~Tournament rules and guidelines courtesy of Indy.~

Tournaments are exiting colourful pageants of chivalrous competitions and mock fights. Attended by hundreds of knights and nobles from all over Europe, tourneys are the social event of the era. The peasants come to root for their favourite knights, as well as enjoy the competitions, nobles come to be seen and attract attention and the knights come for the spoils as well as the fair ladies favour.

The Participants and Participating
The tournaments are embraced by noble and peasant fans alike, but one has to be of noble birth to compete in the tournaments with the joust a plaisance, pas d’armes, melee a pied or melee a cheval. At joining the tourney you are required to provide proof of heritage in the form of a patent of nobility. Patents of nobility are usually written by scribes accompanied by suitable proof and the coat of arms of the families. However, if one is caught impersonating a noble, imprisonment and a hanging are what awaits. In the archery tournaments, nobles and peasants alike are permitted to join and must offer up no proof.

Royals are able to participate, but they will not find an opponent willing to fight them if their identity is known. Knowingly endangering a member of the royal family of any kingdom is likely to prompt serious consequences. Any royal who wishes to participate in a tourney are required to use a pseudonym if they hope to go up against anyone.

From the list of competitions, it is possible to choose multiple contests to join, to increase the chances of getting a prize. However, this means that the participant could be pressed for time, as many of the contest rounds happen simultaneously or directly after each other. At the conclusion of the tourney the prizes are handed out to the champions and the participants are invited to a final party to celebrate the successful tournament for the champions.

The Types of Combat
The chivalric tournament is a series of mounted and armoured combats, fought as contests, in which a number of combatants compete and the one that prevails until the final round or finished with the best record is declared the winner and is awarded the prize. There are different types of contests within the tourneys themselves, with the prize varying depending on the contest as well as the sponsor. Large tournaments tend to have all open to participants, but smaller tournaments have varying types offered.
Joust a plaisance
A series of elimination jousts over several days and an overall winner will be determined. Each knight would run the lists three times with each opponent, points being awarded for each blow, one point for a breaking the lance between the waist and neck, two points for breaking on the helmet and three points for bearing a rider to the ground. The one with the most points overall is the victor.
Pas d'armes or passage of arms
Pas d’armes is a fight between two knights wielding the same weapon. The pas d’armes contains several categories within the type, a class for each weapon. Sword, mace and spear are only a small selection of the classes offered. First to five points is the victor, one point is granted for each hit to the body of the opponent, hits to the weapon grant no points.
Melee a pied
The melee a pied is a mock fight between two teams of knights on foot. The knights may be equipped with what they wish, as long as the weapons are blunted. The aim of the melee a pied is to best the other team. You are also permitted to capture nobles of the other team with the aim of demanding ransom. The captured noble is required to pay a ransom of either equipment or coins to free themselves from captivity. Other nobles, if they wish, may pay the ransom of the captured noble, but this tends to only be the case if the two nobles are related.
Melee a cheval
The melee a pied is a mock fight between two teams of knights on horseback. The knights may be equipped with what they wish, as long as the weapons are blunted. The aim of the melee a cheval, like the melee a pied, is to best the other team. You are also permitted to capture nobles of the other team with the aim of demanding ransom. The captured noble is required to pay a ransom of either equipment or coins to free themselves from captivity. Other nobles, if they wish, may pay the ransom of the captured noble, but this tends to only be the case if the two nobles are related.
Archery (England only)
The bow is seldom used to decide battles and is often viewed as a "lower class weapon" or as a toy by the nobility. By the time of the Hundred Years' War, the English had learned how to employ massed archery as an instrument of tactical dominance with their English longbows. Tournaments are sponsored, with prizes for winners, with the aim of encouraging archery. There is therefore much motivation and incentive to become an expert with the longbow and the English king is able to recruit thousands of archers per year. The tournaments themselves consist of a three rounds where the archers compete by hitting targets, the centre of the target awarding the most points and farther out the points awarded decrease. The most points to win.

The Statute of Arms
The number of injuries and fatalities that occurred during early tournaments had to be regulated. Early tournaments were wild affairs - copious alcohol was consumed and many tournaments ended with the pillage, rape, and slaughter of local villagers and valuable knights were killed and injured at tournaments. In 1292 the "Statute of Arms for Tournaments" was ordained "at the request of the earls and barons and of the knighthood of England" which provided new laws for tournaments. The Statute of Arms ordained that no pointed weapons should be used - they should be blunted. Tourneys were also required to be properly organised and only authorised combatants were allowed to carry arms.

The Equipment
Horses (joust a plaisance, melee a cheval)
The two most common kinds of horse used for jousting are chargers and destriers. Chargers are medium-weight horses bred and trained for agility and stamina, while destriers are heavy war horses. These are larger and slower than chargers, but helpful to give devastating force to the rider's lance through its weight being about twice as great as that of a traditional riding horse. The horses are trained for ambling, a kind of pace that provided the rider with stability in order to be able to focus and aim better with the lance. They equipment jousting horses wear are caparisons, a type of ornamental cloth featuring the owner's heraldic signs, but it is not only for show, the cloth also gives additional protection to the horse from the splinters of the lances if they happen to break. Competing horses have their heads protected by a chanfron, an iron shield for protection from otherwise lethal lance hits. Other forms of equipment on the horse includes long-necked spurs which enabled the rider to control the horse with extended legs, a saddle with a high back to provide leverage during the charge or when hit, as well as stirrups for the necessary leverage to deliver blows with the lance.
Required items for the joust:
Jousting barding
Caparison (optional)
Armour (joust a plaisance, pas d’armes, melee a pied, melee a cheval)
Knights wear full suits of plate armour, called a harness. A full harness frequently includes extra pieces specifically for use in jousting, so that a light military combat suit can be reinforced with heavier, "bolt-on" protective plates on the cuirass and helmet, and also with jousting-specific arm and shoulder pieces, which traded mobility for extra protection. These extra pieces are usually much stronger on the side expected to take the impact of the lance. The harnesses worn by the knights are also lined on the inside with plenty of cloth to soften the blow from the lance. Special jousting helmets are sometimes used, made so that the wearer can only see out by leaning forwards. If the wearer straightens up just before the impact of the lance, the eyes are completely protected. Some suits have a small shield built-in the left side of the armour.
Required items for the joust:
Jousting harness
Weapons (all types)
Lances are of solid oak and a significant strike is needed to shatter them. However, the blunt lances do not usually penetrate the steel. They are often decorated with stripes or the colours of a knight's coat of arms. Other weapons come in the normal variety apart from the fact that they’re all blunted as per the Statute of Arms. Bows and arrows have no modifications to them, considering the targets they aim to hit are not living.
Required items:
Jousting lance (provided by the tournament)
Blunted weapon (provided by the tournament)
Bow

The Location and Time
Tournaments might be held at all times of the year except the penitential season of Lent; the forty days preceding the Triduum of Easter. The general custom is to hold them on Mondays and Tuesdays, though any day but Friday and Sunday might be used. The site of the tournament is customarily announced a fortnight before it was to be held. The most famous tournament fields are in north-eastern France which attracts hundreds of foreign knights from all over Europe for the tournament season. For archery tournaments, England is the only kingdom that holds them.

The tourneys last over several days. The location of the tournament are be allocated by the sponsor, the sponsor being a rich noble who would finance the prize. The tournament would therefore be located on a field near to the noble’s castle and local village. The lists were the designated area for jousting fenced off in the centre of the field. The list is the roped-off enclosure where jousting takes place. Castles and palaces are often augmented by purpose-built tiltyards as a venue for jousting tourneys. Around the lists there are the various other designated areas for the other competitions. Wooden bench seats are occasionally erected but usually villagers are left to sit on the ground in view of the lists. The nobles sit in the galleries - pavilions erected to provide shelter. The whole area of a tourney is blazoned with colour; the tents and blazons of the knights. Even the horses are draped in flowing cloth; caparison’s patterned according to its owner's heraldic signs.

The Spoils
Tourneys are a good source of revenue for a successful knight; if a knight happens to be lucky they can claim the champion's prize money. Early tournaments gave a knight the right to seize the armour and weapons of a fallen adversary during the tournament; however as tourneys have grown more organised it has now become governed by pomp, ceremony and chivalric conduct and this right was waived. Generally jousting provides the prize worth the most, it being seen as the most prestigious contest, while the others have prizes worth somewhat less.

In the melee a pied and melee a cheval, the majority of the spoils come from the ransom paid to the individuals who capture nobles and claim ransom, but in each team there is chosen one champion who is awarded a prize. The champion is the combatant who has proven himself the most skilled.
Prizes
Large tournament
Joust a plaisance - §1000
Pas d'armes - §800
Melee a pied - §500
Melee a cheval - §500
Archery - §800
Medium tournament
Joust a plaisance - §700
Pas d'armes - §500
Melee a pied - §350
Melee a cheval - §350
Archery - §500
Small tournament
Joust a plaisance - §500
Pas d'armes - §300
Melee a pied - §250
Melee a cheval - §250
Archery - §300

The Ladies Favours
Ladies attend the tourneys, watching the exploits of the men during the day and attending the feasts and banquets in the evening. The rise of the ideals of courtly love was dominated by the concept that that honour should be done to a lady by her champion. The Rules of Courtly Love, written by the 12th Century Frenchman Andreas Capellanus, allowed a Knight to express his admiration even for married ladies. Knights begged ‘tokens’ from ladies and were presented with ‘favours’ such as a veil, ribbon, or the detachable sleeve of a ladies dress. These 'favours' would be displayed by the knight attached to his arm, his helm or tied to his lance. The lady thereby showed her favour to the knight who would dedicate his performance at the tournament to the lady.