[Elfsea] 1. Re: Bear pit vs. melee vs. regular tourney

[Jasper]

If you are planning on pitting Barony vs. Barony or Barony vs. Shire or Group I might suggest a Ransom Tourney. Early tournaments in period were just this. Teams of knights, their squires and  men at arms usually from a local or regional area who formed teams and fought across an open field with an area specifically set aside for the soldiers to rest, much like a resurrection point. The idea not to wound or kill combatants (though it did happen) but to take and hold them for ransom. Prizes for ransom varied but at the least was usually money but in larger lysts it could be the knights armor and horse.
I ran such a lyst at Bonwickes 12th Night one year. I gave out bags of coin (poker chips painted gold) to each fighter based on their rank. 20 for a knight, 10 for a squire and 5 for a non-belt. The coin encouraged fighters to fight up, meaning they looked for fights above their level of experience to gain more ransom should they win. Non-belts would challenge knights for example.  Each fighter was instructed to subdue or force an opponent to yield rather than deliver a killing blow outright. Each fighter had to negotiate their own ransoms upon capture. Two teams were formed and a small list field type enclosure was set up for the fighters to take water, rest and negotiate terms for their release from ransom. Teams had the option to lump their coin at the end of the lyst or to keep their coin for themselves. The winner being the fighter or team to have the most coin. Fighters who ran out of coin were actually endenturing themselves to their captors
 to do stuff like wash their dishes after feast just so they could get back into the fight! ; ) Fighters were also allowed to rescue a captured team mate in route to the enclosure, since no wounds or killing blows were dealt if the capturees were successfully defeated the captured could return to the action and not have to pay ransom. It sounds really confusing and for the first few minutes it really was. It took 4 marshals to keep everything running smoothly. Each team had about a dozen fighters. Sir Romanius took the tourney with the most ransoms and to date it was one of the most fun tourneys I have ever taken part. I gave a nice prize, but in the end it was really about the bragging rights!

Jas



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From: "Dale, Jennifer" <DaleJ at autonation.com>
To: Barony of Elfsea <elfsea at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 7, 2009 7:37:19 PM
Subject: Re: [Elfsea] 1. Re: Bear pit vs. melee vs. regular tourney


Wow...you all are giving me great information. I will have to get to a few fighter practices to get some more "visual" examples. I would go to tomorrow's but I am getting some garb made (long overdue)
 
So here is the reason for my questions...
I want to do something grand and somewhat different. While my husband has his opinions on what fighters like, I wanted to get it from the horses mouth, so to speak.
 
I am looking to do a multi-group event that would pit Barony/group against barony/group. That is why I needed to know how the different tourney/melee/bear pits worked.
 
So if you were to have an event where every barony/group sent, lets say 3 experienced and 2 novice (fighting for less than a year) to compete against the other baronies for "bragging" rights and an awesome prize...what would lend itself the best?
 
Or would fighters feel left out if they weren't selected to compete? I don't mean to be exclusive or count anyone out. I was just thinking of ways to make it somewhat even "teams" so to speak.
 
Or maybe a mini-war of sorts. I have never been to war, but hubby mentioned maybe doing melee's that included combat archery, etc. 
 
How could you do that and still have one barony take the prize for the year? 
 
So if you have any ideas on how to make this work, I would greatly appreciate it.
 
Thanks
Giliana


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From: elfsea-bounces+dalej=autonation.com at lists.ansteorra.org [mailto:elfsea-bounces+dalej=autonation.com at lists.ansteorra.org] On Behalf Of De Clark
Sent: Tuesday, April 07, 2009 6:35 PM
To: elfsea at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: [Elfsea] 1. Re: Bear pit vs. melee vs. regular tourney

In that tournament format... what arms are you passing?  Just curious.
 
Ulf Nach dem Tor,
Whose French is terrible.
 

> Methinks Lord Cathal has it spot on!
> 
> As a spectator and former fighter (what? I've fought...once....), I like the
> one-on-one traditional tourneys. Why? Because of the opportunities for 
> heraldry, pomp and circumstance. My favorite types of tourneys are pas de
> arms. I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE pas de arms because it's the type of tournaments
> that would have happened during my time period.
> 
> We don't have to do melees and snowballs all the time...let's have a pas
> once in a while! I remember a long time ago (at least seven or eight years
> ago) when we would have a pas de arms to choose the Baronial Guard. Why
> don't we do this anymore? Why don't have pas de arms period anymore?
> 
> That might be something to try...
> 
> Just my two pence...whatever they're worth today,
> Lady Eleanor Cleavely
> lover of loudmouth heralds, pomp & circumstance...


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