Original photo by Camerauthor Photos/ Unsplash
The military origins of jousting date back to sometime in the late 11th century in northwestern France, as a form of combat training. But it wasn’t until the 13th century that the sport became the central event of medieval tournaments, with knights galloping headlong toward armored opponents, aiming wooden lances, and smashing against each other in an explosion of splinters, sometimes with deadly results. By the mid-17th century, the sport had migrated to North America, taking root in one British colony in particular — Maryland.
Oops, incorrect!
It's a factMaryland’s flag comes from the coat of arms of the Calvert and Crossland families. George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, founded the Maryland colony in 1632; the Crosslands were his maternal family.
Jousting tournaments were held in Maryland in colonial times, but really gained steam in farming communities during the Civil War. According to the president of the Maryland Tournament Jousting Association, these events became an effective method of fundraising after the war, by which time they had lost their military trappings and become strictly for sport. The tradition stuck, and the state’s love of jousting culminated in a 1962 law making it the official sport of Maryland. Not only was Maryland the first to choose jousting as its state sport, but it was also the first state to have an official sport at all.
Today, jousters in Maryland don’t put on medieval-style displays. Instead, participants maneuver their lances into various-sized rings suspended above the ground, capturing the rings for points. This “ring jousting” ensures that no one — horse or human — gets injured. Fortunately, the appetite for blood sports has lessened considerably since jousting began, even as the passion for the sport itself remains.
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Maryland is named after ______, wife of the English King Charles I.
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Maryland is named after Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of the English King Charles I.
A famous jousting accident in 1536 changed the course of English history.
On January 24, 1536, 44-year-old King Henry VIII suffered a devastating jousting accident at Greenwich Palace’s tiltyard (aka jousting courtyard). Crushed under the weight of his fully armored horse, Henry VIII lay unconscious for as long as two hours. Things looked so dire that Anne Boleyn, the second of Henry’s six wives, was told that her husband wouldn’t survive. Although Henry VIII proved his advisers wrong, he was no longer the athletic and charismatic leader he once was. Shortly after the accident, Boleyn miscarried (possibly due to this traumatic event) and the king began displaying increasingly erratic behavior. Today, some experts believe Henry VIII’s tyrannical turn — not to mention his dramatic health deterioration — can be explained by his traumatic brain injuries. Other Tudor historians think Henry’s ulcerated leg, an injury also received during the accident, was the cause of his erratic behavior. It’s impossible to know what Henry’s reign might’ve looked like had he avoided the tiltyard that January day — he was already in hot water with the pope over his first divorce, after all — but it’s possible that England would be a much different place even today.
Darren Orf lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes about all things science and climate. You can find his previous work at Popular Mechanics, Inverse, Gizmodo, and Paste, among others.
