Knights at Tournament

Osprey Elite #17

by Christopher Gravett, Angus McBride (Illustrator)

Like all warrior classes throughout history medieval knights engaged in military games, partly in preparation for war and partly for pure sport. From their often brutal origins in the 10th century to the gaudy pageantry and eventual decline of the 15th and 16th centuries, tournaments were the centre of the knightly life. The image of the armoured and surcoated knight on his caparisoned charger remains the epitome of the chivalric ideal. Christopher Gravett explores the history of the tournament from its chaotic beginnings to its more formal, 'civilised' incarnation, describing the various 'events' and equipment which came into use.

Genres: Military History, History, Nonfiction, Medieval, Medieval History

64 pages, Paperback

First published March 26, 1992

About the author

Chris Gravett is a former Senior Curator at the Royal Armouries, Tower of London, and a recognized authority on the arms, armour, and warfare of the medieval world. He has worked as an advisor for numerous TV and film productions, and has written many books. He currently works as a curator at Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire.

Reviews

[Little Timmy]

Very nice overview of this historical topic. Great pics illustrating the armor. Recommended

[Marcus]

Knights at Tournament is one of those Osprey booklets which I privately call ‘sausage stuffing’. In this type of Osprey volumes, the author does his best to cram in as much information as possible in the limited space available to him. The end result is usually a very ‘dense’ narrative which, while filled to the brim with facts and data, is also quite difficult to absorb for the reader not already familiar with the topic at hand.

While not the smoothest reading experience, Knights at Tournament is most certainly very informative. It provides an excellent introduction to a surprisingly complex topic and will, if nothing else, show clearly that the ‘real thing’ had very little in common with the image of knight tournament as depicted in popular media.

[Declan Waters]

An interesting introduction to the world of tournaments in Europe during five centuries. Unfortunately, the amount of time requires the author to exclude most of the history of the time, and cram in a lot of names which I didn't recognise despite my passing knowledge of some of the periods.

None-the-less it was a short little read, that wets the appetite and is a good introduction if the potential reader thinks they may be interested in the era. Very good colour plates as well, as is standard in this series from Osprey.

[Nathan]

Rather disappointing. It focused on what the tournaments were like and the types of armor worn for the different types of combat. I had hoped for more heraldic information and artwork. The few color plates were wonderful.

[Eric]

This book is laid out chronologically by century beginning in the 12th & going to the 16th. I think the problem with this is that the book covers 5 centuries in 50ish pages so there is very little room for context. Its like you're looking at the whole of history and then you isolate the tournament and ignore everything else. What you're left with is a history of jousting spanning 5 centuries and good chunk of Europe but you can't place the tournament into the larger events that took place during that time. It could also be that my interest in the topic waned long before I reached the 16th century. That being said it is only 50+ pages long plus a dozen pages of fantastic illustrations.