Tournament of Chauvency


The Tournament of Chauvency was held for six days from in the village of Chauvency-le-Château, near Montmédy. It was attended by knights of France and Germany for jousting and other activities, including mass, mêlées, discussions of chivalric values and awarding of the chaplet.
The tournament was dedicated to Henry IV, Count of Salm, and organised by Louis V, Count of Chiny. Louis V used the occasion to promote his family's illustrious history, from being descended from Charlemagne to his ancestor Arnold I, Count of Chiny, sending his sons to fight in the First Crusade.
The events were documented in the poem le Tournoi de Chauvency by the 13th-century trouvère Jacques Bretel, signed and dated on October 1285. The miniatures of the Oxford manuscript show knights struggling during the jousting and other activities of the tournament.
The tournament's attendance was significant: at least seventeen jousts are accounted in the poem. One mêlée opposed knights of the Duchy of Lorraine and those of the County of Flanders, "a fierce and sustained battle" won by the Lorrainians.

Attendants

61 knights, 41 ladies and 16 heralds are explicitly named in the Bretel poem; more likely attended. Notable attendants include: