The origins of the medieval tournament are still mysterious. They were possibly derived from the Roman Ludus Trojae, in which two groups of warriors engaged in a sham battle. The word tournament, it should be noted, should properly be used only to denote such pretended combat between two groups of contestants; when two individual warriors compete, the correct word is joust.

Tournaments – public competitions among knights – were organized by kings and important feudal lords for public celebrations. The first took place in France in the ninth century, and soon afterwards the fashion spread to Germany, England and even Byzantium. The number of participants was unlimited: there could be up to 2,000, and tournaments could last for days. The first rules were set down in the ninth century by French knight Geoffroy de Preuilly. In the beginning, it seems that ordinary armour and weapons were used for both jousts and tournaments, so they could have differed very little from the real thing. It was only in the second half of the thirteenth century that armour made especially for that purpose came into general use.

Tournaments were usually held on large, flat fields in front of castles. The rectangular combat area was fenced in, and the spectators sat around it. Important personalities and the judges were usually seated on the castle’s balconies, or special stands and tents were erected for them. Individual combat came first, then fighting in pairs, and finally in groups. At a sign, the contestants, mounted on their horses, swathed in sumptuous capes and armed with so-called courtesy weapons (lances without points, swords with dull blades and blunted maces) entered the arena, while heralds announced their names. They had previously been inspected by the judges. Occasionally, real weapons were used. Combat generally ceased when one of the contestants was struck from his saddle, but could continue until one of the opponents could no longer put up any resistance. The winners were given awards by the queen or one of the high-ranking ladies, and gained enormous prestige.

Severe injuries and accidental killings were frequent, so the pope and kings often forbade tournaments, especially at times of Crusades, but they were organized in spite of the bans. To decrease the number of injuries, a longitudinal barrier separating the combatants was introduced. After 1559, when Henri II of France was killed in a tournament after being accidentally struck in the eye through his visor by an opponent’s lance, tournaments were held only in Germany, until the mid-seventeenth century. From the middle of the sixteenth century, dexterity and elegance were more appreciated than strength, and this contributed to the replacement of tournaments by attractive equestrian shows – carousels.

Cavalry forces often held competitions with some of the characteristics of tournaments: cutting down markers, snatching rings with lances, shooting from horseback at full gallop, and so on. In many countries, there are still different equestrian games with elements of medieval tournaments.