If I may, I have two questions, not closely related to each other.

1. By the early 16th century the German lands of the HRE have a dizzying variety of joust events with their own specialized equipment - the Triumphal Procession of Maximilian by Burgkmair, lists the Italian Gestech, the German Gestech, the Hohenzeuggestech, the Italian Rennen, the Bundrennen, the Geschifftrennen, Helmletrettenn, Scheibenrennen, Schildrennen and more, and shows unique equipment for each. First of all, how did the German states come to have such a unique jousting culture, and when did it diverge from that of the rest of Europe? Secondly, how expensive was it to get all this specialized armour - my impression is that many jousts at the tilt barrier could use a modified field armour (with exchange pieces and an appropriate helm)* but some of these German jousts require entirely different harnesses. How much did this restrict participation in German jousts versus other jousts?

2. Outside of the highly specialized armour developed for the German jousts, just how different was jousting armour for a joust of peace from war harness in the 15th century, and how did this develop into its 15th century form and then change in the 16th century? I know a bit about the history of jousting helmets and some about mannifers etc. but that's about it - I know more about the specialized German jousting armours.**

*Please let me know if I'm wrong about this.

**I realized I may have just asked you to summarize your book in a reddit post. Oops.

I always try to combine the practical/physical and the scholarly/academic approaches in my work.

I enjoy re-enactment: there are some things you can't learn about the past without actually trying it out for yourself. It's great when you get those "Oh! So that's why they did it that way" moments.

But I find battle re-enactments to be much less enjoyable. They are kind of fun - and they can make an entertaining show to watch - but they are necessarily unrealistic because we don't actually try to kill each other (and we're not really supposed to maim each other either...)

Do you find that competing in modern tournaments is helpful for your historical work? Or is it just fun?

When most people picture jousts and tournaments they tend to imagine the pageantry and romance of the Later Middle Ages, with knights in full plate and crested helms. How different was this period from earlier jousts and tournaments, say c.1200 to 1300? Were fatalities (or at least serious injuries) more common before plate armour? Did the rules change dramatically?

I'm reminded of how Edward I was apparently quite keen on his tournaments as a young man, and I've always wondered just how different his experiences would have been to those of his grandson (or great grandson) a century later.

OK thank you SO much everyone! That was so much fun. I have to run for a train now, but I'll try to check back tomorrow to pick up a few more questions. Avaunt! TC

Welcome Dr. Capwell and thank you for doing this AMA! Since it's something I have no knowledge of whatsoever, allow me to ask a possibly dumb question - I imagine some of today's reenactments and modern tournaments have a medic standing close by, but what about the past ones? What kind of treatment was immediately available to a knight who got rattled off his horse, besides a pat on the back and encouragement to walk it off?

Thank you so much for hosting this AMA!

A professor once told me that by the end of the Middle Ages, knights at tournaments were sometimes essentially cosplaying Knights of the Round Table, using their iconography/heraldry. I've tried to track down a primary source for this ever since (the professor has retired), but the closest I've come are competitors who created their own "characters" for Elizabethan touraments.

So: did late medieval or 16th century knights dress as Arthurian ones to joust, or is that a "19th century medievalism" innovation?

can you recommend any sources for more information on the grand melee, particularly from the mid-fourteenth century? i have a ton of questions that may be easier to look up myself, but here are a few:

what were the entrance requirements? were there fees? proof of nobility or income needed to qualify?

what were the possible winnings? could opponents' horses and armor be taken like in battle?

how did they actually fight? i have a very hard time picturing the moment of impact of two lines of charging horsemen as anything other than a massive pileup like a car crash. but horses aren't cars, so did they pass through the lines one-by-one, or in groups? i have read that group discipline, riding knee-to-knee, was important in the charge, but i would like clarification on this. how did two lines of knights maneuver around each other in combat? i imagine a lot of brutal collisions and chaos, but how was this managed by a knight in the heat of the moment? what thoughts are going through a knight's mind as he navigates the tourney field?

i know about "the turn" (in a "turn-ey"), ie. the rapid return to combat after you have passed your target in a charge, but can you give more detail on this maneuver? is it done as an individual horseman? or as a group?

after the initial charge chroniclers tell of melees lasting for hours and ranging over several square miles of ground. how did this phase of the tourney work out?

i have been writing historical fiction about the Hundred Years War, starring English knights on the Crecy campaign, and i want to depict a tournament from the perspective of both a participant and an observer. the more detailed of an understanding i can have the better scene i can write. any sources you can point me towards would be much appreciated!

If I decided I wanted to get into competitive jousting, what would my cash outlay likely be? How much (approximately) for gear, tournament registration, etc would a beginner expect to pay? How would I find an instructor or mentor?

Hello, I have a question about the tournament as "mock war". To what extent was the tournament useful in training for war? And to what extent was it perceived by contemporaries as useful for this purpose? How did that change as the tournament itself changed?

Also, I will be visiting the U.K. in September, and would very much like to visit the Wallace Collection and see the arms and armour collection. What can I do, as a layman, to get the most out of a trip to the Wallace Collection?

Historian John Lynn posited in his book Battle: A History of Combat and Culture that the medieval tournament arose when the realities of warfare (sieges and often savage raiding) failed to match up to the ideals of chivalric combat; the tournament functioned as an invented form of 'war' that matched what people thought war should be. Do you see this sort of idealism as being a driving force in the medieval tournament?

In ASOIAF, in Tourney of Harrenhal, several high lords are present and it seems that they traveled significant distance to be there.

Would Medieval lords have traveled significant distances to attend tourneys?

I've noticed in morgan bible that the illustrator often depicts the helmets of various figures in a range of different colours and sometimes patterns as well. Given that this is believed to depict contemporary arms and armour, is this artistic license on part of the illustrator or an actual occurrence to decorate helmets in this manner? To follow that, if the later is true in what method was this accomplished and to what extent?

The Black Prince, disappointingly, didn't seem to actually ride around in black armour. Did anyone colour or paint their armour in your period? As I understand post 1400 shields and tabards to put your coats of arms on were falling out of favour.

Thanks for doing this AMA.

In modern day sports, there are plenty of ways to cheat and a lot of athletes cheat. Steroid use, throwing matches for the sake of bribes/rules that gives benefits to losing, pretending to be injuried, etc. I assuming this drive to succeed beyond what the rules allow has existed for centuries. How did participants cheat in jousting?

I just read your article on the energy delivered by a lance the other day, and I have a question about the types of saddles used. Namely, what did the Italian, English and Burgandian saddles look like, how do they change the way you ride, and what are the advantages of each one?

I was also wondering about stirrups and mounted combat. I've heard from some acquaintances who are into horses that the medieval depictions of riders with their legs straight down or straight and slightly forward are actually detrimental to the control and abilities of the horse, and Michael Prestwich has commented that these kinds of stirrups limit and reduce the ability of a knight to fight with swords on horseback. What does your practical experience in this area say about these criticisms of the medieval riding style?

Oh, and are you likely to ever write a book on English armour prior to 1400?

Edit:

Something I just thought of: do you have any thoughts on how the use of the couched lance might have changed the size of shields and armour materials? I've been involved in a thread where we had some interesting discussion on the subject, but you might be able to add a new light to the subject.

We're there jousters popular enough to achieve somewhat of a rockstar status, as one could see happening with ancient gladiators?

Thanks for your time, a very interesting read so far, especially the bit about themed tournaments. I had no idea!

In Game of Thrones, 1st season, Robert Baratheon wants to fight in the Melee part of the tournament but is disuaded by his friend because everyone would let him win. A few questions spring to mind:

• Did Melee exist in tournaments or was it mostly jousting?

• Did kings participate in any events of the tournaments?

• Was there an "uwritten" rule that you had to let the king win?

• If there was, did any knight ever refuse to compley? And what would his punishment have been if there was any?

Many thanks for doing this AMA and good luck with the jousting and fun ;)

You mentioned themes, Amadis of Gaul aswell. Was every tournament a themed one? What other themes was there? How did they play out differently? Was there some different jousting or special melee they did based on themes or was there just some dressing up? Maybe they had slightly varying rules?

Thank you for posting this AMA. Much intresting, your short introduction sounds like the dream of any 14 year old boy

Hi! Thanks for doing this AMA

How would recent or on-going military conflicts affect the tournaments? Would knights try to abstain attending one on the territory of former/current adversary to avoid any sort of backlash? Or did they have some sort of Olympic spirit?

Also, did foreigners from outside of Europe ever notably participated in the tournaments?

I've handled bladed tools before, but never large bladed weapons. How realistic is it when authors say that this warrior or that one can cut a man in half? Is that possible with a large enough, sharp enough sword? It's hard for me to imagine a broadsword with a shaving-sharp hone.

I hope I haven't come too late for this AMA. It's not four yet, so maybe it's still duty hours for historians...

Jousts and tournaments seem like contests primarily for knights, or at least those who could afford the horse and equipment. Is there a continuum leading up to these events, with people of less wealth or social status engaging in mock combats, and if so, what were these like? Or is this sort of event something that marks "knights" out as a warrior class?

As a collector of antique swords, and a HEMA practitioner, I cannot express my admiration of you enough.

I was wondering how you came to be the Curator at the Wallace Collection - did you have a related degree already, or some other qualifications - perhaps one of your books?

What kind of research has been done on the horses (breeds, size, etc) used for jousting? Can you suggest any publications for further reading?

Thanks, my visit to the Wallace Collection last month was almost overwhelming. I wish I could have spent more time there.

Do you think that modern tournaments (HEMA, deeds/pas d'armes, other historic events rather than SCA) should work on re-establishing battle tactics and strategy rather than the focus mostly on judicial duels and tournament facsimiles?

I can't remember the manuscript at this moment, hopefully it will come to me and I can edit it in or reply to you with it, but there is one manuscript from ~1446 in Nuremberg where the results of the joust are laid out as well as some of the conditions:

There were in each course five jousters against five, and each one of them had his own harness and saddle gear.

Do you read that and say "teams of 5 where 1 jouster from A went vs 1 jouster from B" or read it as "another event from what we normally see, where Team A (all 5) vs Team B (all 5) in a kind of mounted melee"? The source does describe it as a Gesellenstechen.

Do we have any good sources for tactics, strategy manuals for war at large and guesses on how things were done, or do we assume it was mostly a "by direction, accomplish this goal" system from the commanders?

What got you interested in moving away from your famous black harness that Mac made?

I know that you've talked before about the arms analysis sub-discipline being held in less high esteem, but that's changing. Has it changed already or is it still in flux? And how do you get your colleagues in academia to accept/respect your "experimental archaeology" for lack of a better phrase (perhaps not calling it that is step 1)? Your area of study is one that I'm very interested in going back to college and getting a higher degree for, tbh, so I've started looking around for how to accomplish that.

I'm sure I have a great many more questions for you, as I've been a fan for a bit now, but I'll leave it there.

I'm interested in the sort of divide between what we see in say Liechtenauer or Fiore and on the other side the knightly perception of actually learning how to fence. For example in Michel de Montaigne we find: "The honour of combat consists in the jealousy of courage, and not of skill; and therefore I have known a friend of mine, famed as a great master in this exercise, in his quarrels make choice of such arms as might deprive him of this advantage and that wholly depended upon fortune and assurance, that they might not attribute his victory rather to his skill in fencing than his valour.

When I was young, gentlemen avoided the reputation of good fencers as injurious to them, and learned to fence with all imaginable privacy as a trade of subtlety, derogating from true and natural valour…"

and a quote from another source I'm afraid I cannot remember where the preparation for war was feeling one's teeth crack through a helm due to blows on the tourney field. Not so much skillful practice of half-swording, etc.

Have you done any research on the divide between a knight who say would study a seemingly middle class tradition like Liechtenauer or an art like Fiore and knights who believed that such things were unvirtuous?

Hi, Thanks for the AMA. I loved the videos you made about your Agincourt exhibition and the interviews you did with Matt Easton of Scholagladiatoria. Would be great to see more like that. I have a couple of questions about armour worn at that battle;

• How much and what types of armour might have been worn by the English Archers? Artwork generally depicts them as well armoured and I've heard this would be the case, certainly with John Hawkwood's White Company in later years. But what about at Agincourt?

• What type of weapons (other then a bow of course) do the primary sources describe the English archers as carrying?

• We know that the French had many well armoured men, but were there a significant number of less well equipped soldiers on the field that day? Could any of the French force have been equipped with less expensive armour such a gambeson/part armours etc, but still have been counted as "men-at-arms" by the chroniclers.

Many thanks!

Thanks so much for this AMA, I'm loving this!

You touched on some of the pageantry and role-playing aspects of tournaments. Do you ever see depictions of Saracens or other pagans in any kinds of tournaments, like people dressing up as "the heathens" in Crusade or Biblical reenactments?

Second question: do we know anything about the laborers who had to set up these tournaments, like building the lists, providing the catering, etc.? Were there people following a circuit and making a living working them like gigs, or was it the host's responsibility to provide everything at each site?

How common was death at these events? Was it common that a mistake could lead to death? Or could the participants be very sure of their safety?

Thanks for the AMA. I saw your idea for a book about famous tourney knights and would like a seek peek.

Do you have any favourite tourney knights and any interesting stories involving them that you would like to share?

Hello, and thank you for this AMA!

As a first question, were jousts equally popular and presitigious throughout all Europe?

And just how much of an impact would a win on these tournaments have on the life of a participant?

Thanks you Dr. Capwell for visiting this corner of the internet.

One very common trope of jousting in fiction is a young knight hoping to (and successfully) catch the eyes of the lady of his dreams through winning the tournament. Did this actually happen with any sort of regularity, or is it just wish-fulfillment fiction for young men?

How widespread was jousting and related tournaments in medieval Europe? Did it spread as far as Russia to the East, and were there any similar or parallel tournaments in Muslim lands?

Hi and thank you for this opportunity. Which of the contemporary training materials do you use to inform the 'how' of using medieval weapons?

Who would you say have had the biggest influences on the craft of all kinds of armour making in modern times?

In the obviously anachronistic "a knight's tale" it depicts certain competitors with a fan base

Would any spectators follow specific competitors and become a "fan" of that person?

Or did they just cheer for their countrymen or other people they were tribally affiliated with?

What did you think of Discovery Channel's Knights of Mayhem?

Is there any kind of trend or temptation in modern jousting to make armour in modern ways technologically beyond what those of the period could produce? What sort of modern features do modern jousters have that medieval/renaissance knights did not have access to?

I imagine safety concerns must temper historicity, but these changes must affect game play on some level. What do you think of such concessions?

This AMA is great!

Which knightly fighting arts groups are you involved in and what is your favorite weapons form/fighting style?

I'm in the SCA and I've always wondered if there is any historic precedent for the style of fighting seen in SCA tournaments, where certain moves are considered "illegal" (grappling, shield punching, shots below the knee, etc). Did they have any competitions like we do where points were scored by landing a good blow instead of winning by submission?

Thanks for answering all of these great questions!

What are/were the physical attributes of a good jouster? Is there a certain body type better suited for jousting?

I understand how the scoring system for a joust can work - a certain amount of points depending on where the lance hits, if it breaks, etc. - but how did the mêlée work?

One of the stock tropes relating to jousting/tournaments in fiction is the lady giving a token of her favor to a chosen knight, sometimes with the implication that this was regularly done and sometimes with the implication that the knight or lady had a sudden inspiration and invented it on the spot. How much does this reflect actual historical practice?

How does the armour used in the Eglinton Tournament of 1839 compare with historical jousting armour or with modern day jousting armour?

What do we know about the strategy involved in a medieval joust? Was it primarily a contest of strength and technique, or did it involve feints, tricks, and getting inside the opponent's head?

How much does it hurt to joust?

If this is still going: what happened if you lost in a tournament? Did you automatically lose your horse and armour: that seems extremely expensive.

More interested in the earlier periods, though any change would be interesting.

Thanks for the AMA!

I have to preemptively give thanks for your paper on couched lance energy, the part on the role of stirrups was particularly interesting. The stirrup revolution myth dies hard.

How exactly did the historical jousting community infer about 15/16th century horsemanship from the available material? I am aware of a few treatises covering the subject(Talhoffer's, Fiore's, Duarte's, etc.), but it still isnt clear as to how can one recreate 15th century horsemanship from that. Arne Koets mentions baroque academic riding in an interview, how important was it for the kind of riding style you pratice?

I run a HEMA class in the states and we regularly do demonstrations for schools, libraries, fairs, etc. I am well versed in the German fightbooks, but what other sources from the 14-15th centuries would you suggest for more information about knighthood and warfare? Any tips about speaking about arms and armor to the average person?

Three questions, if you still have the time, Dr. Capwell:

1. How much of "pit crew" or support staff would a knight participating in a major tournament need? Would a typical "pit crew" be more like three people or more like twenty-five?

2. On Germany and the HRE in particular: Would a two-village reichsritter be able to participate, or was participation in major events so expensive (in specialized equipment and travel costs) that only hochadel and their retainers could "pay to play", so to speak? Was this different between England, and say, Northern Germany?

3. More generally speaking, were there any significant differences between England and the HRE with regard to the role that jousting and other "war sports" played in elite culture, or were they fairly similar in that regard?

Were snacks / concessions / beverages sold at tournaments? Were specific foods/drinks regarded as traditional tournament fare? (Perhaps with different foods for different social strata in the audience?)