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A really fascinating article from The British Library Archives which throws some light on 12th century tourney practices. The article makes the distinction between dyed or painted lances being used for the tournament, whereas only plain lances were used for battle. I wonder if this is true? Certainly manuscript art would suggest that many war lances were also painted. This could be artistic licence of course (the artist being more familiar with the tournament field than the battlefield) but surely it would also make sense to paint your battle lance to preserve it from drying out on campaign and thus becoming brittle. As an experiment I once took a pine sapling - about the size of a 12 ft lance and dried it for a couple of years. It lost considerable weight and checked (cracked) nicely. Not what you would want for a war lance but ideal for tournaments, where you could show off by carrying a seemingly chunky lance with ease (lighter than it looks) and also one that would break easily (scoring you points). Quite the opposite of what you would require from a war lance.Thoughts??? ... See MoreSee Less

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