The Tournament and its Role in the Court Culture of Emperor Maximilian I (1459-1519)

30 
 
well of Maximilian, to the disdain of Richard Pace, who wrote that Wingfield took Maximilian 
‘for a god, and thinks that all his deeds and thoughts proceed ex Spiritu Sancto’.
43
 
Maximilian also found his way into the writings of famed humanist and theologian 
Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (c. 1466-1536). Unlike his prominent contemporary 
Machiavelli, however, Erasmus again presents a contradictory picture by praising the emperor 
as a leader to be admired. Writing in regards to Maximilian’s rulership of the city of Strasbourg, 
for example, Erasmus said that in Maximilian it had ‘the mildest of princes, whose power it 
never feels except when it receives some benefit from his wisdom and generosity. And here we 
have a noble quality, worthy only of a truly great emperor, [...] so the noblest empire is the one 
which protects instead of oppressing the liberty of its citizens, which fosters instead of driving 
aways its people’s wealth, and makes all things flourish’.
44
 In Erasmus’ eyes, Maximilian was 
the ideal Renaissance ruler: wise and generous and a man who loves his subjects and takes an 
interest in their lives. 
Erasmus saw rulers such as Maximilian, Francis I of France, and Henry VIII of 
England as ‘the greatest princes of the world’; they were men who were turning away from war 
and toward the promotion of the humanities and liberal arts. Because of this, said Erasmus in a 
1517 letter to the theologian Wolfgang Faber Capito of Haguenau, ‘I perceive we may shortly 
behold the rise of a new golden age’, because of the ‘heaven-sent change we see in the minds 
of princes, who bend all their powers to the pursuit of peace and concord’. Contrary to earlier 
writings about Maximilian as a young man, where his flaws might come to the fore, Erasmus is 
writing about the older and presumably wiser Maximilian. This is the Maximilian ‘who in his 
                                                 
43
 Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, vol. 2, p. 517. 
44
 Collected Works of Erasmus, trans. by R.A.B. Mynors and D.F.S. Thomson, vols 1-86 (1974-
1993), (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), vol. 3, p. 27. 

---

31 
 
old age, wearied by so many wars, has decided to relax in the arts of peace, which will prove 
both more appropriate to his time of life and more beneficial to the Christian world’.
45
 
As is evident, the overall views are in these narrative sources are conflicting. For every 
chronicle that says Maximilian was well-educated and intelligent, there is one that claims his 
learning was stunted and that he was slow to grasp even his native language. They also often 
criticise his secretiveness and inability to keep his finances organised. His perpetual lack of 
funds is a common theme throughout many narrative sources. Yet many declare that he was an 
excellent soldier and leader, while just as many point to his indecisiveness and slowness to act 
in critical situations. However, even while debating his skill as a campaigner and leader of 
armies, what many do seem to agree upon, however, is his excellence as a knight. His strength 
and physical skill come across in his love of tournaments and hunting, even though this might 
occasionally come at the expense of his attention to his duties as a monarch. Still, the image of 
Maximilian as a powerful tournament fighter and pursuer of a chivalric lifestyle is often just as 
vivid in narrative form as it is in the pictorial representations of his reign. Interestingly, it is 
descriptions like these which eventually led to Maximilian receiving the rather romantic title 
Der letzte Ritter, or ‘the last knight’ – the epithet which has stuck most persistently to him. Yet 
this was only bestowed in a nineteenth-century account of his life by Count Anton Alexander 
von Auersperg.
46
 Out of all these contemporary writers’ varied viewpoints, it was a Victorian 
count who, with a simple phrase, crafted the most enduring image of Maximilian. 
 
                                                 
45
 Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 4, p. 261-63. 
46
 Waas, The Legendary Character of Kaiser Maximilian, p. 181. 

---

32 
 
1.3 Visual Sources 
The second category of sources utilised at great length in the present study are visual sources, 
of which a wealth survive relating to Maximilian’s reign or to late medieval German 
tournaments. As will be seen, Maximilian himself had a hand in producing many of them.
47
 At 
least one thousand pictures of Maximilian survive, many accompanied by entirely uncritical 
texts.
48
 Many of these also relate to tournaments. The foremost category of illustrated primary 
source which was of immense value for this thesis is the German tournament book, or 
Turnierbuch. The tournament books produced around the time of Maximilian’s reign reveal 
much about the place of the tournament in the wider Holy Roman Empire. Produced for 
many different audiences and patrons, they were, for some, a mark of social standing, while 
others were a historical record, while still others were elaborate exemplars of the idealised 
tournament.  
 
There are some particularly interesting examples of the Turnierbuch which may be 
examined in this context. One which could be considered the most comprehensive of all 
German Turnierbücher is that by Georg Rüxner (first edition: 1530).
49
 While it relies far more on 
text than imagery, it still warrents the title ‘tournament book’ based upon its content. Rüxner’s 
work is a largely fictionalised and glorified chronicle of the most famous tournaments (some 
                                                 
47
 An excellent catalogue of these may be found in Franz Unterkircher, Maximilian I.: Ein 
kaiserlicher Auftraggeber illustrierter Handschriften (Hamburg: Maximlian-Gesellschaft, 1983). This is a 
comprehensive survey of the illustrated literary works created for or commissioned by Maximilian in his 
lifetime, from his childhood lehrbücher to his hunting and fishing books to his genealogical works to the 
eponymous Freydal, etc. Unterkircher lists where they can be found in their originals and also 
subsequently printed editions.  
48
 Fichtner, The Habsburgs: Dynasty, Culture and Politics, p. 31. 
49
 Rüxner, Georg, TurnierBuch Von Anfang, ursprung, und herkommen, der Thurnier im heyligen Römischen 
Reich Teutscher Nation… (Frankfurt am Main: Feyerabend & Hüter, 1566), Munich, Bayerische 
Staatsbibliothek (hereafter referred to as BSB), 4 Mil.g 223 p#Beibd.2. For more on Rüxner, see Klaus 
Graf, ‘Herold mit vielen Namen: Neues zu Georg Rüxner alias Rugen alias Jerusalem alias Brandenburg 
alias…’, in Ritterwelten im Spätmittelalter: Höfisch-ritterliche Kultur der Reichen Herzöge von Bayern-Landshut, pp. 
115-26. 

---