A Knights Tale : Jousting
...ompetitive sport in the fourteen hundreds. This is when a fence was put up called a tilt, to separate the knights from crashing into each other (Steele 49). A knight was not just born a good jouster, he had to practice and train himself. “It took many years of training to become a knight, so it was important in times of peace to maintain the skills that had been acquired” (Hilliam 10). A knight’s training included spearing a small ring that either sat on a stand or was tossed into the air. He would also charge at a quintain – a swiveling shield set up as a target. “When the target was hit off center a heavy sack swung around, and would hit him and knock him off his horse, if he did not have quick reactions” (Steele 49). An excellent way for a knight to prove he was fit for war was to be in a tournament. The tournaments originated in Northern France around 1050 and 1070. During a tournament, two events developed. A mock free-for-all battle called a melee was first. This melee was sometimes held between knights from nearby castles. The purpose of this was for one set of knights to go out and capture and hold as many knights as possible from the other team. The winning side of the melee would later set free the knights they captured. “Watching knights fight in single combat soon became popular, and stands were specially constructed for the spectators” (Hilliam 10). Knights then started attending tournaments, which made careers out of competitive jousting. Tournaments provided a means for knights to practice warfare and build their strength in times of peace. “They were meant to be displays of bravery and honor, and any knight who behaved in an unchivalrous way was disgraced” (Steele 48). Tournaments were essentially mock battles with audiences. The tournaments had rules that had to be followed. Umpires that watched for dishonest play judged them. Tournaments were usually fought between either two people or two teams. If two people fought a tournament, it was usually by jousting. The two knights would gallop across the tilt field at each other, carrying a lance and shields. The objective was to knock the other person off of his horse. “They made six to eight passes at each other and if they lost their lances, they continued to fight with swords, battle axes, or maces” (Corrick 77). These events rarely ended without one of the men, or even both of the men getting injured (Corrick 77). Tournaments soon began to change from the sport of showing one’s warrior prowess in skill-at-arms and jousting matches to an elaborate show, with skill being secondary. The knight was encased with more than one hundred and twenty pounds of padding and armor by the late fifteen hundreds. A knight’s horse would sometimes hesitate or fall from the extreme weight of the armor on the horse and also from the weight on the rider. “Combine this with a lance rest, that was bolted to the armour, and an unbreakable lance that was wedged to the lance rest, this was a situation that only a few would want to be in. Perhaps this is what ended jousting as entertainment on a large scale in the 1600’s” (US International Jousting Competition 2003 2). The high popularity of jousting brought high opposition. Kings and other high officials frequently banned tournaments, mostly due to the number of deaths and injuries that had been taking place. Churches banned jousting tournaments because of high level of violence and also because of excessive eating, drinking, and lovemaking. A jousting death was made difficult by the heavy armor worn by both the horse and the knight. “The first knights were protected by a hauberk, and over the top they wore a surcoat which stopped them from getting too hot in the sun” (Steele 24). Plate armor, invented in the thirteen hundreds, offered much more protection than the hauberk against the cuts and blows of a sword or mace (Steele 25). After the plate armor was invented the knights wore plate armor head to toe. They wore a helmet, or salet, with a full face shield to protect their head. To protect their neck they wore collar armor called gorge’t. He also wore a breastplate for his chest, gauntlets for his arms, cuisses and greaves for his legs, and spiked shoes called sabatons for his feet. This suit of armor that the knights wore added up to about...