The Dangers

The tournament, then as now, was an extreme sport and was highly dangerous. From the time they first appeared, in the 11th century, as great mock battles ranging over miles of countryside, tournaments were the cause of many accidental deaths and the Church and many kings wanted them banned. Edward I (reigned 1272 – 1307), who was a great lover of tournaments, often had to reprimand his knights for going off and competing in international events when they should have been fighting his wars.

In the 14th century an old war veteran and court advisor suggested that a young French prince should avoid dangerous activities – especially jousting –and stick to tennis. His mother, the Queen, disagreed, stating that if a foreign prince should visit for a wedding or other solemn event then her son would be expected to break four or five lances in their honour at least, if not fifty or a hundred as was the custom.

In 1389 the seventeen-year-old Earl of Pembroke took part in a Christmas joust at Woodstock. Unfortunately he was struck in the groin by a lance - ‘by which blow his internal organs were torn up and he died’ - his death causing ‘unspeakable sorrow’. King Henry VIII, another keen jouster, once forgot to close his visor whilst jousting and received a face full of splinters. Miraculously he was unharmed.

King Henry II of France was less fortunate, whilst jousting to celebrate his daughter’s wedding, a splinter of lance entered through his visor and pierced his brain – he died nine days later.