The knight-defender’s pavilion at the Pas de la Fontaine des Pleurs, showing a unicorn, the Lady of the Fountain of Tears (left), the Madonna and Child (top centre) and Charolais Herald. Livre des faits de messire Jacques de Lalaing. Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 114, fol. 1113r. Photo: Getty.

Database on Pas d’armes

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In order to make the data used in our book, website and virtual exhibition more accessible to both scholars and the general public, we have created an online database in Nodegoat. This research database contains details of all pas d’armes held between c.1420 and c.1520 (i.e. exact dates and locations, names of entrepreneurs and challengers, composition of teams, type of combat, theatrical scenario, ephemeral architecture, guests and spectators, etc.). The database can be searched by Events, i.e. all such tournaments that can be classified as pas d’armes as they are normally referred to in the sources or secondary literature; People, i.e. all people involved in the pas d’armes as combatants, judges, spectators, guests, etc.; and Locations, i.e. all towns, villages, castles and other places where these events took place. The database will be available from the end of January 2024.

Latest Blog Posts

Our book is going to press!

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On 30 November 2023, we submitted our book, entitled Pas d’armes and Late Medieval Chivalry: A Casebook, to Liverpool University Press for publication in their Liverpool Historical Casebooks series. The volume, which consists of translations of seventeen original sources and seven essays, has two main aims: firstly, to provide greater access to many of the narrative, financial and pictorial sources relating to such events; and secondly, to demonstrate how these sources can be used to develop scholarly debates about the pas d’armes in new directions. A map and a complete table of all pas d'armes held between c.1420 and c.1520 are also provided, as well as a glossary defining key terms relating to weapons, armour and clothing used in both the sources and the essays. The book will be published in Open Access in the course of 2024.

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Winter Lecture at the Royal Armouries

CORE Admin

On 8 November 2023, Rosalind Brown-Grant gave an online talk in the Winter Lecture series at the Royal Armouries, Leeds, entitled ‘Pas d’armes and Late Medieval Chivalry: Tournament, Sport and Spectacle’. The lecture was followed by a Q&A on the origins, history, and arms and armour of this particular type of chivalric event with the participation of Mario Damen and Ralph Moffat. The complete lecture and Q&A session can be viewed here on YouTube.

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