Perception patterns 2: Jousts, duels, rules.
“Loot, trophies and souvenirs were as well a material substrate of other interpretative patterns that have been determined as well by the adventurous use of mobility machines before the War as by the military purpose. Apart from sport and hunting mainly the patterns of duel, the cavalry charge and the chivalrous joust.
It had been noticed that in Europe and the USA apart from a variety of chivalric novels a trend of jousting events, dressing up and an active fascination for the medieval past was significant before 1914. This was connected to the artistic, literary and architectonic prevailing trend of Historicism, but it went beyond that esthetic by activating its participants and a trans positioning into everyday culture. This could be described as Historicism of popular culture. The fascination for the deeds of crusaders, for chivalrous dragon slayers, for parades in medieval costumes and jousts was among the adults and even more about the adolescences very common. This formed an effective and cultural present blueprint for the reception and presentation in the behavior concerning the new mobility machines. Pictures and descriptions of drivers and pilots as modern knights, whose vehicle became a warhorse, have been common place in sportive as well as in military context as well before as after the beginning of the War. Whether it had been the “peadle-knight” on the race track, Richthofen’s comment: “very amused by the performance of my red steal horse during this morning’s work I returned.” Or the description of Santos-Dumont as “our beloved knight of the air, the rebel who always stood against the wind” – the complex of generosity, competence in combat and honor of historicity that was concentrated in knighthood always was of importance. Even the term “Panzer (Armor)” the German nomenclature for ´Tank`, connotated, through a historical reflection, elements of knighthood.
In this pattern of reception, determined by the Middle Ages, as well as in the patterns of hunting, the attribute of partnership in combat – a certain bound between adversaries – was characteristic.”
Source: Kurt Möser, Fahren und Fliegen in Frieden und Krieg, Verlag Regionalkultur, Mannheim 2009, p. 528.