfully practised in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China we have no means of knowing, but archaeologists have found evidence of agriculture being practised around 7000 BC. Egypt was renowned as a corn country in the time of the Jewish patriarchs, who themselves were keepers of flocks and herds rather than tillers of the soil. Naturally very little is known of the methods and details of agriculture in early times, though field archaeologists at Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire have been conducting experiments for some years.

Among the ancient Greeks the implements of agriculture were very few and simple. Hesiod, who wrote a poem on agriculture as early as the eighth century BC, mentions a plough consisting of three parts, the share-beam, the draught-pole, and the plough-tail, but antiquarians are not agreed as to its exact form. The ground received three ploughings, one in autumn, another in spring, and a third immediately before sowing the seed. Manures were applied, and the advantage of mixing soils, as sand with clay or clay with sand, was understood. Seed was sown by hand, and covered with a rake. Grain was reaped with a sickle, bound in sheaves, thrashed, then winnowed by wind, laid in chests, bins, or granaries, and taken out as wanted by the family, to be ground.

Agriculture was highly esteemed among the ancient Romans. Cato, the censor, who was celebrated as a statesman, orator, and general, derived his highest honours from having written a voluminous work on agriculture. In his Georgics Virgil has thought the subject of agriculture worthy of being treated in the most graceful and harmonious verse. The Romans used a great many different implements of agriculture. The plough is represented by Cato as of two kinds, one for strong, the other for light soils. Yarro mentions one with two mould-boards, with which, he says, 'when they plough, after sowing the seed, they are said to ridge'. Pliny mentions a plough with one mould-board, and others with a coulter, of which he says there were many kinds. Fallowing was a practice rarely deviated from by the Romans. In most cases a fallow and a year's crop succeeded each other. Manure was collected from nearly or quite as many sources as have been resorted to by the moderns. Irrigation on a large scale was applied both to arable and grass lands.

The Romans introduced their agricultural knowledge among the Britons, though it is known that the Britons were already practising agriculture, and during the most flourishing period of the Roman occupation large quantities of corn were exported from Britain to the Continent. During the time that the Angles and Saxons were extending their conquests over the country agriculture may have been neglected; but afterwards it was practised with some success among the Anglo-Saxon population, especially, as was generally the case during the middle ages, on lands belonging to the church. Swine formed at this time a most important portion of the live stock, finding plenty of oak and beech mast to eat.

The feudal system introduced by the Normans, though beneficial in some respects as tending to ensure the personal security of individuals, operated powerfully against progress in agricultural improvements. War and the chase, the two ancient and deadliest foes of husbandry, formed the most prominent occupations of the Norman princes and nobles. Thriving villages and smiling fields were converted into deer forests, vexatious imposts were laid on the farmers, and the serfs had no interest in the cultivation of the soil. But the monks of every monastery retained such of their lands as they could most conveniently take charge of, and these they cultivated with great care, under their own inspection, and frequently with their own hands. The various operations of husbandry, such as manuring, ploughing, sowing, harrowing, reaping, thrashing, winnowing, etc, are incidentally mentioned by the writers of those days; but it is impossible to collect from them a definite account of the manner in which those operations were performed.

The first English treatise on husbandry and the best of the early works on the subject was published in the reign of Henry VIII in 1534, by Sir A Fitzherbert, judge of the Common Pleas. It is entitled the Book of Husbandry, and contains directions for draining, clearing, and inclosing a farm, for enriching the soil, and rendering it fit for tillage. Lime, marl, and fallowing are strongly recommended. The subject of agriculture attained some prominence during the reign of Elizabeth I. The principal writers of that period were Tusser, Googe, and Sir Hugh Platt. Tusser's Five Hundredth Points of Good Husbandry (first complete edition published in 1580) conveys much useful instruction in metre, but few works of this time contain much that is original or valuable.

The first half of the seventeenth century produced no systematic work on agriculture, though several on different branches of the subject. About 1645 the field cultivation of red clover was introduced into England, the merit of this improvement being due to Sir Richard Weston, author of a Discourse on the Husbandry of Brabant and Flanders. The Dutch had devoted much attention to the improvement of winter roots, and also to the cultivation of clover and other artificial grasses, and the farmers and proprietors of England soon saw the advantages to be derived from their introduction. The cultivation of clover soon spread, and Sir Richard Weston seems also to have introduced turnips. Potatoes had been introduced during the latter part of the sixteenth century, but were not for long in general cultivation. A number of writers on agriculture appeared in England during the Commonwealth, the most important works on the subject being Blythe's Improver Improved and Hartlib's Legacy. The former writer speaks of a rotation, or rather alternation of crops, and well knew the use of lime, as also of other manures. In the eighteenth century the first name of importance in British agriculture is that of Jethro Tull, a gentleman of Berkshire, who began to drill wheat and other crops about the year 1701, and whose Horse-hoeing Husbandry was published in 1731.

Jethro Tull was a great advocate of the system of sowing crops in rows or drills with an interval between every two or three rows wide enough to allow of ploughing or hoeing to be carried on. After the time of Jethro Tull's publication no great alteration in British agriculture took place, until Robert Bakewell and others effected some important improvements in the breeds of cattle, sheep, and swine, in the latter half of the eighteenth century. The raising and maintenance of live stock, especially of sheep, was a characteristic of English farming from a very early time, and for several centuries the country had almost a monopoly in the supply of wool. To Bakewell we owe the breed of Leicester sheep. By the end of the nineteenth century it was a common practice to alternate green crops with grain crops, instead of exhausting the land with a number of successive crops of corn. A well-known writer on agriculture at this period, and one who did a great deal of good in diffusing a knowledge of the subject, was Arthur Young.

Scotland was for a long time behind England in agricultural progress. Great progress was made during the eighteenth century, however, especially in the latter half of it, turnips being introduced as a field-crop, and new implements such as the swing-plough and the thrashing-machine coming into general use. The construction of good roads through the country also gave agriculture a great impulse. During the wars caused by the French revolution of 1795 to 1814 the high price of agricultural produce led to an extraordinary improvement in agriculture all over Britain. The establishment of the institution called the National Board of Agriculture was also of very great service to British husbandry at this period. Though a private association it was assisted by an annual parliamentary grant, and prizes were given by it for the encouragement of experiments and improvements in agriculture. It existed from 1793 to 1816.

Among other societies which have greatly furthered the progress of agriculture in Britain, the chief are the Royal Agricultural Society of England, established in 1838; the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, founded in 1783; and the Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland, instituted in 1841. The objects of these and similar societies were such as the following: to encourage the introduction of improvements in agriculture; to encourage the improvement of agricultural implements and farm buildings; the application of chemistry to agriculture; the destruction of insects injurious to vegetation; to promote the discovery and adoption of new varieties of grain, or other useful vegetables; to collect information regarding the management of woods, plantations, and fences; to improve the education of those supported by the cultivation of the soil; to improve the veterinary art; to improve the breeds of live stock, etc. Shows are held, at which prizes are distributed for live stock, implements, and farm produce.

Through the efforts of the above-mentioned and other societies, the investigations of scientific men, the general diffusion of knowledge among all classes, and the necessity of competing with producers in foreign countries, agriculture made vast strides in Britain during the nineteenth century. Among the chief improvements were deep ploughing and thorough draining By the introduction of new or improved implements the labour necessary to the carrying out of agricultural operations was greatly diminished, as by the steam thrashing-machine, the steam-plough, and the reaping-machine. The nineteenth century saw also the introduction of chemistry into agriculture in Britain. The organization of plants, the primary elements of which they are composed, the food on which they live, and the constituents of soils, were all investigated, and most important results obtained particularly with regard to manures and rotations. Artificial manures, in great variety to supply the elements wanted for plant growth, came into common use at the end of the nineteenth century, not only increasing the produce of lands previously cultivated, but extending the limits of cultivation itself. An improvement in all kinds of stock became more and more general, feeding was conducted on more scientific principles, and improved varieties of plants used as field crops were introduced at the same time. At the end of the nineteenth century was introduced the system of ensilage for preserving fodder in a green state. However, by the start of the 20th century writers were proclaiming that, chiefly owing to foreign competition, agriculture had become a very unprofitable industry in Britain.

It is only since the nineteenth century that much progress was made in perfecting implements and machinery for cultivating the soil, sowing seed, drilling, rolling, hoeing, reaping, digging, etc. The first application of steam to ploughing dates from 1770, when Richard Edgeworth took out a patent for a steam ploughing machine, but it was 1852 before such application proved of any economic value. As early as 1829 a reaping-machine was invented by the Reverend Mr. Bell of Carmylie, Forfarshire, which, in an improved form, was still in use at the start of the twentieth century when numerous mowing and reaping-machines of ingenious construction were also introduced, many of which not only cut down the grain, but also bind it up into sheaves. At the start of the twentieth century steam was extensively used as a motive power in thrashing, in chaff-cutting, turnip-slicing, and even in churning. Only to be replaced after the invention of the combustion engine with petrol-power. Mechanisation led to the enlargement of fields, with small fields being amalgamated by the destruction of separating hedgerows to enable mechanical tractors and other farm vehicles to operate efficiently. The effect upon wildlife in Britain was devastating, and public concern started to grow.

The Second World War revolutionized agriculture in Britain, and led to the development of intensive farming techniques known as 'factory farming' and new anonymous breeds of livestock being developed which mature very quickly. During the later half of the twentieth century the public in Britain rebelled against the inhumanity of intensive animal husbandry, typified by 'battery hens' in which thousands of hens are kept in individual tiny cages within massive warehouses, unable to stretch let alone move around, and free-range or more traditional animal husbandry started to reappear in commercial agriculture.

The twentieth century also saw the wide scale introduction of chemical fertilizers and insecticides, many of which were harmful to the consumers and from a public backlash emerged a return to traditional farming, known as organic farming.
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CHRISTMAS

Christmas is the Christian celebration of the birth of their saviour, Jesus Christ. The festival we now call Christmas was adopted from earlier pagan winter solstice celebrations celebrating the sun, including the Roman festival of Saturnalia celebrated from December the 17th to the 24th; Celtic Yuletide which was a twelve-day long festival of feasting around November/December; the Roman New Year celebrated on January the first when lights and greenery were used to decorate houses in celebration of the birth of the undying sun, and presents were given to children and the poor. Other elements of modern Christmas celebrations are also adopted from earlier pagan celebrations: the Christmas tree as a fir tree originates with the Oak tree that was sacred to Odin in Norse and Germanic tradition, and which was replaced by the fir tree declared to be sacred to Jesus by St Boniface in Germany in the 8th century. Mistletoe and holly were sacred to the Druids who used them as decorations in their winter solstice celebrations to the sun around mid-December.

Christmas was first celebrated around the 2nd century on two dates depending upon church; the Roman catholic church adopting December the 25th and some other churches adopting January the 6th which around the 5th century became Epiphany. Christmas day was officially transferred to the 25th of December by Julius I, who died in 352. The Puritans suppressed Christmas celebrations in Britain and America on the justifiable grounds of their pagan origins, however since the 18th century when the first Christmas cards were produced by the company of Goodall of London in 1862, peoples of many cultures, including Jews have celebrated Christmas in a variety of religious, pagan and other ways, with today the Jehova's Witnesses being the only major Christian objectors to the celebration of Christmas - on the perfectly correct grounds that it is a pagan festival, and the irrefutable evidence suggests that Jesus was not born on December the 25th or even in the month of December.

Complaints about the commercialisation of Christmas are not new. In the 19th century Charles Dickens character 'Ebeneazer Scrooge' in the novel 'A Christmas Carol' complains that Christmas is a 'humbug' or in other words a con or a rip off, a sentiment widely echoed by shoppers in Britain at the end of the 20th century.
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CIVIC CROWN

The civic crown was the highest military reward among the Romans, and was assigned to people who had saved the life of a citizen. The civic crown bore the inscription '0b civem servatum' that is, 'for saving a citizen,' and was made of oak leaves. The person who received the crown wore it in the theatre, and sat next the senators, and when he came in all the assembly rose up as a mark of respect.
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COPPICE

A Coppice, or copse is a wood in which the trees are cut over periodically as they attain a certain size. In Britain many forest trees, and in particular the oak, the chestnut, the ash, the birch, and the maple, are dealt with in this way. The period for cutting varies with the soil and the tree. The oak usually requires from fifteen to twenty-five years' growth, while the willow is cut regularly every year. The term ia also used in a general sense for a wood of small growth, or consisting of underwood and brushwood.
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CORK

Cork is the external bark of a species of oak (Quercus suber) which grows in Spain, Portugal, and other southern parts of Europe and in the north of Africa, and is distinguished by the great thickness and sponginess of its bark, and by the leaves being evergreen, rectangular, somewhat oval, downy underneath, and waved. The outer bark falls off of itself if left alone, but for commercial purposes it is stripped off when judged sufficiently matured, this being when the tree has reached the age of from fifteen to thirty years. The first stripping yields the coarsest kind of bark. In the course of eight or nine years, or even less, the same tree will yield another supply of cork of better quality, and the removal of this outer bark is said to be beneficial, the trees thus stripped reaching the age of 150 years or more. The bark is removed by a kind of axe, parallel cuts being carried round the tree transversely and united by others in a longitudinal direction, so as to produce rectangular sheets of bark. These vary in thickness between 2 mm and 7 mm. Care must be taken not to cut into the inner bark, or the tree would be killed. The pieces of cork are flattened out by heat or by weights, and are slightly charred on the surface to close the pores.

Cork is light, elastic, impervious to water, and by pressure can be greatly reduced in bulk, returning again to its original size. These qualities render it peculiarly serviceable for the stopping of vessels of different kinds, and formerly for floats, buoys, swimming-belts or jackets, artificial limbs, etc. Corks for bottles are cut either by hand or by means of a machine. The best corks are cut across the grain.
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FAIRLOP OAK

The Fairlop Oak was a 500 year old oak tree with a trunk fourteen metres in circumference in Hainault forest, Essex. Beneath its branches an annual fair was long held on the first Friday in July. It was blown down in 1820.
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GERMAN TINDER

German Tinder, or amadou is prepared from the Boletus fomentarius, a fungus growing on the oak, birch, and some other trees, or from the Boletus igniarius found on the willow, cherry, plum, and other trees. The fungus is removed with a sharp knife, washed, boiled in a strong solution of saltpetre, beaten with a mallet, and dried. In surgery it was sometimes used to stop local bleeding.
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OAK-APPLE DAY

Oak-apple Day, on May the 29th, is the anniversary of the Restoration in 1660, and was formerly commemorated by the wearing of oak apples or oak leaves, recalling the Boscobel oak in which Charles II hid after the battle of Worcester.
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TOURNAMENT

A tournament was originally an exhibition of combat between mounted men. Named from the tournament, or quick turning of the horses, it appeared in Europe in the 11th century, and quickly grew in popularity, both in France and England, where, in the reign of Henry II, it became necessary to prohibit tournaments owing to extravagant indulgence in them by the younger nobility. Later, tournaments were allowed to be held under royal licence, und a classic account of one in the time of Richard I is given in the book Ivanhoe, in which the customs and rules of such assemblies are graphically indicated. Froissart is also a mine of information regarding tournaments.

The essential feature of a tournament was the single combat of knight with knight, each striving to unhorse or incapacitate his opponent, the usual weapon being the lance. Sometimes, however, one body of knights fought against another body. They took place on most occasions of rejoicing.

Participation in tournaments was usually reserved for those of noble birth, and about the end of the 13th century a new set of rules was embodied in a statute of arms for tournaments, which laid down, among other provisions, that disputes arising out of a tournament were to be settled by a court of honour composed of princes and earls. By the 16th century the tournament had degenerated until it was merely a form of pageant. The term is now applied to many kinds of athletic contests.

In the 18th century novel Ivanhoe, the author, Walter Scott describes the arena and audience of a fictional 12th century tournament as follows:

On the verge of a wood, which approached to within a mile of the town of Ashby, was an extensive meadow, of the finest and most beautiful green turf, surrounded on one side by the forest, and fringed on the other by straggling oak-trees, some of which had grown to an immense size. The ground, as if fashioned on purpose for the martial display which was intended, sloped gradually down on all sides to a level bottom, which was enclosed for the lists with strong palisades, forming a space of a quarter of a mile in length, and about half as broad. The form of the enclosure was an oblong square, save that the corners were considerably rounded off, in order to afford more convenience for the spectators. The openings for the entry of the combatants were at the northern and southern extremities of the lists, accessible by strong wooden gates, each wide enough to admit two horsemen riding abreast. At each of these portals were stationed two heralds, attended by six trumpets, as many pursuivants, and a strong body of men-at-arms for maintaining order, and ascertaining the quality of the knights who proposed to engage in this martial game.

On a platform beyond the southern entrance, formed by a natural elevation of the ground, were pitched five magnificent pavilions, adorned with pennons of russet and black, the chosen colours of the five knights challengers. The cords of the tents were of the same colour. Before each pavilion was suspended the shield of the knight by whom it was occupied, and beside it stood his squire, quaintly disguised as a salvage or silvan man, or in some other fantastic dress, according to the taste of his master, and the character he was pleased to assume during the game. The central pavilion, as the place of honour, had been assigned to Brian be Bois-Guilbert, whose renown in all games of chivalry, no less than his connexions with the knights who had undertaken this Passage of Arms, had occasioned him to be eagerly received into the company of the challengers, and even adopted as their chief and leader, though he had so recently joined them. On one side of his tent were pitched those of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf and Richard de Malvoisin, and on the other was the pavilion of Hugh de Grantmesnil, a noble baron in the vicinity, whose ancestor had been Lord High Steward of England in the time of the Conqueror, and his son William Rufus. Ralph de Vipont, a knight of St John of Jerusalem, who had some ancient possessions at a place called Heather, near Ashby-de-la-Zouche, occupied the fifth pavilion. From the entrance into the lists, a gently sloping passage, ten yards in breadth, led up to the platform on which the tents were pitched. It was strongly secured by a palisade on each side, as was the esplanade in front of the pavilions, and the whole was guarded by men-at-arms. The northern access to the lists terminated in a similar entrance of thirty feet in breadth, at the extremity of which was a large enclosed space for such knights as might be disposed to enter the lists with the challengers, behind which were placed tents containing refreshments of every kind for their
tion, with armourers, tarriers, and other attendants, in readiness to give their services wherever they might be necessary.

The exterior of the lists was in part occupied by temporary galleries, spread with tapestry and carpets, and accommodated with cushions for the convenience of those ladies and nobles who were expected to attend the tournament. A narrow space, betwixt these galleries and the lists, gave accommodation for yeomanry and spectators of a better degree than the mere vulgar, and might be compared to the pit of a theatre. The promiscuous multitude arranged themselves upon large banks of turf prepared for the purpose, which, aided by the natural elevation of the ground, enabled them to overlook the galleries, and obtain a fair view into the lists. Besides the accommodation which these stations afforded, many hundreds had perched themselves on the branches of the trees which surrounded the meadow; and even the steeple of a country church, at some distance, was crowded with spectators.

It only remains to notice respecting the general arrangement, that one gallery in the very centre of the eastern side of the lists, and consequently exactly opposite to the spot where the shock of the combat was to take place, was raised higher than the others, more richly decorated, and graced by a sort of throne and canopy, on which the royal arms were emblazoned. Squires, pages, and yeomen in rich liveries, waited around this place of honour, which was designed for Prince John and his attendants. Opposite to this royal gallery was another, elevated to the same height, on the western side of the lists; and more gaily, if less sumptuously decorated, than that destined for the Prince himself. A train of pages and of young maidens, the most beautiful who could be selected, gaily dressed in fancy habits of green and pink, surrounded a throne decorated in the same colours. Among pennons and flags bearing wounded hearts, burning hearts, bleeding hearts, bows and quivers, and all the commonplace emblems of the triumphs of Cupid, a blazoned inscription informed the spectators, that this seat of honour was designed for 'La Royne de las Beaulte et des Amours'. But who was to represent the Queen of Beauty and of Love on the present occasion no one was prepared to guess.

Meanwhile, spectators of every description thronged forward to occupy their respective stations, and not without many quarrels concerning those which they were entitled to hold. Some of these were settled by the men-at-arms with brief ceremony; the shafts of their battle-axes, and pummels of their swords, being readily employed as arguments to convince the more refractory. Others, which involved the rival claims of more elevated persons, were determined by the heralds, or by the two marshals of the field, William de Wyvil, and Stephen de Martival, who, armed at all points, rode up and down the lists to enforce and preserve good order among the spectators.

Gradually the galleries became filled with knights and nobles, in their robes of peace, whose long and rich-tinted mantles were contrasted with the gayer and more splendid habits of the ladies, who, in a greater proportion than even the men themselves, thronged to witness a sport, which one would have thought too bloody and dangerous to afford their sex much pleasure. The lower and interior space was soon filled by substantial yeomen and burghers, and such of the lesser gentry, as, from modesty, poverty, or dubious title, durst not assume any higher place. It was of course amongst these that the most frequent disputes for precedence occurred.

Walter Scott goes on to describe the rules of the tournament, which he says were imparted to the audience by the monarch:

First, the five challengers were to undertake all comers.

Secondly, any knight proposing to combat, might, if he pleased, select a special antagonist from among the challengers, by touching his shield. If he did so with the reverse of his lance, the trial of skill was made with what were called the arms of courtesy, that is, with lances at whose extremity a piece of round flat board was fixed, so that no danger was encountered, save from the shock of the horses and riders. But if the shield was touched with the sharp end of the lance, the combat was understood to be at 'outrance', that is, the knights were to fight with sharp weapons, as in actual battle.

Thirdly, when the knights present had accomplished their vow, by each of them breaking five lances, the Prince was to declare the victor in the first day's tourney, who should receive as prize a warhorse of exquisite beauty and matchless strength; and in addition to this reward of valour, it was now declared, he should have the peculiar honour of naming the Queen of Love and Beauty, by whom the prize should be given on the ensuing day.

Fourthly, it was announced, that, on the second day, there should be a general tournament, in which all the knights present, who were desirous to win praise, might take part; and being divided into two bands of equal numbers, might fight it out manfully, until the signal was given by Prince John to cease the combat. The elected Queen of Love and Beauty was then to crown the knight whom the Prince should adjudge to have borne himself best in this second day, with a coronet composed of thin gold plate, cut into the shape of a laurel crown. On this second day the knightly games ceased. But on that which was to follow, feats of archery, of bull-baiting, and other popular amusements, were to be practised, for the more immediate amusement of the populace.

Walter Scott describes a jousting combat between the champions of the same tournament thus:

At the flourish of clarions and trumpets, they started out against each other at full gallop; and such was the superior dexterity or good fortune of the challengers, that those opposed to Bois-Guilbert, Malvoisin, and Front-de-Boeuf, rolled on the ground. The antagonist of Grantmesnil, instead of bearing his lance-point fair against the crest or the shield of his enemy, swerved so much from the direct line as to break the weapon athwart the person of his opponent - a circumstance which was accounted more disgraceful than that of being actually unhorsed; because the latter might happen from accident, whereas the former evinced awkwardness and want of management of the weapon and of the horse. The fifth knight alone maintained the honour of his party, and parted fairly with the Knight of St John, both splintering their lances without advantage on either side.

The shouts of the multitude, together with the acclamations of the heralds, and the clangour of the trumpets, announced the triumph of the victors and the defeat of the vanquished. The former retreated to their pavilions, and the latter, gathering themselves up as they could, withdrew from the lists in disgrace and dejection, to agree with their victors concerning the redemption of their arms and their horses, which, according to the laws of the tournament, they had forfeited. The fifth of their number alone tarried in the lists long enough to be greeted by the applauses of the spectators, amongst whom he retreated, to the aggravation, doubtless, of his companions' mortification.

During intervals of the tournament it appears that heralds inspired the contestants and audience by announcements and chants inspiring chivalry and bravery such as:
'Love of ladies, splintering of lances! stand forth gallant knights, fair eyes look upon your deeds!'
Research Tournament

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