“History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon” – Napoleon
Blenheim Palace
The bus from Oxford city center drops us off near the entrance. We’re all pretty excited. We follow the “Jousting” signs along the protracted entrance, gravel faintly crumpling beneath our feet. To the north, a tall statue of the first Duke of Marlborough towers over 2,100 acres of land. Images of shillings in velvet purses and Knights with long lances are dancing in my head.
Blenheim Palace, whose East Gates we are now entering, emerged as the token of appreciation of a grateful nation (read: of an oversexed Queen named Ann) for the Duke’s obliteration of the Bavarian and French at the battle of Blenheim, back in 1704 (read: for the Duke’s chiseled pectoral muscles). Like many other locations across the south of England, Blenheim Palace, described by some as “Britain’s answer to Versailles”, sprawls as a vestige of the British Empire’s apogee.
Now host of themed tours featuring Winston Churchill’s youth, and of events like the “75th anniversary of the Aston Martin Owner’s Club”, Blenheim more appropriately symbolizes the remembrance of a better past, and the visceral denial of a fall. While Churchill was indeed born there, a fact ruthlessly exploited by the palace owners, it was by accident, and prematurely, when his mother was visiting the grounds. Today Blenheim is famous for it’s direct association with the brilliant Prime minister. Talk about a huge marketing ploy. But I guess even Dukes have to pay taxes these days.
Jousting Tournament
We conquer the palace’s grounds to witness the reconstruction of a tradition dating back to the Middle Ages (and revived from Roman Gladiatorial games): jousting. A demonstration of a primitive martial art, often portrayed as dangerous and chivalrous, is about to begin. Our expectations are high; Hollywood has already turned jousting into a sensational battle. Think A Knight’s Tale, Knightriders, and avoid conjuring The Cable Guy scene at Medieval Times. In my mind, Knights, with their courage and moral rectitude, seem like a welcome respite from the pervasive barbarism of the Middle Ages (barbaric = English Reformation, auto da fe, Virgin of Nuremberg, Feudalism, the Black Plague, etc.) And we came to witness all of this firsthand.
The palace is buzzing with life. After a few dozen turns past gardens and marble statues, we finally reach the tournament area. Families are gathered along the arena’s edges, mesmerized by a peasant and his pet falcon. The impromptu sports ground, empty and green a few days before, displays a few cheeky anachronisms: Port-o-potties, Fish & Chips stands, and a whole lot of polyester. While adults sip on beer, a few children duel with wooden swords purchased at a souvenir tent. Shimmery Knight armors, made in Sri Lanka, can also be bought there. A set of flags, colored red and blue, divides the field into two irreconcilable sections. Think FOX vs. MSNBC. At the center, a long barrier called a “Tilt” will soon be witness to a violent struggle of galloping knights.
The Chevalier d’honneur, a witty lyricist playing the role of umpire, stands on the berfrois (or Grand Stand) and prefaces the Royal Knights’ eminent arrival with a microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the knights you are about to encounter are athletes in prime athletic form, almost model-like. They have the flowing locks of Adonis himself […].” He later ads inanities such as “rattle your jewelry if you’re posh,” drawing smiles on the adult faces. A few hundred yards away, four knights dressed in Crayola color schemes complete jumping jacks next to their horses and tour bus. As the umpire ends his introduction, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana O’Fortuna flows out of the speakers followed by Queen’s We Will Rock You. Far away, the knights speed up on their horses and enter the scene, their hefty midsections and graying hair confirming the umpire’s intended sarcasm. Oh so very English of him.
The egging-on begins. In red, Sir Jasper, the king of the crowd, the courageous, righteous knight sporting tights and crew cut, challenges William of Antioch, the pudgy good Samaritan standing near the blue flags. He announces the beginning of a joust a plaisance; a series of friendly jousting contests. Friendly is quickly replaced with PG-13 brutality.
The event is perfectly orchestrated, sending the viewers’s emotions on a controlled rollercoaster ride. The knights shatter their lances, fall from their horses and recklessly battle with swords. The contests are punctuated with a few stunts usually involving a young knight, Sir Sam, whose charm wins over the young crowd. Though tenacious and daring, wounding his opponents with a few worthy blows, he typically gets his ass kicked by the wiser and fatter knight. The umpire livens each scene with witticisms like “sliced, diced, bested, and beaten” or “easy peasy lemon squeezy”, and blurts out hilarities such as “Sir Sam should consider Knight School”. Zing! The poor kid later suffers the fated punishment of pointing and laughing, earning the chuckles of the eight-and-under community. Throughout the event, hierarchy matches outcome, and lack of chivalry leads to punishment. Just like we expected it to.
After twenty minutes of action, we conclude that the jousting event we are witnessing is in fact the family friendly, inevitably classier British equivalent of WWE (see article by Mick Shaffer). There’s a premise: the antagonism of two groups of knights. There’s a struggle: a tournament involving men on horses colliding at 60 mph, wooden lances, swords, and stunts like the punishment of the peasant, where a horse drags a teenager by its feet. There is an outcome: decided backstage prior to the event. And there are men with odd names wearing colorful costumes, countless changes in fortune, comebacks and turnaround, keeping the crowd properly entertained for ninety minutes.
Interview with a Royal Knight
The event, though eye-roll worthy at times, keeps us grinning for its entire duration. Where else could we ever witness this? The jousting tournament draws to a close. In the end, Sir Jasper and his red accolades gloriously vanquish the inferior blue squad. A few minutes later, we walk over to the “Knights of Royal England” tour bus, where we speak with the winner.
The man, whose forehead is bleeding profusely from a sword fight, tells us how he entered the jousting business back in 1975. “A lot of bad luck” he says cheerfully, while folding a colorful horse rug on the ground. Seasoned film stuntman in his earlier years, he now chairs the Royal Knights of England Company, and travels to over seventy locations every summer. Because horses are so costly, he maintains another job. His troop puts on a show reenacting what every history blogger and Hollywood filmmaker portrays jousting to be. That is… with a few extra bells and whistles for the fan with short attention span. But hey, who said hit songs by Queen were out of bounds?
Our suspicion about the event’s theatrical nature is quickly confirmed. “It’s nothing like it was back in the Middle Ages, but there’s no other way to do it,” Jasper admits, referring to the show’s choreography. He confesses that jousting, if it were enacted in its original form, without any premeditation, would be excruciatingly boring. The highflying duals we witnessed were in fact a highlight reel of events that would normally occur over three days of action. According to the stuntman, the concept of chivalry — the ultimate Knight tenet so strongly underscored in every blockbuster – was often overpowered by vindication back in the Middle Ages. I’m sure this surprises everyone. Back then Knights would often strike their opponent’s horse to stop a match if they were ahead, ultimately winning the contest. As a result, Jousting wasn’t exactly a spectator sport. Knights were cautious and rarely drew hits. Jasper even states that Knights in full armor would never be knocked off their horses by a lightweight lance, as it is designed to shatter whenever it collides with a speeding object. Some historians would disagree, stating that old lances were made of solid oak. Maybe their lightweight counterparts were later engineered for entertainment purposes. Just like aluminum baseball bats and Astroturf.
A Conclusion of Sorts
We wish Jasper best of luck, and go on our merry way, both enlightened and somewhat disheartened by his diatribe. On a Monday afternoon, on the grounds of a palace commemorating history as the British would like to see it, we have witnessed an event that wasn’t real because it’s real version we couldn’t stand to watch. We have been entertained by a simplification; the essentialism of a tradition whose true history we would prefer to ignore. Some could argue that the spectacle came as close to authentic jousting as Johnny Depp does to a historically accurate Jack Sparrow. But both of them sell pretty well.
As we walk back towards the palace, we wonder aloud: is this shameless commercialization a bad thing? We did, after all, enjoy it. A group of men have reshaped a pretty boring sport into entertainment, while using its traditional cachet as a selling point. Just like the 11th Duke of Marlborough has turned Blenheim Palace into a money mill by exploiting Winston Churchill’s success. This perplexes us a little.
We ponder. Are we looking for authenticity, or do we simply want our expectations to match reality? I went to Blenheim Palace to be entertained. Had I encountered genuine Jousting, would I have been bored out of my mind? Probably. Have sir Jasper and his Knights highjacked and undermined a tradition? Puritans would say they have. Upon witnessing such a spectacle, maybe they’d even walk back to the Blenheim palace café, chew on a 4GBP scone, and reminisce on how better things were when Churchill was alive. But perhaps these Royal Knights of England, in their simplification, in their choreographed battle between Red and Blue, are reinforcing a version of past events, as Napoleon put it, that people have decided to agree upon. The one where lances shatter, knights fall flat on their backs, Queen plays on repeat in the background, and fish & chips is served with Heineken beer.
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I like this form of jousting better. I’m still confused as to where the skill lies (apart from being able to ride a horse). Isn’t it the guy with the longest reach wins?
By the way, I was dialing up The Cable Guy until you scolded me.
it’s not how long your reach is; it’s how well you can maneuver your lance… At least, that’s what i keep telling myself…
Mick – they’re stuntmen. So they’re trained to fall from their horses, to battle with swords whenever they’re not hitting each other with a lance. It sounds easy, but each man is going at 30mph with a long lance in his hands, trying to hit the other guy.
Holden – Tell that to your midget friend.