[336] Du Cange (Dissertation 7. on Joinville) is incorrect in saying that a joust seldom terminated without some knights being slain, or very grievously wounded. The jousts at St. Ingilberte were on the most extensive scale, and nothing worse than a flesh-wound or a bruise from falling was felt, even by the most unskilful or unlucky knight. Froissart perpetually describes jousts of three courses with lances, three strokes with axes, three encounters both with swords and daggers; and generally concludes with saying, "And when all was done, there was none of them hurt." "You should have jousted more courteously," was the reproach of the spectators to a knight, when his lance had pierced the shoulder of the other jouster. Froissart, vol. ii. c. 161. Du Cange preserved no clear idea in his mind of the difference between the joust _à la plaisance_ and the joust _à l'outrance_, and most subsequent writers have only blindly followed him. I shall notice in this place another popular error on the subject of jousts. Mr. Strutt, (Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, book iii. c. 1.) and an hundred writers after him, assert that the authority of the ladies was more extensive in the joust than in the tournament. Mr. Strutt says, that "in the days of chivalry jousts were made in honor of the ladies, who presided as judges paramount over the sports." Now there are many jousts mentioned in Froissart and other chivalric historians that were held only in the presence of knights. But I can find no instance of a tournament being held without ladies. The joust was a martial exercise; but the tournament was connected with all the circumstances of domestic life. [337] "Et si aimoit, par amour, jeune dame: dont en tous estats son affaire en valoit grandement mieux." Froissart, vol. iii. c. 12. edit. Lyons, 1560. [338] Froissart, vol. ii. c. 160. 162. 168. Memoires du Mareschal de Boucicaut, partie i. c. 17. The writer of those memoirs, a contemporary of Boucicaut's, in his zeal for his hero, gives all the honor to the French knights. Juvenal des Ursins (p. 83, &c.) is more modest, and he makes certain judges of the court compliment many of the knights for their valiancy. [339] Most of these circumstances are unnoticed by our historians. I can pardon their unacquaintance with the Lansdowne manuscripts, for those are but recently acquired national treasures: but every scholar is supposed to know the Biographia Britannica,--and in the article Caxton, some of the chivalric features of the joust in question are mentioned.