Jousting

Overview

Two armoured riders charge along opposite sides of a barrier and try to strike each other with lances. It was a scored sport with written rules long before most modern games existed.

How far this page is checked. The rules below are the ordinances John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester and Constable of England, made at Windsor on 29 May 1466, "by the King's commandment", for jousts of peace in England. We've read them in F. H. Cripps-Day's The History of the Tournament in England and in France (1918), Appendix IV, which prints them from British Library Harley MS 69. That manuscript is a sixteenth-century copy, so some details may have been added later. Modern jousting competitions set their own rules, which aren't covered here.

1. Who judged

The ordinances reserve the award of the prize to the Queen and the ladies present, judged by the articles below.

2. How the prize was won

Any of these won the prize:

1. Breaking the most spears in the proper way.
2. Hitting the sight of the helm (the eye-slit) three times.
3. Meeting coronel to coronel (lance tip against lance tip) twice.
4. Bearing a man down with a stroke of the spear.

When riders qualified in different ways, they ranked in this order:

1. Unhorsing an opponent, or bringing horse and man to the ground;
2. then coronel to coronel twice;
3. then hitting the sight three times;
4. then breaking the most spears.

Failing all of these, the prize went to whoever had stayed longest in the field with helm on, run the fairest course, given the greatest strokes and handled the spear best.

3. How the prize was lost

A rider could not win the prize who:

• struck a horse;
• struck a man with his back turned, or who had lost his spear;
• hit the tilt (the barrier) three times; or
• took his own helm off twice, unless his horse failed him.

4. Counting broken spears

Spear broken	Counted as
Between the saddle and the charnel of the helm	One
From the coronel upwards	Two
So that the opponent went down, out of the saddle, or was disarmed so he couldn't run the next course, or coronel to coronel	Three

And against a rider:

Fault	Penalty
Breaking a spear on the saddle	One spear-break taken off
Hitting the tilt once	Two taken off
Hitting the tilt a second time	Three more taken off
Breaking within a foot of the coronel	No spear broken, only a fair attaint (a hit)

5. The tilt

The tilt was the barrier running down the list between the riders. It kept them apart, and the ordinances punish hitting it.

Commonly argued

• Jousting was scored. These 1466 ordinances set out exactly how.
• Striking the horse forfeited the prize.
• Unhorsing ranked above everything else, then tip-to-tip meetings, then hits to the eye-slit, then broken spears.
• Hitting the barrier cost points, and three hits lost the prize.
• The Queen and the ladies awarded the prize.