Tournament (medieval)

Uncommon card · No. 142835

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). It 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, and even a potential threat to public order; but the shows were popular and often put on in honor of coronations, marriages, births, 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 or simply for entertainment.

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