TOURNAMENT, a martial sport or exercise which the ancient cavaliers used to perform, to show their bravery and address. It is derived from the French word tourner, i. e. “to turn round,” because, to be expert in these exercises, much agility both of horse and man was requisite. The first tournaments were only courses on horseback, in which the cavaliers tilted at each other with canes in the manner of lances; and were distinguished from justs, which were courses or careers, accompanied with attacks and combats with blunted lances and swords. The prince who published the tournament, used to send a king at arms, with a safe-conduct and a sword, to all the princes, knights, &c. signifying that he intended a tournament and clashing of swords, in the presence of ladies and damsels; which was the usual formula of invitation. They first engaged man against man, and then troop against troop. After the combat, the judges allotted the prize to the best cavalier, and the best striker of swords; and he was accordingly conducted with pomp to the lady of the tournament, where, after thanking her very reverently, he saluted her, and likewise her two attendants.

These tournaments formed the principal diversion of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Munster says, it was Henry the Fowler, duke of Savoy, and afterwards emperor, who died in 936, that first introduced them; but it appears from the Chronicle of Tours, that the true inventor of this famous exhibition, at least in France, was one Geoffrey, lord of Preuilli, about the year 1066. Instances of them occur among the English in the reign of King Stephen, about the year 1140; but they were not much in use till Richard’s time, towards the year 1149. After this period these diversions were performed with extraordinary magnificence, in the Tiltyard near St James’s, Smithfield, and other places.

The following is the account of a tournament, from Maitland, King Richard II. designing to hold a tournament at London on the Sunday after Michaelmas, sent divers heralds to make proclamation of it in all the principal courts of Europe; and accordingly not a few princes, and great numbers of the prime nobility, resorted hither from France, Germany, the Netherlands, &c. This solemnity began on Sunday afternoon, from the Tower of London, with a pompous cavalcade of sixty ladies, each leading an armed knight by a silver chain, being attended by their squires of honour; and, passing through Cheapside, they rode to Smithfield, where the justs and tournaments continued several days with a magnificent variety of entertainments; on which occasion the king kept open house at the bishop of London’s palace for all persons of distinction, and every night concluded with a ball.

At last, however, tournaments were found to be productive of bad effects, and the occasions of several fatal misfortunes; as in the instance of Henry II. of France, and of the tilt exhibited at Chalons, which, from the numbers killed on both sides, was called the little war of Chalons. These and other inconveniences, resulting from such dangerous pastimes, gave the popes occasion to forbid them, and the princes of Europe gradually concurred in discouraging and suppressing them.