a thrust with the shield upon his left arm, and with the right guided the lance so as to lift his antagonist from the saddle, if possible, by striking him squarely in the throat or upon the center of his shield. The young squire also followed his master to the field, sharing with him all the dangers and privations of a military career. He helped him to adjust and fasten the numerous pieces that composed his armor, after taking care that these were in perfect condition, assisted him to mount, held extra horses, supplied fresh lances as they were needed, raised him if unseated, attended to his wounds, received and guarded whatever prisoners were taken, sought to release him if he were taken captive, or bore away his dead body to give it proper burial. After this long apprenticeship, in case he had proved his fitness for the dignity and possessed the means to support so costly a profession, the squire who had reached the age of twenty-one might hope to take the final step. By a blow upon the shoulder with the flat of a sword some knight or noble ended his tedious years of waiting and admitted him to the great brotherhood of chivalry. A public spectacle no less brilliant and fascinating than the pan-Hellenic games or the gladiatorial shows of the Roman world, and equally characteristic of their age, were the tournaments common all over Christendom in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Originally the rough trials of strength and skill that were a natural occurrence whenever knights met at leisure, they were little by little modified and regulated until they became the chief pastime of nobles and gentlemen, a school of war in times of peace, where the young contestant not only displayed but developed his personal bravery, presence of mind, and ability to find at once the right means of attack and defense, the field in which he often won his first laurels or attracted the attention and interest of influential men. After the decline of chivalry as a military system tournaments lost their value as an image of war, and became more and more a means of mere amusement and an occasion for display, though they did not pass entirely out of fashion until toward the close of the sixteenth century. In tournaments proper groups of combatants on each side fought together with lance and sword in a miniature cavalry battle; while in the joust, which was far more frequent although it also formed a part of many tournaments, two horsemen only met each other, with lance and shield, sometimes continuing the combat on foot with swords after one of them had been unseated. The contestants, in both cases, appeared in full armor, and commonly, but not always, the swords were blunt and the lances tipped with flat or slightly toothed plates of metal; but injuries, nevertheless, were not infrequent, and heavy falls or suffocation from heat and dust, or serious wounds when the lance struck fair and did not split cost many a life. BIBLIOGRAPHY.