24 THE HORSE. 



horse>s in the tournament. The Troy game 

 practised by the Eoman youth is de- 

 Troy game, scribed by Virgil to be an equestrian 

 exercise, and was the forerunner of the 

 tournament, a j^astime in which large 

 horses, weighted with armour and heavy 

 riders, contended. It is impossible to 

 determine the exact date of the first 

 tournament. Nicetas states that the 

 Emperor Emanuel Comeninus " invented 

 tilts and tournaments at the sieo^e of 

 Constantinople.'' Nithard mentions the 

 exhibition of an equestrian pastime simi- 

 Thetouma. lar to the toumameut exhibited in Ger- 



ment 



instituted. many before the Emperor Louis and his 

 brother Charles the Bald, about the 

 year 842. He recounts how knights 

 of different nations formed into two 

 equal divisions rode against and other 



