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The 2008 Great Lake Medieval Festival is being held over 3 days from 26th - 28th Jan 2008 at Spa Park in Taupo!

Please go to the festival website for more details.

Taupo Great Lake Tourney 2007

The 2007 tourney was held on 3rd & 4th Feb at Spa Park in Taupo and was an action packed and enjoyable time for all involved with excellent public attendance over the 2 days.

There was an excellent turnout of re-enactment and living history participants who kept the public and the rest of us well entertained.

We were blessed with great weather throughout and the local &  international jousters battled it out on the field and featured some of the hardest hitting jousting we've seen.

This years tourney was the first double sanctioned event for EJA and IJA jousters in NZ and featured the ever colourful and beautifully armoured knight Jeffery Hedgecock from USA, Fred Piroux from Belgium, Talisen Bleechmore and Luke Binks from Australia.

The tourney kicked off with the fun crest melee on the Friday afternoon which was a chance to let off some steam and hit the others around the head to try and knock off the poor defenseless furry stuffed toys that we'd each spent a few minutes attaching to our helms with duct-tape.  It was a lot of fun and we all enjoyed walloping each other about with the batons that we made up out of plastic pipe, foam and more duct-tape!

A few of us decamped to the township with horses and on foot to do some more publicity for the tournament and the free screening of A Knights Tale at a local park. Most of us came away with a few blisters and had managed to traverse the entire township without mishap.

Saturday saw the tourney kick into high gear and the skill at arms and jousting runs were excellent. The weather was very hot and fine which made most of us rather hot and tired but it was very enjoyable soaking it out in the hot springs later!

Sunday was another great day with slightly more cloud. The jousting was fast and furious with many very hard hits! The skill at arms was breathtaking especially in the close fought final run between Jezz and Denise.

Some of us partied until the wee hours of the morning and I'm told that the sound of the horns echoed over the entire city...!

Results:

Skill-at-Arms:
1st Jezz
2nd Denise
3rd Luke

(Jezz and Denise were tied for 1st place and Jezz won after they both did a second run through. Denise did her runs bare back).

Jousting:
1st Graham
2nd Jezz
3rd Fred

Scores were all relatively close and Fred missed out on 2nd place by 1 point.

Chivalry Award:
Simon

Crest Melee:
Callum

Please go to the Gallery pages for more action shots!

Taupo 2007 Crest Melee

[Picture courtesy of Talisien Bleechmore]

All About Skill at Arms
Skill-at-Arms involves using weapons from horseback in a number of exercises designed to test both the rider’s horsemanship and weapons handling skills. Mastery of these skills is a pre-requisite to progress to jousting but many IJA riders just specialise in skill-at-arms developing their horse handling and weapon handling skills to the highest degree.

For this competition the course is run against the clock with extra points awarded based on time.

The Rings
This is probably the most important exercise for people learning to joust as it develops accuracy and control with the long spear. Rings can be set up either singularly or in multiples, at varying heights and may be to the rider’s left or right. Points are awarded for successfully carrying away the rings.

Spear Throwing
This involves throwing a light spear or javelin at a target at least 3 meters away. This simulates an attack on a footman or a body of footmen.

Moor’s Head
This exercise involves striking a head sized target set at head height on a pole and simulates an attack on an opponent on foot. The objective is to sever or stab the target cleanly with a sword, axe or other hand weapon. In this competition the moor’s head has been made significantly more difficult with the addition of two extra targets in quick succession, an small offhand and a thrusting target.

Quintain
The quintain was a medieval training device that consisted of a target (usually a shield) fixed to a revolving beam that pivoted on top of a centre post. We use the quintain to teach accuracy and timing when placing a lance strike and in competitions points are awarded for the number of half rotations the target makes after being struck.

All About Jousting
Jousting, the original sport of kings, is the most spectacular and the most dangerous activity that the IJA engage in. Born of a need to train noble men the skills required for battle Tournaments and Jousting became a popular peacetime spectacle throughout the latter part of the middle ages. Grand tournaments would sometimes last for weeks and offered great wealth and prestige to their champions. Historically there were many different ‘styles’ of Joust with differing rules and armour. The style we seek to re-produce here was known as the ‘Joust of Peace’ which became common from the 14th century onwards.

The objective of this style of jousting is to shatter a lance on the opponent’s shield while he or she is trying to do the same to you. Historically the head and torso were considered legitimate targets with a strike to the head being regarded as the most difficult and therefore was awarded the most points, the main objective of most styles of joust was to "break a spear" on the opponent rather than to dismount him. Nowadays it is inappropriate to target the head so we target only the area of the torso covered by the lightweight wooden ‘ecranche’ shield.

We use real armour because the lances we use, although designed to break, still deliver more than enough force to kill. However even in full armour injuries are still possible due to the nature of the sport.

Jousting is not for the faint hearted.

 Download the Tourney poster

Download the 2007 Great Lake Tourney Programme

 


Taupo 2006 Great Lake Tourney