The history of the tournament gives us the clearest picture of the development of chivalry, and also illustrates the distinction, which only exists in English, between chivalry and knighthood. Tournaments begin with an entirely practical purpose: training knights and honing their military skills. Their origins are in the world of warfare and training for warfare, but they quickly cross into the world of games, and evolve in ways which are clearly of no military value. They may serve to identify the most skilful knights, and to create a bond among the participants which transcends ordinary loyalties. However, once the tournament ceases simply to be a military exercise and takes on the nature of sport, it gradually becomes a social occasion. By the fifteenth century the actual jousting is simply one element in an elaborate spectacle which draws together many aspects of chivalric culture.

A training ground for warfare

We know very little about the training of a knight in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The skills required for fighting in armour and on horseback were acquired, it would seem, in the same way that riding was learnt, informally and within the knightly household. In Chrétien de Troyes’ romance Perceval, the hero comes to Arthur's court ignorant of knightly matters and armed only with a javelin. He kills a knight who has insulted the king, tries to strip him of his armour, and has to be shown how to do it. Likewise, he has to be instructed in knightly ways. The lord who teaches him first enquires how he manages his horse, and then mounts Perceval's horse to show him how to handle shield, lance and sword: