History Main / TheTourney

* Henry II of France was accidentally killed in a tourney.

Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end –\\

* In ''Manga/{{Aruosumente}}'', there's a tournament held during an important public holiday where the White Knights and the Black Knights compete against each other, although it is more of a background event and an excuse for Lante to drag Legna with him.

-->''Then the King said to her, "I will appoint a tournament in your honour, and I will invite all the princes in the world to it, and if any one of them pleases you, you shall marry him."''

* ''Roleplay/ADragonOfTheNorth'' features numerous tournaments. Jon Snow not only competes in the first he attends but wins.
* Creator/DGDDavidson's [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic My Little Pony]] fanfic ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7958529/1/To-Woo-a-Princess To Woo a Princess]]'' is set around a fighting tourney for unicorn stallions, where the ultimate victor gets to fight against Princess Luna herself in hopes of winning the right to marry her.

* The Hand of the King Tourney is examined in ''FanFic/PurpleDays''. A far more mature Joffrey, finally comprehending the worth of money, despairs at the enormous prizes Robert is offering, especially when the realm is already pretty strapped for cash and he particularly needs a lot of gold to implement his ideas for a unified Royal Legion. Robert refuses to cancel or diminish the prizes. It takes an aghast Joff a second to realize the best way to finance his personal Legion -- simply enter in the tourney himself and ''win'' the money.

* Thomas Malory's ''Literature/LeMorteDArthur.'' At one point Lancelot disguised himself by carrying Elaine's favor -- everyone knew he was in love with the queen and wouldn't carry another woman's.
* In Creator/THWhite's ''Literature/TheOnceAndFutureKing''. Unusually, he actually uses the melee form, and talks of the time that Lancelot and Gareth took the other side from Arthur and Gareth's other brothers.
* In Sir Creator/WalterScott's ''QuentinDurward'', in the BackStory, Isabelle's aunt was married off to the victor of a tourney; the king, citing that, decides she shall be married off to whoever brings him the head of de la Marck.
* In ''Literature/{{Ivanhoe}}'', Ivanhoe and other knights fight in one. Much is made of the violence of the melee.
* In the ChivalricRomance ''Roswall and Lillian'', Roswell magically appears as an armored knight to fight in the tourney for three days, despite working as a menial servant in between.
* In the ChivalricRomance ''Ipomadon'', Ipomadon appears at the tourney in disguise -- pretending to be hunting in the meantime, even though it is for the hand of the princess he loves.

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'':
** The tourney in honor of Eddard Stark becoming the Hand of King is a major plot point in the first book.
** There are several famous tourneys referred to in the {{backstory}}, as well. Most notably, at the Tourney of Harrenhal, the married Prince Rhaegar won and crowned the betrothed Lyanna Stark as Queen of Love and Beauty, an event which caused a lot of outrage and hinted at the affair between them which would ultimately lead to a civil war.
** After crowning himself king, Renly Baratheon holds frequent tourneys, something that strikes Catelyn Stark as frivolous considering that there is the SeriousBusiness of a civil war to be settled.
** [[SpinOff In the same universe]], "The Hedge Knight" (a [[Literature/TalesOfDunkAndEgg "Dunk & Egg"]] story) has the two characters meet up on the way to a tourney. Duncan, a squire to a dead knight, [[SelfProclaimedKnight pretends to be a knight himself]] in order to enter, and over the course of the series continues BecomingTheMask. From main-series history [[ForegoneConclusion we know that he will go on]] to become Lord Commander of the [[PraetorianGuard Kingsguard]].

* In Creator/EdwardEager's ''Knight's Castle'', the children visit a world of toy knights who host a tournament.

* In the ''Literature/{{Belgariad}}'' and ''Malloreon'', the Arendish people, who basically embody a parody of ChivalricRomance, have tourneys regularly for various reasons, including the purposes of TrialByCombat. A few other races have tourneys as well, usually to settle arguments over which warrior is the best with the minimum of bloodshed.
* King Wilfrid's Faire stages a tourney daily in ''[[Literature/AuntDimity Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon]]''. Lilian Bunting enthusiastically notes it is complete with the melee.
* In the ChivalricRomance ''Sir Isumbras'', Isumbras [[FallenOnHardTimesJob is reduced to menial work]] as TheBlacksmith. However, he makes himself armor, and when some characters, as a jest, give him a horse, he distinguishes himself at the tourney.

* In Creator/JRRTolkien's ''Literature/FarmerGilesOfHam'', one excuse the knights gave for not fighting the dragon was they would miss a scheduled tourney.
* In the ChivalricRomance ''Richard Coeur de Lion'' -- bearing minimal resemblance to the historical figure -- Richard appeared in disguise for a three-day tourney, once in black, once in red, once in white.

* In Creator/PatriciaCWrede's ''Literature/EnchantedForestChronicles'':
** In ''Talking To Dragons'', they stage a fight between a knight and a dragon, which, Daystar knows, is not a proper tournament even though they call it one.
** A proper one is held in "Utensile Strength", before the bake-off to trick a hero into discovering he's the proper wielder of the Frying Pan of Doom.
* In Debra Doyle and James [=MacDonald=]'s ''Knight's Wyrd'', the newly knighted Will sets out on the round of tourneys throughout the land. Unusually, this is the melee.
* In Creator/SusanDexter's ''The True Knight'', Titch and Gerein fight in one; Titch hopes to make his fortune there.
* In Creator/JamesThurber's ''Literature/The13Clocks'', the traveler recognizes the minstrel from him competing in tourneys -- being [[KingINcognito Prince Zorn in disguise]].
* In Creator/GeoffreyChaucer's ''Literature/TheCanterburyTales'', the Knight's tale has one central to the plot.
* Begin appearing frequently in ''Squire'', the third ''Literature/ProtectorOfTheSmall'' book. Keladry begins taking part during the Royal Progress, having been trained by her knightmaster Lord Raoul, one of the kingdom's greatest jousters, and turns out to be quite good at it. She eventually winds up competing against her former training master Lord Wyldon, who promptly dumps her on her arse in the dirt -- when he's not dumping her on her face, her shoulder, or her back. Lord Raoul consoles her by pointing out that ''he'' no longer jousts against Wyldon simply to preserve his pride, as Wyldon beats him every time.
* In ''Literature/TheTraitorSonCycle'', there are several tourneys, organized either to celebrate victories or as a cover for more insidious actions.
* In Creator/JohnCWright's ''[[Literature/MothAndCobweb Green Knight's Squire]]'', the knights of Summer and Winter fight in one that verges on highly ritual combat. We also hear that in the back story, Ygrainne had talked the elf knights into this instead of GladiatorGames, pointing out they should be able to do what merely human knights did.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': The most notable one was the Tourney of the Hand in Season 1, but we also see tourneys hosted by King Joffrey Baratheon and King Renly Baratheon in Season 2.

* Practically a OnceASeason thing on ''{{Series/Merlin|2008}}''.

* These occurred on a regular basis in Creator/{{Chaosium}}'s ''TabletopGame/{{Pendragon}}'' game, which makes sense because it's based on the stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

* 'Ivanhoe' is a card game in which players take part in five different forms of combat (sword, axe, flail, jousting and hand-to-hand)in order to win the tournament.

[[folder:Theater]]

[[caption-width-right:265:14th century jousting - notice how the ladies are loving it. [[note]]And the example of UnmovingPlaid.[[/note]]]]

When [[KnightInShiningArmor knights]] were bold, they fought not only in battle but in tourneys. Originally this was a melee -- divided into two sides, the knights proceeded to go at each other with great vigor and frequent deaths. As time went on, the more familiar jousting was added; by the time of the Rennaissance, jousts often dominated, along with other entertainments, especially highly stylized pageantry. (The original tournaments, named so for the way the horses would turn to do the next pass at arms.)

* The Hand of the King Tourney is examined in ''FanFic/PurpleDays''. A far more mature Joffrey, finally comprehending the worth of money, despairs at the enormous prizes Robert is offering, especially when the realm is already pretty strapped for cash and he particularly needs a lot of gold to implement his ideas for a unified Royal Legion. Robert refuses to cancel or diminish the prizes. It takes an aghast Joff a second to realize the best way to finance his personal Legion - simply enter in the tourney himself and ''win'' the money.

* In Victoria Ugryumova's ''Doppelganger for the Jester'', a tourney in the honor of the new empress is marred by an assassination attempt on TheEmperor. Also, by tradition, the winner of the tourney challenges a member of the [[PraetorianGuard Emperor's Guard]] to one-on-one combat--and gets his ass handed back to him, just like every other challenger before him.

** A tourney is held in the pilot episode of ''Series/HouseOfTheDragon'' to celebrate the birth of the son of King Viserys I Targaryen, and Daemon Targaryen is the most notable and showy contestant. Alas, the son dies that very day along with his mother so it was AllForNothing (several knights ''died'' in that tourney that quickly turned BloodSport, besides).

** A tourney is held in the pilot episode of ''Series/HouseOfTheDragon'' to celebrate the birth of the son of King Viserys I Targaryen, and Daemon Targaryen is the most notable and showy contestant. Alas, the son dies that very day along with his mother so it was AllForNothing (several knights ''died'' in that tourney, besides).

When [[KnightInShiningArmor knights]] were bold, they fought not only in battle, but in tourneys. Originally this was a melee -- divided into two sides, the knights proceeded to go at each other with great vigor and frequent deaths. As time went on, the more familiar jousting was added; by the time of the Rennaissance, jousts often dominated, along with other entertainments, especially highly stylized pageantry. (The original tournaments, named so for the way the horses would turn to do the next pass at arms.)

The BlackKnight may show up, unidentified. Indeed, some knights have taken advantages of the armor to maintain a SecretIdentity as a menial servant -- often [[RuleOfThree three tournaments]] before he's unmasked.

* ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'': In volume 9, when the story shifts back to Guts in order to show what he's been doing during his yearlong absence from the Band of the Hawk, the scene opens on a lavish tournament that includes jousts, foot combat, archery, and tests of strength. The sponsor is an unnamed noble who loves to watch such spectacle, and boasts that the fame of his tournament over the years has drawn strong fighters from different countries. Guts makes a splash by entering the ring and defeating the Bakiraka prince Silat, who up to then had been wiping the floor with the competition. The impressed noble offers Guts a lot of money to work for him in a bandit-hunting expedition, which Guts at first refuses...until the noble mentions that this group of bandits has a female leader, and Guts finds out that the Band of the Hawk has fallen in deep trouble while he was gone.

* ''Manga/KenganAshura'' centers around the Kengan Association, who arbitrates disputes between Japan's corporations by hiring gladiators to engange in unnarmed combat. ''Ashura'' centers around the Kengan Annihilation Tournament, which will decide the next chairman of the Kengan Association, while the sequel ''Kengan Omega'' centers around the Kengan-Purgatory which will result in a merger between both organizations.

* ''Roleplay/ADragonOfTheNorth'' features numerous tournaments. Jon Snow not only competes in the first he attends, but wins.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'', one is organized by Lord Farquaad to find a suitable knight to rescue Fiona and bring her back for marriage. Shrek barges in, and defeats all the knights when he becomes the target of the tournament, becoming the "winner" by default.

* A tourney shows up in ''Literature/TheAccursedKings''. It's not really central to the plot, apart from showcasing the dynamics between the characters: the king is privately cursed for organizing a tourney when the kingdom is near bankruptcy, SocialClimbers figure out which family members can be sent to possibly catch a well-connected nobel's attention, queen Jeanne of France (an AlphaBitch if there ever was one) has to be stopped from recommending (prevent from participating, and singling out for ridicule) VillainProtagonist Robert d'Artois. Robert is noted to be quite a good jouster [[TheBigGuy due to his size and weight]], though he can't really enjoy himself due to how badly his plans are going and has to flee the country when the last one fails.

* In ''The Armor of Light'', James's court stages one. Sir Philip Sidney, fighting, is targetted by BlackMagic but still manages to triumph.

** There are several famous tourneys referred to in the {{backstory}}, as well. Most notably, at the Tourney of Harrenhal, the married Prince Rhaegar won, and crowned the betrothed Lyanna Stark as Queen of Love and Beauty, an event which caused a lot of outrage and hinted at the affair between them which would ultimately lead to a civil war.

* In the ChivalricRomance ''Richard Coeur de Lion'' -- bearing minimal resemblence to the historical figure -- Richard appeared in disguise for a three day's tourney, once in black, once in red, once in white.

* In the ChivalricRomance ''Sir Degrevant'', Degrevant, long persecuted by a neighboring lord and long in love with the neighbor's daughter, enters and win a tournament for her hand.

* In Creator/JamesThurber's ''Literature/The13Clocks'', the traveler recognizes the minstrel from he competing in tourneys -- being Prince Zorn in disguise.

* Queen UsefulNotes/ElizabethI 's Accession Day (the anniversary of the day she became queen) was annually celebrated with a tourney, which was more than half pageantry. Every knight would choose his alias, his pageant car, the proper attendants and a motto to flatter the queen, make a grand speech in her honor, -- and, oh yes, actually riding in tilts against another knight.

* William Marshal is became known as "the greatest knight who ever lived" and started his career as a Tourney fighter when his father send him away to France to get rid of him. He became so successful and famous, that he was chosen by King Henry II of England to be the personal trainer of his son and to take him into his tournament team. He came to serve the royal household under four kings and for some time even was the regent of the kingdom.
* Aside from the European version, stylized martial games can be found in many cultures to this day and were the origin of many major sports like Polo. There are even updated tourneys that include contests with modern weapon's platforms like the Tiger Meet fighter competition regularly held in Belgium.
* Henry IV of England had a pretty illustrious reputation as a jouster, and was probably the best in England when he was a young man. His chance to prove it against his only real rival in a DuelToTheDeath was cut short by UsefulNotes/RichardTheSecond exiling them.

[[caption-width-right:265:14th century jousting - notice how the ladies are loving it. [[note]]And the example of UnmovingPlaid[[/note]]]]

* Creator/ThomasMalory's ''Literature/LeMorteDarthur.'' At one point Lancelot disguised himself by carrying Elaine's favor -- everyone knew he was in love with the queen and wouldn't carry another woman's.

Not unsurprisingly, this often features in fiction with knights from the ChivalricRomance onward. Usually just jousting, and fairly innocuously -- deaths are treated as rare freak accidents. Though the jousting can also contain hidden rivalries, or even be TrialByCombat. In some cases, [[EngagementChallenge a princess or great lady will marry the victor.]]

[[caption-width-right:265:14th century jousting - notice how the ladies are loving it.]]

->''By a knight of ghosts and shadows\\

Methinks it is no journey.''
-->--'''Tom o'Bedlam's Song'''

!!Examples

[[AC: Anime & Manga]]

[[AC: Fairy Tales]]
* In '' [[http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/044.htm The Golden Crab]]'',the king tries to have such a tourney to substitute a bridegroom for the crab his daughter married.
-->''Then the King said to her, 'I will appoint a tournament in your honour, and I will invite all the princes in the world to it, and if any one of them pleases you, you shall marry him.'''

[[AC: Fanfiction]]
* ''Fanfic/ADragonOfTheNorth'' features numerous tournaments. Jon Snow not only competes in the first he attends, but wins.

[[AC:{{Film}}]]

* The 1922 ''Film/{{Robin Hood|1922}}'' opens with a grand tourney that featured Robin jousting with Sir Guy.

[[AC:Literature]]

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]

[[AC:Other]]
* Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament starts as a friendly contest of skill and jousting prowess between the kingdom's best six knights, but quickly escalates into a tournament filled with battles to the death to determine the kingdom's champion once the story hits full stride.

[[AC:TabletopRPG]]

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* ''Videogame/MountAndBlade'' - set in [[FantasyCounterpartCulture fictional not-Europe]] of 1257 - features tournaments that occasionally crop up in major cities. Anyone can enter the games and bet, and winning a tournament grants renown and the favor of court ladies. In a tournament, contestants are given identical gear which varies on the faction hosting the tournament; the knightly Swadians naturally feature horseback jousting, while the Mongol Empire-esque Khergit Khanate features HorseArcher combat.

[[AC:Real Life]]

* In MichaelFlynn's ''Literature/SpiralArm'' novel ''In the Lion's Mouth'', the Pedant notes that the pasdarms is certainly descended from this. While the fighting bears no relationship, the pageantry was very like the late medieval tourneys.

* Practically a OnceASeason thing on ''{{Series/Merlin}}''.

* These occurred on a regular basis in Chaosium's ''Pendragon'' game, which makes sense because it's based on the stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

** Some Dragon magazine articles provided information on tournaments, such as "The Fairest of the Fairs" in Dragon #137 and "Campaign Components: Knights" in Dragon #299.

* King Wilfrid's Faire stages a tourney daily in ''[[AuntDimity Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon]]''. Lilian Bunting enthusiastically notes it is complete with the melee.