792.—Ancient Quintain.details

The sports of the [twelfth-century] Norman lords [...]

the noble students of chivalry practised military sports, of which the principal was the quintain, in which the young man tilted with his lance at a shield or Saracen elevated on a pole or spear, past which he rode at full career.

This exercise was imitated by the young men who were not blessed with noble birth; a sand-bag being in that case substituted for a shield or a Saracen, and a quarter-staff for a lance (Fig. 792). (p. 215)