What Is Jousting?

Short answer

• Jousting was a mounted contest between two riders who charged at each other with long wooden lances, each trying to strike the other, break a lance on the opponent, or knock the opponent off the horse. It was the best known event of the medieval tournament, and it grew from cavalry training into a regulated sport of skill, display, and pageantry.
• The word probably comes from the Latin iuxtare, meaning to meet, through the Old French joster. Tournaments of mock cavalry battle began in France in the 11th century, and jousting became a regular tournament event from the second half of the 13th century. Its great age ran through the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries.
• A joust was fought in a railed field called the lists, usually spread with sand or straw. From about 1400 the two riders were separated by a long wooden barrier called the tilt, which kept the horses from colliding head on. Riders usually had three lances, and points were awarded for breaking lances and for hits on the shield, helmet, or body.
• The lance was about 2.4 to 3 meters (8 to 10 feet) long, usually made of ash or cypress, and made hollow so that it shattered on impact. Tournament armor was heavier and more specialized than battlefield armor, with extra plates over the chest and left shoulder and a helmet that was often bolted to the breastplate.
• Jousting faded during the 16th century as tastes changed and the danger became harder to justify, and it had largely disappeared as a serious sport by the 17th century. It survives today in three forms: show jousting at historic sites and festivals, competitive historical jousting run by international bodies, and ring jousting in Maryland, where it has been the official state sport since 1962.

What Jousting Is

Jousting is a contest between two riders on horseback who charge at each other with long lances. Each rider aims to strike the other rider, to break a lance against the opponent’s shield or armor, or to knock the opponent clean off the horse. That is the whole sport in one sentence, and it is also the image most people carry in their heads when they picture a medieval knight: two armored riders, lances level, galloping toward each other while a crowd watches from stands.

The reality was more organized than the image suggests, and more dangerous. A joust was not a brawl on horseback. It was a scheduled event inside a larger tournament, fought under rules agreed for the occasion, in front of judges, heralds, and spectators, with prizes for the winners. The riders were usually knights or noblemen, and the event tested the exact skills a cavalryman needed in war: guiding a horse with the knees while one hand carried a lance and the other a shield, holding balance in the saddle, striking a moving target, and staying mounted after taking a heavy blow.

The word itself points to the meeting of the two riders. It probably comes from the Latin iuxtare, meaning to meet, through the Old French joster. The word entered Middle English around 1300, when jousting was already a popular sport among the Anglo-Norman knighthood. The other name for the sport, tilting, comes from the tilt, the barrier that separated the two riders, and that use of the word dates to about 1510.

Jousting is often confused with the tournament itself, but the two are not the same thing. A tournament was a whole festival of mock combat that could last several days. Jousting was one event inside it, the single combat between two riders. The other great event was the melee, a mock battle between two teams of horsemen that ranged across the countryside. Understanding that distinction is the key to understanding how jousting developed, because the joust began as a small side event and only later became the centerpiece.

Where Jousting Came From

Tournaments probably began in France in the 11th century as training for war. In a century when battles were fought by mounted men charging in formation, a mock battle was the most realistic way to practice. Two teams of knights would charge at each other, fight with blunted weapons, and try to capture opponents for ransom. The early events were rough, loosely organized affairs, and they were popular enough to spread across Europe in the 12th century. The prizes were real: captured horses, arms, armor, and ransom money. So was the danger. Men were injured and killed, and the Church and several kings tried at various times to ban tournaments altogether.

Jousting grew out of that world. It had been a minor side event since the 11th century, a chance for two knights to settle a challenge or show off in front of an audience. It became more common as a tournament event from the second half of the 13th century, and the reasons are easy to see. A melee spread across fields was hard to watch and hard to judge. A joust between two riders in a marked field was easy to watch, easy to score, and easy to turn into a show. As chivalry became a more formal code in the later Middle Ages, with its emphasis on honor, courtesy, and display, the individual event suited the age better than the team brawl. A good knight was expected to show martial skill and noble manners together, and the joust let him show both at once.

By the 15th century the joust had largely taken over from the melee as the main event of the tournament, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica. From the 15th century onward it was also becoming a sport in its own right, with less and less direct connection to warfare. The weapons were adapted to reduce killing, the rules were written down, and the spectacle mattered as much as the fighting. What had started as practice for war had become entertainment for a court.

The social world of the joust mattered too. Tournaments were expensive, and taking part was largely limited to men of noble birth, who had to prove their lineage to compete in some places. Historic Royal Palaces notes that it was common for younger sons to take part, because firstborn sons were protected as heirs to the family estate, while younger brothers had to earn money and reputation for themselves. A younger son could win money by capturing and ransoming an opponent, or be noticed and hired into a noble household. That made the tournament circuit a career path as well as a sport, and it explains why some knights traveled from land to land looking for events, much as professional athletes travel today.

The towns that hosted tournaments grew around them. Markets, stalls selling horses and fine clothes, musicians, acrobats, and banquets filled the days around the fighting, and a tournament held to celebrate a wedding or a coronation could last for days. Our guide to towns in medieval times describes the market squares and streets where that kind of public gathering took place, and a tournament was one of the largest public gatherings a medieval town would ever see.

How a Joust Was Run

The field where knights jousted was called the lists, a roughly rectangular space usually spread with sand or straw. The World History Encyclopedia gives its length as 100 to 200 meters (110 to 220 yards). In the early period the field was open, and the two riders simply charged at each other. From about 1400 they were separated by a wooden barrier called the tilt, which ran the length of the field. The tilt was about 1.8 meters (6 feet) high and originated in Italy, replacing the simple rope used in earlier times. Its purpose was practical: it kept the horses from colliding head on and kept each rider at the best angle for striking with the lance. The sport’s other name, tilting, comes from this barrier.

A joust was fought in courses, or passes. The two riders started at opposite ends of the lists and galloped toward each other, each passing on the other’s left side, lance aimed at the opponent’s chest, throat, or helmet. A hit hard enough would knock the rider from the saddle. In later jousts the target narrowed to the shield, and some shields were even built with a mechanism that shattered when struck, so the crowd could see clearly who had hit first. When a lance broke on impact, and that happened often by design, the rider’s squire handed him a new one. Three lances seem to have been the normal ration for a joust, and after the lances were spent, the two knights might continue fighting on foot with swords if they wished.

Rules were agreed for each occasion rather than fixed for all time, as the Royal Armouries points out in its survey of tournament development. There was no single rulebook for the whole of Europe. But by the later Middle Ages the rules were detailed, and scoring had become a points system. The World History Encyclopedia quotes one set of English tournament ordinances from 1466, which awarded prizes for unseating an opponent with the lance, striking the opponent’s coronel twice, striking the sight of the helmet three times, breaking the most spears, and staying in the field the longest while still wearing a helmet and running the fairest course. Prizes could be taken away if a rider struck a horse, hit an opponent in the back, or barged into the tilt three times. The prizes themselves were worth winning: a gold crown, a ring, a jewel, a gold chain, a fine sword or helmet, even a horse or a falcon. Less material rewards included a lady’s kiss or garter, and the applause of the crowd and of one’s peers.

Judges and heralds ran the event. Heralds announced the competitors, checked their arms and lineage, and called the courses. Taking off the helmet was the signal that a knight did not wish to continue. The emphasis on fair courses and clean hits shows how far the joust had traveled from its origins. It was still violent, but it was violence inside a framework that everyone present understood.

There were also different kinds of joust. The most common form, the joust of peace, was fought with blunted lances and special armor, and the aim was to break lances or unhorse the opponent. The Metropolitan Museum of Art describes the German form of this event, the Gestech, and the highly specialized armor made for it. A harder form, called the joust of war or Scharfrennen in Germany, was fought in an open field with relatively sharp lances. And the joust of war in its most serious form, the joust a outrance, was a grudge match in which two opponents used lethal weapons and swore to fight until serious injury or death decided the matter. Most of what crowds watched was the joust of peace, but the other forms were always in the background, and they explain why the sport kept its reputation for danger even after the rules were written down.

The Lance, the Armor, and the Horse

The lance was the main weapon of the joust. The World History Encyclopedia describes it as around 2.4 to 3 meters (8 to 10 feet) long, commonly made of ash or cypress, with a steel tip nailed onto the shaft. That is a long weapon to manage at a gallop with one hand, and the design shows how much thought went into making it both effective and survivable. The lance was made hollow so that it shattered on impact instead of driving through the target. From the 14th century a vamplate, a small guard first circular and then conical, was added to protect the hand that carried it. By the end of the 14th century knights were wearing a lance rest as part of the breast armor, a small bracket that gave the weapon extra stability. A leather strap around the upper arm kept the lance from sliding backward when it struck.

The head of the lance mattered as much as the shaft. For the joust of peace, lances were fitted with a coronel, a three or four pointed head that spread the force of the blow instead of concentrating it. The coronel reduced the impact and made it far less likely that a lance would pierce armor or flesh. Swords used in tournaments were blunted, a practice called rebating. Weapons adapted in this way were known as arms of courtesy, and they were the standard for the joust of peace. The contrast with the battlefield lance, a solid weapon with a sharp point meant to unhorse or kill, shows how deliberately the tournament had been separated from war.

Armor followed the same path from battlefield gear to specialized sporting equipment. In the 13th century, tournament riders wore padded linen and leather armor. When plate armor came into wider use on the battlefield in the 14th century, jousters wore it too, but their version was soon modified. The parts most likely to be hit, the chest and the right side of the helmet, were reinforced with extra plates. The lance hand was protected by a heavy steel gauntlet called a manifer. A popular helmet was the frog mouth, named because its lower half stuck out further than the top, with a narrow horizontal slit for vision. The slit was so narrow that a knight could only see out of it by tilting his head forward, but the advantage was that his eyes were protected the moment he raised his head. Toward the end of the 15th century, helmets began to be screwed to the breast and back armor so they would not fall off when struck.

The surviving tournament armor in museums shows how far this specialization went. The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a German armor for the tilt made in Augsburg around 1580 and attributed to Anton Peffenhauser, the leading armorer in the city during the second half of the 16th century. It weighs 81 pounds (36.8 kilograms) and includes a helmet screwed to the breastplate and backplate, a tilt targe, a cape-like defense for the left shoulder, screwed directly to the breastplate, a passguard over the left elbow, and an oversized left gauntlet. The left side mattered because the two riders passed left side to left side, so the left side of the rider was the side most exposed to the lance. The large smooth reinforcing plates on that side were designed to deflect the blow rather than stop it dead. Armor like this was made for the joust alone. It was too heavy and too stiff for the battlefield, and it was often lavishly decorated, because a tournament was as much a display of wealth as a test of skill.

The horse was as important as the rider, and as expensive. The best jousting horses were destriers and chargers, large, strong, and highly trained stallions bred for war. A good warhorse cost a small fortune, and losing one in a melee or a joust was a serious blow. Horses were protected too, with a padded or metal chest protector called a peytral and often a metal plate over the head, and their eyes were very often covered. Saddles were given a higher back, especially in Germany, to help the rider stay in the saddle when struck, and from the 14th century they were fitted with curving protectors for the rider’s legs. The horse had to gallop straight down the lists, ignore the noise and the crowd, and hold its line while a lance was aimed at its rider. Training the horse was as much a part of the sport as training the rider, and a knight’s reputation depended on both.

Training for the Tilt

Nobody learned to joust by entering a tournament. The skills were too difficult and the risks too high. Knights practiced on training devices that taught the separate parts of the skill before they were ever put together at full speed.

The best known device was the quintain, a rotating arm with a shield at one end and a weight at the other. The rider had to hit the shield with his lance and keep riding on, because if he slowed down, the arm swung around and the weight hit him in the back. Sometimes the shield was made into the figure of a sword-wielding Saracen, for extra motivation. Another device was a suspended ring, which the knight had to catch and remove with the tip of his lance. That exercise, catching a small ring at a gallop, is the direct ancestor of the ring jousting still practiced in Maryland today. Inexperienced knights often had their own jousting events on the eve of a tournament proper, so they could gain experience in front of a smaller crowd before facing the best riders.

Practice mattered because the margin for error was small. Guiding a horse with the knees while carrying a lance in one hand and a shield in the other, keeping balance in the saddle, and striking a moving target that is itself charging toward you at speed is a demanding set of skills. A rider who lost his balance, mistimed his strike, or failed to keep his horse straight could be unhorsed, injured, or killed, and the sources record that even practice could be fatal. John de Hastings, Earl of Pembroke, was killed by a groin injury in a practice joust in 1390. The competitive spirit could also go too far. The 13th century chronicler Matthew Paris records that a knight named Roger de Leyburne killed his opponent Arnold de Montigny with a lance blow to the throat, and it was discovered afterward that Leyburne’s lance had not been blunted as it should have been. The story survives because it was shocking, not because it was normal, but it shows why the rules about blunted weapons were taken seriously.

The squire was part of the team. He carried the spare lances, helped the knight into his armor, held the horse, and handed up a fresh lance each time one broke. A knight who ran out of lances had to rely on his squire to keep him in the fight, and a good squire was part of what made a good jouster. The bond between knight and squire is one of the most practical details of the sport, and it is easy to miss behind the pageantry.

Pageantry, Heraldry, and the Ladies

A tournament was a show as well as a sport, and the show was deliberate. Knights proved their lineage to take part, and they displayed their family’s coat of arms on the shield, surcoat, and horse’s coat. Heraldry was not decoration. It was identification, and it was also advertising. A knight’s arms told the crowd who he was, where he came from, and what family he represented, and they let the heralds announce him properly. In an age before printed programs, the painted shield was the program.

Ladies attended the jousts, sometimes sponsored the tournament, and gave tokens called favors to knights they supported. A veil or a scarf tied around a rider’s lance was a public mark of favor, and it gave the knight a visible reason to fight well. The ladies and other spectators watched from purpose-built stands, pavilions with balconies, or simply from tents set around the lists. At the great events, knights dressed up as legendary figures such as King Arthur, as traditional enemies like the Saracens, as monks, or even as court ladies. This was especially true at the event known as the Round Table, where each knight pretended to be a character from the Arthur legends. The line between sport and theater was thin, and by the later Middle Ages the theater was often the point.

The pageantry extended to the whole tournament week. There were stalls with refreshments, sellers of horses and fine clothes, performances of drama with musicians and acrobats, pageants, and several banquets over the course of the event. Tournaments often marked another occasion, such as an important marriage or a coronation, and they could last several days. They were also diplomatic occasions. Safe conduct was offered to foreign competitors, and a tournament could bring together knights from across Europe. The event was a place to be seen, to make alliances, to show off wealth, and to settle questions of honor in public, and the fighting was only part of it.

This world of display and obligation was the world of the medieval lord. The men who hosted tournaments were the same men who held the land, collected the rents, and raised the armies, and the tournament was one of the ways they showed their power. Our guide to a lord from medieval times explains the feudal duties and privileges that gave a lord the means to stage an event like this, and the joust makes more sense when it is seen as part of that system rather than as a standalone sport.

Famous Jousts and Famous Jousters

Some jousts are remembered because of who fought in them, and some because of what went wrong. The two are often the same event.

Henry VIII of England was the most famous royal jouster of the Tudor age, and his career shows both the glory and the danger of the sport. Historic Royal Palaces describes the Westminster Tournament Roll, an illustrated manuscript showing the tournament held at Westminster Palace in 1511 to celebrate the birth of Henry’s first son, Henry. The roll shows the king himself tilting in front of Katherine of Aragon. The same year, Henry established a royal armory at Greenwich, where armorers from Brussels, Milan, and the German states made the most up to date arms and armor for Tudor knights. By then a tournament was as much a place to show off fashion and wealth as a demonstration of military skill, and Henry’s armors are among the finest ever made.

Henry was also injured in the lists. In a Joust Royal against his close friend Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, Henry failed to close the visor of his helmet, and Brandon’s lance splintered into the king’s head. Onlookers cried out as they saw the lance break against him. Historic Royal Palaces notes that the resulting injuries may even have caused Henry cerebral damage, though the evidence for that is indirect and the claim should be treated with care. What is certain is that the king was badly hurt, and that the accident was remembered at court for years.

Henry also built for the sport. The Tiltyard at Hampton Court Palace was commissioned by Henry VIII, and much of the building work took place while Jane Seymour was pregnant with the future Edward VI. The tiltyard was modeled on the one at Greenwich Palace, but it was built around five pre-existing banqueting houses, one of which still stands today. There are no known records of a joust at Hampton Court during Henry’s own reign, and the first time the tiltyard is known to have been used for a tournament was for Christmas celebrations in December 1557, during the reign of Mary I. In 1581, Elizabeth I hosted the Dauphin of France and the French ambassadors at a grand joust at which pageantry took precedence over the sport itself.

Elizabeth’s reign turned the joust into a calendar event. Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley, the Queen’s Champion, formally introduced the joust into the annual Accession Day celebrations, the most notable jousts of Elizabeth’s reign. Skill at the tilt mattered less than it once had. Pageantry was the main spectacle, and the crowds at Whitehall Palace watched nobles and their servants in elaborate, stylized, and often highly impractical costumes. George Clifford, third Earl of Cumberland, succeeded Sir Henry Lee as the Queen’s Champion, and his full suit of armor still survives today, decorated with gold engravings of fleur-de-lis and Tudor roses from head to toe. It was made in the royal workshops at Greenwich, and it is a reminder that the armor of the late joust was a work of art as much as a piece of equipment.

The most famous jousting death in history belonged to a king of France. In 1559, a year after Elizabeth’s accession, Henri II of France was killed in a jousting accident when a splinter from a shattered lance entered his visor. The accident prompted a ban on jousting in France, and it is often given as the moment the sport’s great age ended. The danger had always been there, but the death of a king in front of his court made it impossible to ignore.

The great set piece tournaments of the age are worth remembering too. The meeting of Henry VIII and Francis I of France at the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520 was one of the most lavish tournaments ever staged, with jousting among its events. It was a diplomatic summit dressed as a festival, and it showed what the tournament had become: a display of royal power that happened to include fighting.

Why Jousting Faded

Jousting did not end in a single year. It faded through the 16th century, and several changes pushed it in the same direction.

First, tastes changed. From the 16th century, horsemanship itself became more appreciated than jousting skill, and fighting on foot, sometimes with the opponents separated by a low fence, became a popular alternative to the joust. Archery and other challenges took their share of attention. The joust had become so formal and so expensive that it was hard to keep it fresh, and the pageantry that had once made it exciting began to matter more than the contest itself.

Second, the cost was enormous. A tournament needed a field, stands, heralds, judges, banquets, and prizes. A jouster needed horses, armor made to measure, lances, squires, and servants. Only kings and great lords could afford to stage the grand events, and as their attention moved elsewhere, the great tournaments became rarer.

Third, the danger was real and hard to defend. Henri II’s death in 1559 was the most famous example, but it was not the only one. Men had been killed in practice as well as in competition, and the sport’s own safety measures, the hollow lances, the blunted coronels, the reinforced armor, could only reduce the risk, never remove it. When a sport’s main purpose had become display rather than training for war, the danger was harder to justify.

Tournaments did continue sporadically in some countries, especially as celebratory shows at important royal events, and there were occasional revivals up to the 19th century. But the golden age of chivalry and knighthood had passed, and the revivals made little sense once the world that had produced the joust no longer existed. By the 17th century, jousting had been set aside in favor of other equestrian sports, and the tiltyard fell silent.

Jousting Today

Jousting did not disappear completely. It survived in three different forms, and all three are still visible today.

The first is show jousting. Historic Royal Palaces notes that show jousting, and even real jousting, is still enjoyed today by many, and Hampton Court Palace holds a jousting event every summer that introduces people of all ages to the sport. The Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds hosts an international jousting competition each Easter, with teams from several countries competing over four days. These events are part history lesson and part spectacle, and they are the easiest way for a modern visitor to see what a joust looked like. The armor is real, the lances break, and the crowd still gasps when a rider is hit hard.

The second is competitive historical jousting. Theatrical jousting reenactment has been active since the 1970s, and competitive jousting, with real scoring and rankings, has grown since the 1990s. Two international bodies organize much of this activity. The International Jousting Association was formed in England in 1987 and became properly established in 1996, after a meeting in New Zealand between English, Australian, and New Zealand representatives. It promotes an international standard of training and certification, and its members’ book of rules and standards was adopted by groups in several countries. The International Jousting League was created in 2004 to give jousters a competitive environment with rules, a calendar, and a ranking system, and it is now the largest and most active jousting community in the modern world. Modern competitive jousters use solid lances with steel coronels in some events and breakaway balsa wood lances in others, and the sport is a demanding test of riding, balance, and nerve.

The third form is ring jousting, and it is the oldest continuous tradition of all. In Maryland, jousting has been the official state sport since 1962, when the Maryland General Assembly passed the bill and Governor J. Millard Tawes signed it into law on 6 April 1962, effective 1 June. Maryland was the first state in the country to adopt an official sport. The Maryland form of the sport is tilting at the rings: riders gallop down a track and try to spear small rings suspended from arches with the tip of the lance. Three rings hang at set distances down the track, and each rider gets three runs, for nine attempts in total. The rings are small, the smallest about a quarter of an inch across, and the sport is one of precision rather than force. Tournaments are held from May through October, run by the Maryland Jousting Tournament Association and local clubs such as the Amateur Jousting Club of Maryland, the Eastern Shore Jousting Association, and the Western Maryland Jousting Club. The Maryland Jousting Tournament Association itself was founded in 1950, and the state’s jousting tradition reaches back to the colonial period, when the sport arrived with the first settlers.

The three forms are different, but they share the same root. Whether the target is another rider, a suspended ring, or a judge’s scorecard, the skill is the same: a rider, a horse, a lance, and a straight run at speed.

Jousting on Screen and in Stories

Most people today meet jousting through films and television rather than through a tiltyard, and the screen version has shaped what the public expects the sport to look like. Historic Royal Palaces points to A Knight’s Tale from 2001, in which Heath Ledger plays a commoner who reinvents himself as a knight at the tilt, as the film most viewers will know. The film gets the excitement right and much of the detail wrong, and that is the usual bargain with historical films.

The older tradition is literary. The Arthur legends, the romances of Chretien de Troyes, and the chronicles of Froissart all made the joust the centerpiece of knightly life, and they did so while the sport was still being fought. Froissart’s Chronicles, written in the 1390s and covering the years 1327 to 1400, contain many details of jousting in that era, including tournaments held to celebrate great marriages. Those accounts, rather than the films, are the best guide to what a joust meant to the people who watched it. For them it was not a costume drama. It was the sport of their age, with real money, real honor, and real danger attached.

FAQ

What is jousting in simple terms?

Jousting is a contest between two riders on horseback who charge at each other with long wooden lances. Each rider tries to strike the other, break a lance against the opponent, or knock the opponent off the horse. It was the best known event of the medieval tournament, and it grew from cavalry training into a regulated sport.

What is the difference between a joust and a tournament?

A tournament was a whole festival of mock combat that could last several days, with many events. A joust was one event inside the tournament: the single combat between two riders with lances. The other great event was the melee, a mock battle between two teams of horsemen. In the 15th century the joust became the main event of the tournament, and the melee faded.

How long was a jousting lance?

A jousting lance was around 2.4 to 3 meters (8 to 10 feet) long, commonly made of ash or cypress, with a steel tip nailed onto the shaft. Tournament lances were made hollow so that they shattered on impact, and they were fitted with a coronel, a three or four pointed head that spread the force of the blow instead of concentrating it.

How was a joust scored?

Jousts were scored on points, and the rules were agreed for each occasion. One set of English tournament ordinances from 1466 awarded prizes for unseating an opponent with the lance, striking the opponent’s coronel twice, striking the sight of the helmet three times, breaking the most spears, and staying in the field the longest while still wearing a helmet. Prizes could be taken away for striking a horse, hitting an opponent in the back, or barging into the tilt three times.

What is the tilt in jousting?

The tilt is the long wooden barrier that ran down the middle of the jousting field, separating the two riders. It was about 1.8 meters (6 feet) high and came into use from about 1400, replacing a simple rope. It kept the horses from colliding head on and kept each rider at the best angle for striking with the lance. The sport’s other name, tilting, comes from this barrier.

Was jousting dangerous?

Yes, even with safety measures. Lances were made hollow and fitted with blunted coronels, swords were blunted, and armor was reinforced, but men were still injured and killed. John de Hastings, Earl of Pembroke, was killed in a practice joust in 1390. Henry VIII was badly injured when a lance splintered into his head. Henri II of France was killed in a joust in 1559 when a splinter from a shattered lance entered his visor, and the accident led to a ban on jousting in France.

When did jousting end?

Jousting faded through the 16th century as tastes changed, costs rose, and the danger became harder to justify. Tournaments continued sporadically for royal celebrations, and there were occasional revivals up to the 19th century, but by the 17th century jousting had been set aside in favor of other equestrian sports. Its great age was the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries.

Does anyone still joust today?

Yes, in three forms. Show jousting is performed at historic sites and festivals, including a summer event at Hampton Court Palace and an Easter international competition at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds. Competitive historical jousting is organized by the International Jousting Association, formed in 1987, and the International Jousting League, created in 2004. Ring jousting is practiced in Maryland, where jousting has been the official state sport since 1962, with tournaments held from May through October.

Why is jousting the state sport of Maryland?

Maryland adopted jousting as its official state sport in 1962, the first state in the country to adopt an official sport. The Maryland form of the sport is tilting at the rings, in which riders gallop down a track and spear small suspended rings with the tip of the lance. The tradition reaches back to the colonial period, and the Maryland Jousting Tournament Association was founded in 1950 to keep it alive.

What should I see if I want to watch a joust?

The best options are the summer joust at Hampton Court Palace in England, the Easter international jousting competition at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, and the ring jousting tournaments held in Maryland from May through October. Renaissance fairs and medieval festivals in many countries also stage show jousts. Check the venue’s own listings before traveling, because dates change from year to year.

Sources & references

• Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Joust", https://www.britannica.com/sports/joust (western European mock battle between two horsemen charging each other with levelled lances, each attempting to unhorse the other; in the 15th century the joust tended to supersede the melee; jousting fell from favor by the beginning of the 16th century; tilting at the rings is a form of jousting in which the horseman rides at full gallop and inserts his lance through small metal rings).
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Tournament", https://www.britannica.com/sports/tournament-medieval-military-games (series of military exercises, probably of medieval French origin; the early tournament was a mock battle called the melee; about 1292 a Statutum Armorum enacted that swords with points were not to be used; by the 1400s jousters usually ran their courses separated by a cloth-covered barrier, or tilt).
• World History Encyclopedia, "Medieval Jousting", https://www.worldhistory.org/Jousting/ (Mark Cartwright; jousts from the 13th to 16th century CE; tournaments probably began in France in the 11th century CE; jousting more common from the second half of the 13th century; lance 2.4 to 3 meters, ash or cypress, hollow, coronel head; lists 100 to 200 meters, tilt from about 1400, about 1.8 meters high, originating in Italy; three lances the normal ration; 1466 English ordinances and prizes; frog-mouth helmet; John de Hastings killed in a practice joust in 1390; Henri II killed in 1559; decline in the 16th century).
• Wikipedia, "Jousting", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jousting (etymology: Old French joster from Latin iuxtare, loaned into Middle English around 1300, "tilt" c. 1510; from the 15th century jousting became a sport without direct relevance to warfare; theatrical reenactment since the 1970s, competitive jousting since the 1990s; Froissart's Chronicles written during the 1390s, covering 1327 to 1400).
• Historic Royal Palaces, "The thrill of the Joust", https://www.hrp.org.uk/blog/the-thrill-of-the-joust/ (Harriet Baker, 29 June 2026; two competitors, the tilt, the lance; early jousts fought by groups for ransom; younger sons as jousters; Tudor joust as regulated sport; coronel; Westminster Tournament Roll and the 1511 tournament for the birth of Henry VIII's first son; Greenwich armory established 1511; Henry VIII injured by Charles Brandon's lance; Hampton Court Tiltyard commissioned by Henry VIII, first known use December 1557, 1581 joust for the Dauphin of France; Henri II killed 1559 and the ban in France; Sir Henry Lee and the Accession Day tilts; George Clifford's armor; Hampton Court summer joust today; A Knight's Tale, 2001).
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Armor for the Tilt", https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/23203 (German, Augsburg, about 1580, attributed to Anton Peffenhauser; in the German fashion two contestants armed with blunt lances rode at one another, left side to left side, separated by a barrier called a tilt, the object being to break lances or unseat the opponent; helm screwed to the breastplate and backplate, tilt targe, passguard, manifer; height 68 3/4 inches, weight 81 pounds).
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Helm for the Joust of Peace (Stechhelm)", https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/23216 (German, probably Nuremberg, about 1500; part of a highly specialized tournament armor worn solely for the Gestech, or German joust, fought with blunted lances; the object was to break lances or to unhorse the opponent).
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Jousting Armor (Rennzeug) and Matching Half-Shaffron", https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/22908 (German, probably Dresden or Annaberg, about 1580 to 1590; intended for the Scharfrennen, a joust fought in an open field by two contestants mounted on horses and armed with relatively sharp lances).
• Maryland State Archives, Maryland Manual, "Jousting and Lacrosse, Maryland State Sports", https://2022mdmanual.msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/01glance/html/symbols/sport.html (jousting became the official sport of Maryland in 1962, Chapter 134, Acts of 1962; Maryland was the first state to adopt an official sport; jousting developed in the Middle Ages as combat training for the cavalry; jousting tournaments have been held in Maryland since early colonial times; competitions held from May through October).
• Maryland State Archives, Maryland Manual 1985-86, "Maryland Sport", https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2900/sc2908/000001/000182/html/am182--15.html (by Chapter 134, Acts of 1962, the age-old equestrian sport of jousting is the official sport of the State of Maryland).
• Royal Armouries, "The development of medieval tournaments" lecture, https://tickets.royalarmouries.org/events/royalarmouries/2432732 (Alan V. Murray, University of Leeds; tournaments originated as mass combat in 1050 to 1100 in northern France; jousting tournaments never had fixed rules like modern sports, rules were arranged and agreed for each separate occasion; from 1200 the popularity of individual combat led to jousting as a separate event; by the later Middle Ages tournament forms had developed into a sporting event with scoring and prizes).
• The Jousting Life, "Jousting Organizations", http://www.thejoustinglife.com/2012/02/jousting-leagues.html (the International Jousting Association was originally formed in England in 1987 by Alan Beattie and other English jousters, and became properly established in 1996 after a meeting in New Zealand; the International Jousting League was created in 2004 and is the largest and most active jousting community in the modern world).
• Royal Armouries, "International Jousting Tournament", https://royalarmouries.org/leeds/whats-on/international-jousting-tournament (2026 event: Friday 3 to Monday 6 April, international teams from Poland and Portugal and the Royal Armouries team competing for the UK; two tournament shows per day).
• Baltimore Style, "Maryland's State Sport Is a Three-Ring Triumph", https://baltimorestyle.com/marylands-state-sport-is-a-three-ring-triumph/ (9 April 2025; modern Maryland jousters target small rings hung from arches, a sport of precision; three rings suspended at 20, 50, and 80 yards, three rides per rider for nine attempts; tournaments run by the Maryland Jousting Tournament Association and local clubs).