Tournament (medieval)

This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (January 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

A tournament, or tourney (from Old French torneiement, tornei), was a chivalrous competition or mock fight that was common in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (12th to 16th centuries), and is a type of hastilude. Tournaments included mêlée, hand-to-hand combat, contests of strength or accuracy, and sometimes jousts. Some considered the tournaments to be frivolous pursuits of celebrity, even a potential threat to public order.^[1] But the shows were popular and often put on in honor of coronations, marriages, or births; to celebrate recent conquests or peace treatises; or to welcome ambassadors, lords, or others considered to be of great importance. Other times tournaments were held for no particular reason at all, simply for entertainment. Certain tournaments are depicted throughout the Codex Manesse.