ABSTRACT
The tournament might not seem an obvious place to begin a discussion of court masking. A tournament, we might assume, is a war exercise in which face'covering is functional, rather than a theatre game in which it is expressive. Yet throughout Europe the tournament was an inextricable part of courtly revels: records of tournaments predate those of almost any other entertainment. An association between these tournaments and disguising spectacles begins very early: from at least the thirteenth century, European tournaments began to be framed as chivalric pageants, and by the sixteenth century it is often impossible to separate the elements of disguising and combat in chronicle accounts.1 The overlap between the defensive and the expressive qualities of the visored helmet is equally difficult to unravel. The primary reason for covering the face does not cancel its signifying effect on a spectator. So the helmeted motorcyclist or American footballer, or the masked surgeon, may have no thought but to protect themselves and others; but concealing the face immediately changes the wearer’s relationship with those around. The impression of aggressive threat, heroic glamour, or impersonal objectivity that such face-coverings can activate is not simply dispelled by knowing that these masks are primarily protective. The same is true of the jousting helm.
