Knights tournaments were a mainstay in entertainment and popular culture in the medieval era, which ran from roughly 476AD until 1492AD, particularly towards the later end of that span. It is quite incredible, then, that - over five centuries after that period ended, they are still popular today.

That’s right – even after so much time has elapsed, you can still attend knights tournaments today that will go some way towards replicating those which took place in the medieval era. Most tend to focus on jousting (you know; the one where two people charge at each other on horses, and try to hit each other with enormous lances), but others do include sword combat too. We’ll look at a mix of both those major disciplines in this article.

If you’ve always been fascinated by medieval history, or simply became a really big fan of Game of Thrones, you should definitely look into attending a knights tournament. Here are the 10 most interesting knights tournaments you can visit in the USA today.

So there you have it. If you’ve got a taste for medieval warfare or armed combat, or you simply want to see a different form of competition to what you’re used to, then we’d highly recommend checking out one or two (or all!) of these knights tournaments.

Since we’ve devoted so much energy to looking at the modern-day state of knights tournaments, however, we thought it would absolutely be worth going back and looking at the historical context of these competitions; how they first began, what they originally involved, and so on.

Knights tournaments are – of course – based around the concept of knighthood, or chivalry. That is, in short, a code of behaviour which knights followed, and which gave them a highly-respected place in medieval society. Whilst we may most readily associate chivalry with this time period, however, the concept actually began all the way back in Ancient Rome, with the “equites”; the Roman equivalent of knights.

Regardless, we have obviously come to see knights as a purely medieval concept now, and this is indeed the period in which knights tournaments came into being. As you can probably guess, there is some dispute amongst historians over when and where these contests began. The word “tournament” itself is a French term, which obviously points us towards France, and this is the place most historians point to for the invention of the medieval tournament. The most likely inventor is thought to be Geoffroi de Preulli, a baron from Anjou, but nobody is entirely sure.

Whoever the instigator was, we start to get written records of tournaments becoming more and more popular from the mid-11th century onwards. To begin with, they comprised entirely of “mêlées”, in which two large teams of horsemen attempted to defeat the other in what was almost a mini-battle. In time, of course, the joust also became a major part of knights tournaments, although the melees still remained the main feature.

Knights tournaments were very much the height of medieval entertainment. They were large events, full of pageantry, and were invariably followed by big feasts afterwards, in which the local ruler would give prizes to the best knight on either side of the melee. Their popularity was certainly not limited to France; there are written records of them already being big in England and Germany in the early 12th century.

Given the fame that successful knights achieved in these tournaments, the incredibly fast spread of their popularity, and their sheer size and scale (3000 knights were reported to have attended a single tournament in 1179, never mind all the lords, ladies, squires and spectators)… well, we think it’s fair to say that knights tournaments were the first true international sporting events! They were like the precursors to modern tournaments in football, tennis, golf and other widespread sports which millions enjoy spectating today!

Knights tournaments have – of course – been left in the dust by those other events in terms of overall popularity. We think it’s fascinating, however, that even after over 900 years since they first became popular, knights tournaments are still being arranged, competed in and attended to this day.