HIS TORY – One of the earliest descriptions of the quintain A passage from the twelfth century Chanson de Renaut de Montauban Running on the quintain in a 13th Century manuscript of Arthurian Romances (Paris, BNF, Ms. Français 95, f. 273r) The knightly martial arts start with learning the joust and learning the joust start with learning the ‘ courses ’. Therefore, in our training of the martial arts, we implement the old exercise of riding on the quintain, an exercise that was retained in historical dressage under the name ‘ course de tête ’. This exercise, next to the ‘course de bagues’, is described at some length in l’Instruction du Roy (1625) of Antoine de Pluvinel, but even retained in the Ecole de la cavalerie (1723) of François-Robichon de la Guerinière. [1] The run on the quintain could therefore rightfully be considered an exercise of classical dressage and it is indeed strange that such ‘courses’ have fallen out of practice, even in academic riding institutions. Two de