Danish carousels
The inventory of "The Royal Particular Armoury" from 1775, now in Töjhusmuseet, mentions, under the heading "Carrousel, Zeug. Von den Königl: Vorfahren ist gesammelt und vorhanden ist", a total of 64 items and accessories belonging to the "carousel course". These are a number of painted spears, lances and shields, but unfortunately they are so scantily described as to be unidentifiable today. Even so, together with the surviving articles, the description do convey a reasonable picture of the quantity of equipment.
In addition to the Töjhusmuseet inventory there is, in the Danish National Archives in Copenhagen, a famous carousel manuscript given a very detailed description of a carousel which took place in 1685. Programmes are also extant from other royal carousels.
In 1938 a collection of exhibits from the Royal Stables was deposited in Töjhusmuseet. It includes two lance benches holding 26 lances and 32 javelins, four Moors' heads of wood, eight Turks' head of papier-maché, 27 shields, a silver-plated brass cuirass and five pairs of flintlock pistols. Combined with the surviving manuscripts, these articles convey a vivid picture of the chivalrous exercises of the 17th century. Clearly, the former tiltings and jousts of war were superseded during the 17th century by the carousels. People were no longer prepared to risk life and health in tournaments using edged weapons.
The last real tournament wich such weapons to be held in Denmark was at the coronation of Fredrik II in 1559, the very year when the King of France was killed in a tournament celebrating his daughter's wedding.
Christian IV is a remarkable Janus figure in Danish history, a link between the 16th and 17th centuries. His coronation festivities in 1596 included both "Italian joust" (Welsch Gestech) and running at the ring, which later became an important feature of all carousels. The coronation was an immensely opulent festivity designed to proclaim the power and majesty of Denmark's monarchy. But the rules of the tournament forbade the use of sharp lances and weapons. Tournaments had now become, by definition, a royal sport and entertainment for the common people.
Tilting at the ring was especially popular. In it, the participants, riding in full career, were required to catch on their lances a ring suspended on a rope between two pillars. The popularity of tilting at the ring and the changed view of the tournaments were clearly manifested at perhaps the costliest festival ever held in Denmark, celebrating the marriage in 1634 of Prince Christian, son of Christian IV, and Sibylla of Saxony. Cavalry skills were thrust into the background by pageants and tilting at the ring. No expense was spared in the name of entertainment and magnificence. Another innovation was the inclusion in the programme of ballets and plays and the resurrection of the ancient Norse monarchs to reinforce the honour and prestige of the ruling house. Religious and classical themes no longer predominated.
In addition to being entertainment on the grand scale, tilting at the ring and carousles were also very much of a sport. During the 17th century the carousels were organised as a mixture of competitive sports and theatrical performances. The sporting events were riding, shooting, javelin-throwing and suchlike, with prizes for athletic prowess.
In 1680, Princess Ulrika Eleonora, Kristian V's sister, travelled to Sweden to marry Charles XI. Their wedding was supposed to symbolise the two countries' reconcilitaion following the bloodshed and cruelty of the war in and for Skåne. The princess's departure was celebrated with a carousel, detailed programmes for which are still exitant.
Under Fredrik III (1609-1670), carousels had acquired a more regulated structure. They began with a pageant, followed by tilting at the ring, tilting at heads, tilting at the quintain, and a javelot competition. They ended with a "carousels course" in which a knight armed with a clay ball pursued another who had only a shield to defend himself with. Superb horsemanship was the essence of all these exercises, and the surviving paintings bear witness to a very high standard in this respect.
Tilting at the ring is still practised today, but the other carousel events have died out. "Tilting at heads" was an exercise to display the participants' skill with the spear, lance, sword and pistol. It may be compared to the military equestrian exercises which still occur, in which the participants fight against dummies instead of each other. The aim in tournaments was the same - demonstrating one's horsemanship and proficiency in arms. During the course, the rider had to throw a javelot, strike with the lance, pierce and slash with the sword and shoot with pistols at heads mounted on pillars of different heights. Thus the surviving heads, some of wood and others of papier-maché, are targets for shooting, throwing and cutting. They represent Turks and Moors, the adversaries of Christianity. Producing targets without causing offence has always been a problem, and Fredrik the Great was the first to solve it: his targets were life-sized figures of Prussian soldiers.
The surviving carousel manuscript from 1685 mentions several different forms of tilting at figures. There were numerous alternatives to choose from. The participants were mostly assembled in groups, wearing costumes appropriate to the targets they attacked. One variant of tilting at heads was tilting at the quintain, in which a horseman armed with a lance attacked a swivelling figure. Failing a direct hit, the figure would swing around, striking the rider's horse.
The last and perhaps most amusing exercise was the actual carousel-course, in which the participants pursued each other in pairs, one of them being armed with a ball of fired clay filled with flowers, sand or suchlike. The other rider had a shield. When the ball was thrown and found its mark, it contents would register the strike.
Valuable prizes were presented at the royal carousels, both to the competing groups and to individual participants. From the reign of Christian V we have a series of jewels which were presented as prizes. But carousels were also arranged by the nobility. The custom, then, existed all over the country, though on a less opulent scale. Carousel-courses died out during the 19th century, but the unfailing popularity of the sport of throwing the tell-tale balls is perhaps best illustrated by the "paint guns" (known in America as "splash guns") of our own time - pistols, rifles and machine guns firing coloured bullets - paint ball - which leave a mark where they strike, used in "survival games", a very popular sport both in the USA and in Japan.
Tilting at the ring is the only carousel event to have survived in Denmark as a living sport with ancient traditions. It is practiced mainly in South Jutland, where the annual tilting festivities attract large numbers of riders and spectators, and also in Amager, where the sport is mostly and annual Lenten fixture on the lines of "beating the cat out of the bag".