Tournament

by David Crouch

The tournament was a mock battle, at its height between 1100 and 1300, conducted by two arbitrary battalions over many square miles of open country. It was a one-day event, but when joined to ancillary festivals it could extend it to several days. The centre of the enthusiasm was across north and north-eastern France, where -- in the twelfth century -- thousands of knights assembled from across northern Europe to seek reputation and profit. But the passion for the tournament extended much further. Tournament holding had penetrated England, Germany and Austria by 1200. The tournament resembled in many senses a modern spectator sport, with spectators, chants, national teams, team colours, inflated salaries, transfer fees, celebrity cults and a lifestyle notable for its excesses. The tournament had a wider significance too. It underpinned the idea of aristocracy; a knight and aristocrat could be defined as a man who frequented the tournament.

Genres: History, Medieval, Medieval History, Military History

240 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2005

About the author

David Bruce Crouch, FRHistS, FBA, was Professor of Medieval History at the University of Hull, where he taught from 2003 until his retirement in 2018.

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tournament
David Crouch
Read it in paperback at 235 pages including notes+index.

The Tournament started in obscurity. Often held between duchies/counties away from regulations and oppressive monarchy, it eventually rose to be the premier sporting event of the high middle ages. Ranging from a few hundred combatants to thousands, this was mock battle at its finest and an outlet for growing chivalric class known as the knight. Crouch adequately details out all aspects of the Tournament from attendance, infrastructure, the chaos and commerce that accompanied tournaments, rewards, penalties, and unfortunate accidents. He draws extensively from the contemporary biography of William Marshal, the premier knight of his time as well as source material. While detailing out extensively that this volume isn't about jousting, Crouch does show the formulation of the joust and then it's rise to popularity in the 'round table'. So while this isn't specifically about the joust there is a large section devoted to this later style of tournament.

Crouch is great at detailing it all out but I noticed that in Tournament he had an inclination to expound on something before actually telling me what the specific term was. This often required me to go back and re-read the previous paragraph to put it all back together. A minor complaint really but it did slow me down. This was most prevalent in detailing out the gear of a tournament attender because the source material isn't as clear as desired (specifically pieces of armor, a brimmed metal hat is called something different than a metal hat without a brim and chain mail has different names depending on length, cut, included coif, etc.) Two additional tid-bits. The accompanying section 'The Documents of the Tournament' is amazing and makes this worth reading on its own. Finally, this doesn't have an appendix for further reading or source material. It's theoretically buried in the included notes section but shame on Hambledon Continuum for not including it in this non-fiction work.

[Jody A · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading for reseach/writing and it is well writtten, scholarly in content but still very easy to read and understand. Great resource book.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

As any child growing up in north western Europe, I got my fair share of knights in armor as toys, characters in books, comics, lego, video games and movies/cartoons they are well represented. However the kind of knight we see is more often then not the late medieval fancy armor jousting knight, all bling and fancy decorations or it is the crusading knight full of piety and ideological zeal as well accompanying brutality.

David Crouch brings us back to the early days of knighthood with his excellent study on tournaments, the mock battles of 1100-1300 which involved hundreds of knights out as much for ransom as glory, social mingling as service to a lord. Going in extensive detail how such an event was organised, planned, impacted both noble (women), peasant and tradesmen and how it played out. Reading up on this I welcomed the angle of asking whether this tournament should be considered a sport activity or not as well as the question to what extent the event and promise of ransom taking is to be linked to the evolving status of the armed rider in the region as would the growing importance of jousting as its ultimate replacement.

These questions and topics are accompanied by such questions to what political purpose these events served, how both kings and church looked upon it, the role of the heralds, the role of the (female) spectators, the peculiar patronage role of Hainaut in the early push for these organised mock battles as alternatives for direct open warfare. However, for all the many questions asked, the book lacks a conclusion. I would have liked a few pages at the end calling back to the many questions asked and going over them and whether the answers interact with another. What we do get is a sample of historical texts that talk about or have to do with the tournaments, which is nice but not a valid replacement of the conclusion which would have elevated the book to 4 stars.

Worthwhile accessible read, for anyone interested in the north west medieval Europe.

[Jürg · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd experience - obviously a lot of research has gone into the book and subject-matter is attractively presented, but the discursive style and structure means that key issues remain unaddressed. E.g., if, as is stated up-front, the tournament was a sport of sorts, what then were the rules? How did they change over time? How were they communicated - did one just know, or were specific rules set for specific tournaments? Were the rules used to keep man and beast safe(r), and if so, how, and when? There is a brief mention of blunted weapons in the section about weapons, but those were not introduced until over a century after tournaments became popular, so organisers and participants must have relied on rules to differentiate the tournament from actual war. What were the punishments for breaking the rules?
My other bugbear - and here at least Crouch is in excellent company - is that the book promises information on the horse, but the short section "Horses and their Armour" deals exclusively with horse-armour. What kinds of horses were used, where they came from, how they were trained - not a mention. And this after all a book about an equine activity.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book since I recently started jousting. I was hoping to read a bit about the history of my story. This book is a little more wordy than I wanted, and the scholar does not talk about jousting and armor as much as texts talking about earlier malee styles of tournaments, which later become jousting. Was hoping to also read a little more about German styles of jousting as that is where full metal jousting gets its roots. However, this book deals more with France.
Gave this book 4 stars because I enjoyed the primary sources included at the end of the book. It was nice to read a text about women jousting in a tournament.

[Kyla Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this examination of the medieval tournament, with a great emphasis on written sources, to be quite stirring! It certainly enhanced my understanding of the development of the knight and of the changing social milieu in the 10th - 13th centuries. However, the 2005 hardback suffers from poor proofing.

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Crouch offers a well researched book about tournaments in the middle ages. Instead of the one on one jousts we see depicted in film, Crouch shows how the tournament changed over time and how impacted many areas of life during this period.

[Trevor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Questionable methodology and awareness of scholarship.