chthonya | Beautiful men on horses

One Yorkshire museum I wasn't aware of before moving here is the Royal Armouries, to which I hadn't given much thought until I realised that, far from being like just another regimental museum, it has a rather awesome collection of medieval armour and an equally impressive programme of live interpretation events, as well as doing useful work on knife crime prevention with young people.

They also, as official Keeper of the Royal Amouries, have inherited the role of arranging tournaments, a duty which they seem keen to take seriously!

So today, thirty-odd years since first reading about quoits and rings and tiltyards and tournaments, I finally got round to seeing it for 'real' at 'The Queen's Golden Jubilee International Joust'.

Of course, a parade beforehand was necessary just so everyone could show off their finery. Musicians first:

Followed closely by ersatz Royals:

(Pretty dresses. I wants...)

Ah, and at last some pretty people on horseback. Or rather, one pretty person and one hiding behind an mysterious steel mask. Oooh, the drama...

And bringing up the rear, a couple of jesters channeling the spirit of Monty Python:

I was rather taken by the incongruous setting in the newly developed canal area of Leeds. It would look more convincing somewhere like Windsor, but somehow it felt more real here - a serious recreation/practice of the sport of tournament, rather than just theatre to bring a pretty backdrop to life.

Proceeding to the tiltyard, with the crowd having found seats and been warmed up by the aforementioned jesters, it was time for a demonstration of trick riding by someone taking a couple of days off from filming War Horse.

He did actually go over a jump mounted like this. And no, the horses aren't tethered together.

And later, after swinging down to pick up the Lady's favour:

Next up, a competition between a couple of those who hadn't made it through to the finals, demonstrating challenges such as picking up a series of 10cm rings with a lance. I didn't get any decent pictures of this, except for the competitor calling himself 'The Beast'.

He may have been angling a little too hard for the bad boy vote...

And at last, time for the actual jousting. But not before the parading of the trophy and standards (and more lovely dresses I wants, I wants):

Last year's champion, in some rather striking black armour, prepares to enter the lists:

And goes lance-to-lance with this year's eventual champion:

I hadn't realised before that jousting did not, at least by 500 years ago in pretty much everywhere except Germany, consist of trying to knock the other knight off his horse, but of trying to break one's lance on one's opponent. And break they did, with a most satisfying crack, as can be seen by the flying pieces in the photo above.

And finally, the new champion - sporting some Gryffindorish headgear: