All our most delightful imaginings of chivalry are associated with the tournament. We see in fancy's mirror the gay and graceful knight displaying on his plumed steed the nobleness of his bearing, and the lady of his affections smiling upon his gallant skill, while the admiring people in rude and hearty joy shout their loud acclaims. Those who were illustrious for ancestral or newly acquired renown met in the listed plain. The fierceness of war was mellowed into elegance, and even feudalism abated something of its sternness, when called on to perform tendance on the ladies and damsels who graced the scene. Baronial pomp, knightly gallantry, woman's beauty, gay caparisons, rich attire, and feudal pageantry, throng the mind in wild and splendid confusion, when we hear the herald's trumpet-clang summoning the knights to achievement. It was in the tournament especially that the chivalric nations of Europe asserted their superior claims to gracefulness and humanity; for though the Greeks might vaunt their Olympic games, yet in them woman's favour did not bestow the garland, and though matrons mingled with senators in the Coliseum, and a virgin gave the signal for the commencement of the sports, yet the tortures and death of their fellow-creatures constituted the amusement. [Sidenote: Origin of tournaments.] Our ancestors were so proud of the Trojan descent which their historians deduced for them, that they even regarded the games which Æneas celebrated to the honour of his dead father, Anchises, as the origin of their own knightly joust and tournament. But in those games there was no encounter of two lances as in the joust, and no courteous battle between two parties of warriors, as was the case in the tournament. This learned enthusiasm was needless and absurd; for the knights might have discovered in the nature and tendency of circumstances, and in the practice of their known and immediate forefathers, sufficient matter of originality. The Romans were wont to exercise themselves in mock combats, and so were the Goths[278]; but it would be difficult to prove any chain of connection between these people. War was an art in the middle ages, and a long and painful education preceded the practice of it. It was the delight as well as the occupation of the world; for fame[279], fortune, and woman's love[280], could only be obtained by gallant bearing. Hence we find that thoughts of war were not abandoned in times of peace, and that some softened images of battle formed the grace of festive solemnities. [Sidenote: Reasons for holding them.] [Sidenote: Practice in arms.] [Sidenote: Courtesy.]