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| Figure 1: Robbie Sprules and his wife, Lucinda lead the opening procession into the fighting lists - photo by Gail J. Smith |
The tournament focused entirely on "combats on foot", with the defendants (the home team) comprised of 5 armoured combatants, being challenged by the appellants (the visiting team) comprised of 5 additional armoured combatants, one combatant coming from Gravenhurst, while another from Boston, Mass, and the rest from the Ottawa Medieval Sword Guild or OMSG. The opening procession displayed a spectacular array of heraldry in the form of banners, standards and colourful tabards depicting the coats of arms of the combatants. To add, the combatants themselves, accompanied with their standard bearers, also wore jupons emblazoned with their coat of arms.
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| Figure 2: David Cvet battling Dale Gienow from Muskoka with steel longswords - photo by Jim Atack |
The bouts were configured to three landed blows, by any weapon or weapons chosen for that bout. The blows were required to create visible displacement of the target in order to be counted. The bouts were extremely intense, with a good number of combatants choosing the spear as their weapon of choice.
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| Figure 3: David Murphy battling Mat Ravignat (OMSG) with poleaxe - photo by Jim Atack |
At the end of the tournament, Lady Lucinda, the Patron's wife selected a combatant deemed to be the "best amongst equals" and was presented with a gift, a classic claymore sword. Following the tournament, most of the combatants, their significant others, volunteers and friends and relations attended a medieval banquet at AEMMA's salle d'armes. A glorious day for all involved.
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| Figure 4: Mathieu Ravignat accepting the award from Robbie Sprules and Lady Lucinda for "best amongst equals" - photo by Gail J. Smith |
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| Figure 5: One side of the tournament medallion depicting the AEMMA arms, the reverse indicting date and location of the tournament. These were presented to each of the combatants at the banquet. Designed and created by Nicolas Facundo-Rico. |
After the tournament, a good number of combatants and other participants, friends and family attended the medieval banquet at AEMMA's salle d'armes. With the salle beautifully decorated with arms of all of the combatants depicted on wooden shields, standards, banners, wrought iron candelabras, a medieval musical ensemble and demonstrations of medieval dancing, the banquet achieved what it may have been like in the medieval period. After some remarks and short speeches, Lady Lucinda awarded to each of the armoured combatants a tournament medallion. The medallions were created by an AEMMA student Nicolas Facundo-Rico.
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