In medieval wars, the leaders and chief actors were knights, whose children were all in formal knighthood training. But there were always large parties of common men who used bows and spears; at times, their actions were more important than the knights’. Their sons were farm and town boys, apprentices and students with feast days free of work. They liked to gather on town commons and play out large war games, perhaps based on their relatives’ stories.
As adults, they wouldn’t be carrying swords, but nothing stopped the apprentices from making toy swords and wooden shields. Large organized war games incorporated several hundred boys, and they fought with such sincerity that some were injured and occasionally died of their injuries. City governments hated these games and stopped them if they became aware. One can imagine apprentices going about their work, quietly passing the word to their friends about which field and what time to meet.
Students and apprentices also liked to play at tournament games. Without ponies, they had to ride on each others’ shoulders. Without official training equipment, they had to make do with what they could design themselves. Of course, a group of apprentices included kids who were learning to work with metal and wood, so their mock-quintains might be pretty good at times. The quintain was a turning post with a target on one side and a sandbag on the other. The point was to ride past and hit the target, while avoiding the sandbag that swung to get you as soon as the target was dislodged.