IT’S not often that you see something authentically medieval on television, so Saturday’s double offering — Channel 4’s detailed restaging of a joust in the grounds of Pembroke Castle and Wayne Rooney’s return to Goodison Park in a Manchester United shirt — was a coincidence to cherish for fans of an era when life was simpler and the streets were strewn with straw.
Of the two events, I thought the joust shaded it, certainly for entertainment. But then the surface at Pembroke Castle was clearly far better suited to getting the horse down and jousting along the ground than was the turf at Everton, where the groundstaff appeared to have misread the brief and had prepared a pitch that was closer to primordial than medieval.
Also, the event at Goodison was slightly spoilt by a kind of overenthusiasm that can sometimes afflict historical re-enactments, detracting from their authenticity. We know from historical records that a medieval crowd enjoyed gurning and baying and generally working itself into a froth on the big tournament occasions. But there’s no need to go over the top.
Channel 4’s joust certainly had rarity on its side. Rooney is set to return to Goodison at least once a year, whereas the makers of The Tournament felt able to assure us that the spectacle they were contriving had not been seen for 500 years. And it probably wasn’t widely seen even then, given the relative lack in those days of dedicated sports channels.
Indeed, it turns out that information on the exact nature of the jousts that delighted the crowds in the tournament heyday of the Middle Ages is hard to come by. Obviously the sport’s general shape — men on horseback poking each other with big sticks — is broadly familiar and would eventually pass down to us, in a somewhat diluted form, as the Horse of the Year Show.
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Yet we are criminally ignorant of jousting’s critical details — from the equipment that was used and the armour that was worn, right through to the basic rules of play. Most people don’t know how the points were scored, let alone whether the offside rule applied and whether diving was a yellow-card offence.
Channel 4’s big breakthrough was to trace a 500-year-old rulebook, which, among many other enlightenments, made clear that the big deal was not necessarily removing your opponent from his saddle with a well-timed prod. What the quality jouster was trying to do was deal his opponent a blow so violent that his own lance shattered. Poignantly, it was the knight with the most broken lances that advanced to glory.
Quite apart from anything else, we glimpse here a possible explanation for the behaviour of Marat Safin, the stroppy Russian tennis star, whose profligate racket-smashing one had always put down to a monumental inability to get over himself. But quite unfairly, one now realises. In fact, he is simply channelling a genetic inheritance going back centuries and linking him vitally with the courtly heroes of yore.
And they really were heroes. A top jouster’s lot would most likely have included national and even international fame, political favour, a huge, gated house in Alderley Edge and, of course, a guaranteed spread in “Ye OK!” magazine. Knights, it seems clear from history, were the Gary Nevilles of their time.
All the same, the risks faced by the medieval jouster were probably greater than those faced by today’s Manchester United player, even at Goodison. If one of those lances crashed through the eye-slit in your visor . . . well, that would probably sting a bit.
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Also, there was every chance that, between fixtures, you were off somewhere — probably France — doing battle with an axe in a misty field. Unlike footballers, jousters were commonly being grimly literal when they spoke of being hacked off.
Yet, amazingly, Channel 4 found four volunteers who, even at the risk of limb-loss, were prepared to train up and joust for the programme. They included David, a horse-trainer, Nick, an army major, and Rick, an American policeman based in Washington DC whose professional life cannot conceivably have prepared him for a situation in which he would need to clobber someone with a stick.
They donned the regulation armour, brandished the regulation lances and rode the regulation horses down the side of the regulation-length barrier in the regulation castle. Despite injuries to ankle and leg, Rick, the cop, triumphed, but it was a victory, above all, for jousting. He was, unarguably, as the programme said, “bringing a lost sport back to life”. The question is whether the sport can kick on from here. Why not? Heck, it ‘s got to be more fun than snooker, hasn’t it?
On Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, the doubles partnership of Greg and Lucy Rusedski cut their losses and quit on £8,000. This was, Chris Tarrant told us, “the second of two celebrity specials for Valentine’s week”.
Valentine’s week? Since when did Valentine’s Day become a whole holiday period?
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There was no time to ask. Greg and Lucy were stuck on which of the words “cudgel”, “rapier”, “quiver” or “musket” described a sword. Lucy thought musket, but Greg suggested asking the audience, who put them right.
I think they did well to get out when they did. Quit while you’re not very far ahead is perfectly respectable advice.