Tournament

A tournament or tourney is a great social event, thrown by a noble house to celebrate honour, chivalry and martial skill. However, they also allow a noble house to flaunt their wealth and status, as tournaments are enormously expensive. It can take a smaller house years to pay for one tourney.

There is no set format or length for a tournament, with modest ones lasting perhaps only an afternoon and consisting of a few events, whilst larger ones may sprawl across a week and feature many different contests and challenges.

A tourney may consist of one or more of the following events:


 * The lists: mounted knights charge one another with lances, with the aim of dismounting one another. The knight who remains mounted the longest is the winner.
 * The melee: a number of men engage in combat using swords, maces and axes. Opponents have to be knocked over and made to yield.
 * Archery: archers compete with one another to show who has the greatest accuracy and consistency.
 * Axe-throwing: similar to the archery contest, but with axes.
 * Horse-racing: Unarmoured riders compete in a simple horse race around a track.

Tournaments also attract large numbers of side-events, including puppet shows, mummer performances and so on. Vast quantities of food and drink are consumed at a tourney, and blacksmiths can find plenty of work repairing damaged armour or buying the armour and weapons of defeated knights.

Whilst tourneys are non-lethal and some safety precautions are taken, accidental deaths or injuries at a tournament are not unusual.