Daily Duties and Activities.
Sir Roger was
a knight and a noble. His daily duties would have included assisting his
family in running the manor. The career of a knight was costly,
requiring personal means in keeping with the station. A knight had to
defray his own expenses in an age when the king had neither treasury nor war
budget at his disposal. As the owner of the land, Roger would have been
heavily involved in using the fruits of the land to fund his knightly
activities. The peasants and townspeople who lived on the land would
have provided much of this money, which Roger and his family would have
collected from them in the form of labor and crops. We can only hope
that Sir Roger was kind and just in these efforts, however the lower classes
did not usually receive such respect from knights. When not assuring his
financial security, he would have assisted his family in upholding the law of
the land according to his oath of chivalry. As a knight, one of his chief
occupations would have been remaining fit for service. One way of doing
this would have been to engage in regular hunting expeditions. While he
may have been involved in small battles with other nobles and engaged in the
occasional chivalric quest, these would not have been the norm. Of
course for the noble class, not all was work and hunt. Sotterley Manor
was a fine estate and Sir Roger would have enjoyed a pleasant lifestyle for
the time. Part of this lifestyle and part of staying fit as a knight
would have involved participation in the tournament.
The Tournament.
The words "tournament" and "joust" are often used interchangeably.
Strictly speaking "joust" describes single combat between two horsemen.
"Tournament" refers to mounted combat between parties of knights, but is also
used to refer to the whole proceeding. Tournaments were, at first, simply
battles arranged between parties of knights, with the object to further their
training and keep them in shape. From these bloody conflicts there developed
the tournament conducted according to a complex code of rules. In a tournament
a knight could enjoy all the excitement, danger and glory of war, with none of
the dirt, disease or discomfort. In England, a tournament was regarded
as serious training for war. The Statute of
Arms for Tournaments, established around 1260, helped curtail the
bloodshed at tournaments. By the end of the thirteenth century, tournaments
had mostly ceased to be miniature battles with no holds barred and became
organized events. There were three kinds of tournaments during this
time. The Melee or Tourney Proper was the most brutal and costly
in lives. All participants, upon hearing the charge, promptly crashed onto the
tournament field and proceeded to unhorse all others by any method at hand
until a winner was determined. The Joust was an encounter with lances
between two knights. The rules were simple. If a combatant struck either rider
or horse he was disqualified. A clean hit to the center of the shield
shattering the lance, or unseating the opponent scored points. The
Practice Tournament involved very little ceremony and few rules. Practice
targets were provided by either a quintain or rings. The quintain has been
described in the section on the knight's training. When rings were used, a
ring was suspended on a cord, which was to be carried off on the tip of the
knight's lance. The armor worn in tournaments was often different than
that worn in battles. Tournament armor was heavily padded inside.
Tournaments came to be community affairs complete with singing, dancing, and
feasting. A tournament could last for several days.
Battles and War. We know from his
dedication to chivalry and from the symbolism of his Coat of Arms that Sir
Roger took the concept of Loyalty very seriously. We can assume that he
stood ready at all times to defend his honor and his manor on the field of
battle. We can also assume that he would heed the call of his lord and
king to arms. The historical record tells us that Sir Roger did just
that in the Welsh War.
