Medieval Tournaments really didn’t look like the way they often appear in pop culture, certainly not as they started out. Rather than being in an enclosed space and having two knights joust towards each other, they were more like practice battles.
They could have contingents of 200 mounted soldiers in fields that span acres of land. As the two sides met, often hand-to-hand fighting ensued. Although the participants were supposed to merely capture rather than kill their opponents — the goal was to train for real battle — often severe injuries and fatalities occurred (thus earning the Church’s official condemnation).
The English commenter of the 12th century Robert of Howden provides a glimpse of the mood of the tournament participants: “he is not fit for battle who has never seen his own blood flow, who has not heard his teeth crunch under the blow of an opponent, or felt the full weight of his adversary upon him.”
Source(s): Pp 40-41, Jonathan Phillips, _The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople _ , Viking, 2004.
