These competitions were essentially team events. Whilst individual prowess was noted and rewarded, it was the team rather than the individual that won or lost. The most common division was into tenant and venan — effectively those who held ground and those who tried to take the ground, or, to put it into modern sporting terms, home team and visitors.
Some of the scoring sheets have survived to this day. The tilt was a railing designed to run down the middle of the jousting field to prevent fatal collisions as riders charged toward one another. Learn more about how heresy and heretical movements spread during the High Middle Ages. Even with these changes, people were still killed in tournaments. The church continued to condemn tournaments as of , and kings, if they could, tried to keep the fighting in tournaments to a minimum. It was an unusual noble family during the High Middle Ages that could not point to at least one family member who was trampled, fell badly off of a horse, or who was killed in a tournament.
Nonetheless, the bloodletting of the early tournaments had lessened. Should these changes be attributed to chivalry or are they independent developments? An especially tricky question, there is some reason to think that these changes should be attributed, at least in part, to the development of the chivalric notion that the display of military prowess is not for frivolous pastime, but only when doing good for someone defenseless.
In this instance, one can see the direct influence of chivalry on real behavior. One should not assume that by , medieval nobility had been tamed completely. It tells you that such knights still existed and that Europe still had a problem to solve. Tournaments after took the chivalric ideal to odd extremes. Some tournaments were organized as roundtable tournaments where different knights pretended to be characters from chivalric romances.
One person would dress up as Arthur, another as Lancelot, another as Yvain, and they would take part in mock adventures imitating what they had heard in chivalric romances.
The fact that they were willing to play-act and pretend to be chivalric heroes suggests they took chivalry seriously. Learn more about how the First Crusade began. The image of the chivalric knight who devoted himself to the love of a lady is just an image.
However, it is an image with a purpose and with an effect. Although it never conformed to reality, the distance between image and ideal appears to have narrowed as the High Middle Ages progressed, and knights started to internalize the chivalric code as transmitted to them through chivalric literature. To judge from the development of the tournament in the High Middle Ages, knights and other nobles lost some, but not all, of their bloodthirstiness.
Sometimes medieval knight tournaments were conducted as individual contests while other times they served as team events. These were highly organized events where knights had to follow a set of rules — it was not just a free-for-all. Often cash prizes were awarded to the winner.
Tournaments for medieval knights served both an entertainment purpose and a practical purpose, as they helped knights to prepare for battle. Family honor factored into these tournaments as well, as knights would fight on behalf of their family, their affiliations displayed in a coat of arms.
In tournaments , knights often used a sword or lance, around 8 to 10 feet in length. Although knights fought with blunted swords or lances, injuries and even the occasional death still occurred. The day of the tournament has arrived, there would be a stand for noble and royal guest erected close to the jousting track, knights and maids dressed in the their best outfits and would parade before the distinguished guests, the guest of honour would address the excited crowds before the announcement of the tournament rules was read out by the Grand Marshall.
The tournament would being to a fanfare of trumpets. Tournaments usually took place in large open fields, the tournament area was enclosed by what were called lists or fences. There would be large tents erected for knights and other lords and nobles. Royal boxes were erected in front of the contest areas giving the best views of the jousting event to the important members of society.
Medieval tournament rules were agreed and circulated well in advance of the tournament so that everybody knew what to expect and would give information like:. Only nobleman and their families were allowed to compete in tournament competitions. This was one of many rules of the medieval tournament. Competitors were usually wealthy medieval people as they had to buy their own horse and expensive body Armour.
Only noblemen or squires could talk to other knights during a tournament. In later tournaments knights were encouraged to capture opposing knights, once captured a knight would have two pay a ransom to get his horse and armour back, surprisingly it was the captured knight who decided how much ransom should be paid, however due to the code of chivalry rules in place, setting a low ransom would have been the wrong thing to do for a medieval knight and would have brought shame on him.
Early tournaments were very aggressive and people were often injured or killed.
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