Tudor Tournaments

History of the Tournament

Para1In 1194, the English tournament was legalized by King Richard I. Originally a French custom, the English adopted it initially as an exercise in battle technique, but it quickly became a ceremonial occasion for the aristocracy. These tournaments offered knights and other male members of the nobility a chance to show off their skill and valor as warriors. Tournaments continued in popularity but changed in form by the early modern period.
Para2Medieval tournaments had groups of knights charging at each other with horses and swords. By the Tudor period, tournaments were a more organized form of entertainment, designed to show off the power and wealth of the Crown. Tournament participants paid to enter. The elaborate shows entertained the nobility and gentry who watched them from elaborate, decorated stands constructed for the purpose.
Para3In Tudor tournaments, showmanship and pageantry were considered just as important as physical prowess and skill. Knights were accompanied by an entire group of squires and servants, who were responsible for caring for the horse, armor, and other equipment. Each knight or nobleman also had a coat of arms, which was usually prominently displayed on their shield, pavillion, and the many pennants and flags carried by their servants. These ancestral insignia were used to identify the fighter, but they also communicated messages about family history, family motto, and more.

Competitions of the Tournament

Para4Tudor tournaments consisted of several competitions, the most popular of which was the joust. The joust consisted of two men seated on horseback, in full armor, separated by a wooden barrier, charging at each other with the intent to unseat the other after a strike from a long wooden spear called a lance. At times, the joust was replaced with running at the ring, which was an exercise that knights used to practice for the joust. Running at the ring included combatants spearing rings suspended in mid-air; this activity helped them learn to hold their lance steady and straight. It was used to show off their skill when holding a full joust was impractical.
Para5Other events also entertained spectators at tournaments and allowed entrants to demonstrate their martial prowess. One such form of competition was a hand-to-hand duel, which was when entrants fought each other on foot with blunted swords and spears. Wrestling was also a very popular event at tournaments. The joust was considered more impressive than the duel or wrestling, and it offered greater rewards and more recognition for combatants.

Cultural Importance of the Tournament

Para6Henry VIII regularly staged and even participated in tournaments. A skilled jouster, Henry hosted numerous tournaments at home and abroad, such as when he met King Francis I of France at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in Calais in 1515. Henry VIII was also seriously wounded twice in jousting accidents. In 1524, Henry escaped serious injury when he failed to lower the visor of his helm and his opponent’s lance splintered near his face. In 1536, the now overweight 44-year-old Henry fell from his fully armored horse, which then fell and crushed him; he was unconscious for two hours and may have suffered a brain injury that affected his moods and behavior. This accident also gave him a serious leg wound which troubled him for the rest of his life.
Para7Henry VIII’s daughter Elizabeth I also used tournaments to show her power and influence, although of course she did not compete in them. Rooted in the tradition of chivalry, combatants who entered tournaments would often fight for the attention of a maiden, such as Elizabeth I. The chivalric code was an integral part of aristocratic English society, and the idea of fighting for the attention, as well as the honor, of a maiden was a center point of many tournaments. As evidence of their importance in the late Tudor period, court finanicial records during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I show that more money was spent on tournaments than on any other form of entertainment.
Para8Among the more famous combatants during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I were the poet and courtier Sir Philip Sidney and, prior to his disgrace and execution, the Queen’s favorite, Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex. Tournaments were held when foreign dignitaries visited the English court and annually to celebrate Elizabeth’s accession to the throne on November 17.

Key Print Sources

Barker, Juliette R. V. The Tournament in England, 1100–1400. Boydell Press, 2003.
Curry, Anne. Tournaments. The Oxford Companion to British History. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 2015.
Young, Alan. Tournament. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance. Oxford University Press, 2005.
Young, Alan. Tudor and Jacobean Tournaments. Sheridan House, 1998.

Key Online Sources

Best, Michael. Tournaments (1). Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria, 4 Jan. 2011. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/society/court%20life/lists.html.
Best, Michael. Tournaments (2). Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria, 4 Jan. 2011. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/society/court%20life/lists2.html.
McCarthy, Michael. The Jousting Accident that Turned Henry VIII into a Tyrant. The Independent. 18 Apr. 2009. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-jousting-accident-that-turned-henry-viii-into-a-tyrant-1670421.html.

Prosopography

Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

Paige Melton

Paige Melton was a student at Utah Valley University.

Orgography

LEMDO Team (LEMD1)

The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors.

University of Victoria (UVIC1)

https://www.uvic.ca/

Metadata

Authority title Tudor Tournaments
Type of text Critical
Publisher University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform
Series Early Modern England Encyclopedia
Source
By Paige Melton, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions
Editorial declaration This document uses Canadian English spelling
Edition Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a
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Early Modern England Encyclopedia

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.
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Document status published, peer-reviewed
Funder(s) Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Mitacs Globalink Research Internship
Utah Valley University
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