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==Jousting in history==

==Jousting in history==

Jousting refers to mock combat between two armored, mounted [[knight]]s performed during the 14th-16th centuries. Jousting was a public display of the knight's skill and a popular public entertainment. Starting at opposite ends of the tourney field (known as the ''lists''), the competing knights would ride at each other and try unhorse their opponent with a wooden tipped [[lance]]. The wooden tip of the lance was blunted and would splinter on impact to prevent serious injury, not to mention to create a dramatic effect for the onlookers. Knights would joust in full plate amour with additional padding to mitigate against the effects of the blows.

Jousting refers to mock combat between two armored, mounted [[knight]]s or squires performed during the 13th-16th centuries. Jousting was a public display of the knight's skill and a popular public entertainment. Starting at opposite ends of the tourney field (known as the ''lists''), the competing knights would ride at each other and try unhorse their opponent with a wooden tipped [[lance]]. The wooden tip of the lance was blunted and would splinter on impact to prevent serious injury, not to mention to create a dramatic effect for the onlookers. Knights would joust in full plate amour with additional padding to mitigate against the effects of the blows.

Jousting tournaments were often lavish affairs and offered prizes of money or land to victorious knights. Fortunes and indeed, reputations, could be won and lost competing in this way.

In its early days, when the weapons were unblunted and impromptu contests were frequently set up on country roads, the practice was frowned upon by kings and the church as a needless loss of life. [[Henry II]] banned it. [[Richard I]], however, as a money-making device, licensed tournaments on chosen ''steads'', or fields, and contestants paid an entry fee. Jousting tournaments were often lavish affairs and offered prizes of money or land to victorious knights. The winner often claimed the horse and armour of the vanquished. Fortunes, and indeed reputations, could be won and lost, and it was a way for younger - therefore landless - knights to get up in the world. The practice is described in stirring detail in Scott's ''[[Ivanhoe]]''.

 

A joust could also settle a score between two knights or noblemen, in the role that a [[duel]] with [[pistol]]s or [[rapier]]s came to fulfil in later centuries. [[Froissart]] describes such a duel in 1386 in his ''Chronicles''.

==Jousting in the present day==

==Jousting in the present day==