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Jousting

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MDJouster:
Where to begin...
My wife and I have been jousting for over a Decade.  We started out with a "heavy armour" ren fair troop but became fascinated with historical jousting and the sport revival coming from Europe.  For me the epitome of jousting is what the fellows out of Buckeburg have put on in Sankt Wendel and a few other places around Europe. 

Historically, I have found evidence that there has been jousting occuring over the last 400 years.  In the US most of what we see is at ren fairs that actually has its roots in Wild West shows.  Back in the 60's before there were ren fairs there were travelling shows similar to Wild Bill Hickok and Anne Oakley and Vaudeville shows with jugglers, and slapstick comedy skits similar to a lot of ren fair entertainment we see today.  Then came El Cid, Excaliber, Ivanhoe and LadyHawk and some of those travelling shows changed to medieval themes and the Cowboys dropped their pistols for closet rods.  Hanlon Lees and the New Riders of the Golden Age both started out as wild west shows.
In Europe there was a different history.  In the 15th century in southern Europe riding schools were established and they developed training which we now call dressage.  Dressage is of course French for training and it started out as training of  cavalry for battle.  In the 16th century jousting was supplanted from the most prestiges equestrian sport by a competitive dressage display called the Carousel but it  did not appear to die out.
Now the lance charge quit being an effective technique pretty early but mounted swordsmanship continued to be trained around the world through the second world war until the horse was completely replaced with mechanized travel.

There is at least one castle in Europe that claims to hold a regular tournament every few years with competitors wearing their ancestors armour who are related to people who competed there in the 16th century.  These claims may of course be spurious but there are records of events like the Eglington Tournement and the Meshianza in Philedephia during the American revolution as well as numerous events in the early 20th century that make it easy to believe it was quite probable similar events were held all over Europe.

Now while we have tons of US civil war reenacting in the US in Europe there is a lot more emphasis on the middle ages when the US didn't even exist.  Some places have the continuing traditions but many places forgot them.  Jousting was the playtime of the rich and if the rich found other hobbies it would go away.  but the reenactors came back and present a style sometimes called European jousting here.  They didn't have the showmanship of the vaudeville actors jousting in the US but they had the history and took a more scholarly approach.

Running out of time for time ... More to follow... open for questions.

Sir Brian:
Excellent post! Looking forward to reading more! :)

Sir Rodney:
Thank you for sharing.  Not having rode with a couched lance is the one regret I have in life.   :(

Sir Martyn:
Mike - thanks for sharing. 

Don't know how we could swing this, but it would be great to do an Order meet-up/event sometime with jousting (at least discussion if not action) as part of the agenda.  I know everyone would welcome the chance to spend more "off duty" time with you guys, your horses and see your gear close up to ask questions, tilt at Sir James, etc.

Sir Brian:

--- Quote from: Sir Martyn on 2016-06-09, 19:11:12 --- tilt at Sir James...
--- End quote ---

That's when you had me!  ;D

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