2.4.1.1. Tournaments and Heraldry
- The high lords and ladies sit apart and watch the events (I: 246)
- In one sort of tilt, if three passes are ridden without result, the king can grant the victory to one or another according to such things as who sat the better horse or had the steadier lance (I: 247)
- Knights all wear cloaks (I: 247)
- The jousters are separated in the lists (I: 247)
- Killing someone's horse is seen as a disgrace, and forfeits a match (I: 249)
- Pageantry is spectacular at tourneys. Knights wear the finest plate, and cloaks and horse caparisons are sometimes sewn with flowers. Lances are painted or made of rare woods to suit the knight who uses it, and sometimes the points are gilded (I: 246, 249, 261. HK: 491, 493, 497)
- If a resultless tilt is even enough that the king cannot judge between them, both competitors may move on to new opponents (I: 249)
- Knights in tournaments display their shields outside of their tents. Particularly ostentatious shields might be enormous and made of iron (I: 257)
- Tourney lances are made to break (I: 263)
- Melees are fought with blunted weapons and are chaotic. Alliances form and break by turns, until one man is left standing. A tournament of forty men, knights and freeriders and squires, can last three hours. The number of injuries to both men and horse are many (I: 265)
- Knightly pavilions may be small or large, round or square, and made of sailcloth, linen, or silk according to wealth (THK: 463)
- According to the whims of the host, a tourney may be open only to knights (THK: 472)
- In many tournaments, defeated competitors must either pay a ransom or forfeit their armor and horse (THK: 472. II: 146)
- Tourney barriers might be whitewashed (THK: 478)
- Some tourneys have several men tilt at once, so lists with several lanes are not uncommon (THK: 478)
- In a typical tournament, the nobles and particularly wealthy townsfolk would sit in multi-tiered stands with a canopy to shield them from the sun. Most would sit on benches, but the hosting lord and other particular nobles would have seats for themselves (THK: 478, 490)
- One kind of tournament is called a hastilude (THK: 485)
- There are a dozen different forms of tourney. Some are mock battles between teams, others wild melees. Where single combats are the rule, pairs might be chosen by lot or perhaps by the master of the games (THK: 480)
- One form of tourney is thrown in honor of a noble lady, who reigns as Queen of Love and Beauty. Five champions wearing her favors would defend her, and all others would be challengers. If any man defeats a champion by making him yield or incapacitating him after tilting and then single combat, he takes his place until he himself is unseated. After three days of jousting the five remaining would determine who would wear the crown of Queen of Love and Beauty (THK: 480, 481, 492)
- In a tournament where challengers may choose their opponent, the right of first challenge goes to knights of high birth or great renown, lords and their heirs, and champions of past tourneys (THK: 489)
- Tourney lances 12 feet long, longer than war lances (THK: 491)
- Knights tend to wear elaborate crests on their helms for tournaments. They are made of carved wood or shaped leather, sometimes gilded and enamelled or made of pure silver (THK: 491, 495)
- The organization of tournaments to mark important occasions (such as namedays) might be handled by someone appointed as master of revels (II: 34)
- The High Septon may be involved in confirming the propriety of a marriage contract being broken if the parties are sufficiently important enough (II: 664)
- The Knight of the Laughing Tree was a mystery knight who appeared at the great tournament at Harrenhal, fighting for the honor a young Howland Reed of Greywater Watch (and may well have been Lord Howland himself). He won King Aerys's enmity (III: 279, 283)
- The great tourney at Harrenhal had five days of jousting planned, a great seven-sided melee in the old style fought between seven teams of knights, archery, axe-throwing, a horse race, a tourney of singers, a mummer show, and many feasts and frolics (III: 282, 485)
- Mystery knights often appear at tourneys, with helms concealing their faces and shields that were blank or bore some strange device. Sometimes they were famous champions in disguise (III: 282)
- In a tourney at Storm's End when he was young, Prince Rhaegar defeated Lord Steffon Baratheon, Lord Jason Mallister, the Red Viper of Dorne. He broke twelve lances against Ser Arthur Dayne that day, but lost to Ser Barristan of the Kingsguard in the final tilt (III: 485, 752. SSM: 1)
- It had been long years since King Aerys had last left the Red Keep when he went to Harrenhal for Lord Whent's tourney (III: 485)
- Tournaments might have contests for pages and squires, such as riding at rings (III: 493)
- The heraldic drawings and illuminations in the White Book are done by septons sent from the Great Sept of Baelor three times a year (III: 751)
- Barristan Selmy won the name of "the Bold" in his 10th year when he donned borrowed armor to appear as a mystery knight at a tourney in Blackhaven, where he was defeated and unmasked by Duncan, Prince of Dragonflies (III: 752)
- Barristan Selmy was knighted in his 16th year by King Aegon V Targaryen after performing great feats of prowess as a mystery knight in the winter tourney at King's Landing, defeating Prince Duncan the Small and Ser Duncan the Tall, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard (III: 752)
- Ser Barristan the Bold defended the passage against all challengers in the tourney of the Silver Bridge, won a melee at Maidenpool, defeated and unmasked the mystery knight Blackshield, revealed as the Bastard of Uplands, at the Oldtown tourney, wa sole champion of Lord Steffon Baratheon's tourney at Storm's End where he unhorsed Robert Baratheon, Prince Oberyn Martell, Lord Leyton Hightower, Lord Jon Connington, Lord Jason Mallister, and Prince Rhaegar, and was champion at the tourney in King's Landing in his 57th year (III: 752)
- In a tourney tilt, one's opponent is always on the left side (IV: 230)
- Three knights travelling in a company for a tournament might have two dozen servants, grooms, men-at-arms, and mounted crossbowmen with them, as well as a dozen heavily-laden drays carrying armor, tents, and provisions (TMK: 653)
- It is not customary to hold a melee to celebrate a wedding, and the suggestion of having one is shocking (TMK: 659, 672)
- A small tourney thrown by Lord Butterwell has a very rich grand prize of a dragon's egg, but the other prizes are much smaller, being 30 dragons for the knight who came second and 10 dragons to each of the knights defeated the previous round (TMK: 672)
- If a knight hates his foe enough, he may refuse to give over his horse for ransom, and could go so far as to ruin his armor before sending it to his enemy (TMK: 707)
- Knights often light candles to the Warrior while attending tourneys, praying for strength and courage (TMK: 720)
- The rules of heraldry are unregulated and rather freeform in the Seven Kingdoms, with individuals able to choose personal arms to their own taste (SSM: 1)
- The rules for tourneys are many and diverse, and are up to each hosting lord or king to choose for their own particular event. There are wild team melees over acres of land, exhibitions of jousting, free-for-all-last-man-standing melees, and so on (SSM: 1)
- There exists an ancient melee format which uses seven teams (SSM: 1)
- The Reach is the chivalric heart of the Seven Kingdoms and the place where stringent requirements to entry in tournaments are most likely to be placed. Other areas are more likely to be a little looser, and in the North where knighthood is rare tournament rules are likely to be made up as they go along rather than follow set tradition (SSM: 1)
- Heraldry in the North is significantly simpler and more basic than that in the South, showing the differing amounts of influence that chivalry has had there (SSM: 1)
- The quartering of arms is not the usual practice in Westeros, and there are no set rules as to how it's to be done (SSM: 1)
Last revised March 09, 2013
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