As I continue my discussion of answers to common questions that I get in regards to the who, where, and how of jousting, I am going to turn to the International Jousting Association. The IJA, as it is often referred to is just what is sounds like. It is an international organization of like minded jousters from around the world. The membership numbers are much smaller then that of the SCA (see my previous post in this series for more information). It is also, especially when compared to the SCA, much harder to become a member. Read the rest of this entry »

There are a common set of questions that I am often asked by new people who I have met when i start telling them about doing historically based jousting. They generally consist of: Where do you do that? How did you get started? Are the groups that do really do that? Who do you do that kind of stuff with? And so on of course. Over the years, I have probably told the answers at least a few thousand times and I have typed them in some formation or another at least a few hundred in just the last year. So, I thought I would put this is a blog for all to read and see – and it gives me the double edge bonus of being able to refer future meetings to this blog entry. I have realized after writing this, it is going to be more than one post, so here is the first one about the SCA. Read the rest of this entry »

Ulrich von Liechtenstein has been a hero of mine for some time, ever since I first of heard of him and what he had done in his life. I know some of you are thinking of the movie from a few years back by the name of A Knight’s Tale, which starred the late Heath Ledger and somewhere in the back of your mind you recall that was the assumed name the peasant turned jousting knight used. Someone associated with the movie must have actually had a bit of medieval history in their background, for there was indeed a true knight from the 13th century by the name Ulrich von Liechtenstein.

The real Ulrich had a life that was probably just interesting, perhaps more so, and certainly as ruled by the notions of courtly love and how to win the favor of his this lady that inspired in him all things. Further, the true Ulrich was not only a knight and jouster of some fame during his lifetime, but he was further was educated and used his talents to write poetry describing his exploits pursuing the love that spurned him. The title of the work the famed poet-jouster, as he is often called, wrote in the original Middle High German was Frauendienst. Translated to modern English, it reads as Read the rest of this entry »

A recent article on a blog by the name of Muhlberger’s Early History has me really taking a bit of an issue with it. The blog can found at http://www.nipissingu.ca/department/history/MUHLBERGER/2008/07/re-enacting-medieval-cavalry-henrik.htm. In the article, one of the founding members of the SCA, who has participated in the re-enactment of Hastings starts to claim that perhaps horses in medieval warfare were perhaps not as much a factor as we would like to believe. Read the rest of this entry »