Public lecture about medieval tournaments by Honorary Doctor of the University of Tartu, Professor of the University of Leeds Alan V. Murray

On Tuesday, 2 December at 16:15, Professor of the University of Leeds Alan V. Murray, who was conferred the degree of Honorary Doctor of the University of Tartu this year, gives a public lecture entitled “The Development of Medieval Tournaments from Mass Combat to Sport and Spectacle” at the Institute of History and Archaeology (Jakobi 2-224). The lecture will be organised by the UT Institute of History and Archaeology and the Centre for Medieval Studies. Everyone is welcome!

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The original form of tournament was a mass combat involving hundreds of knights fighting on horseback, which developed around 1100 in northern France as a form of training for war. This exercise (known as a tourney) rapidly spread throughout Western Christendom. From 1200 the popularity of individual combat, influenced by Arthurian literature, led to the institution of jousting as a separate kind of event, while innovations in armour permitted the growth of events involving foot combat with a variety of weapons. By the later Middle Ages the newer tournament forms had developed into a kind of sporting event with scoring and prizes, and an emphasis on spectacle. This lecture will survey the development of the different tournament forms, the equipment used in them, and the changing ethos of those who participated in them.

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The distinguished Scottish historian Alan Victor Murray (b. 1956) studied ancient, medieval and modern history and German language and literature at the University of St Andrews. In 1988, he defended his dissertation “Monarchy and Nobility in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1099–1131: Establishment and Origins”. Since 1990, he has been a lecturer and senior lecturer in medieval history at the University of Leeds and became a professor of medieval European history in 2023.

Alan V. Murray is an exceptionally prolific researcher. He has dealt particularly thoroughly with the history of the Crusades. Interest in the history of the Crusades in Northern Europe led him to initiate extensive cooperation with Estonian historians in the late 1990s. He has also involved them among the authors of several collections he has edited. This year, the comprehensive overview Medieval Livonia. History, Society and Economy of a Territory on the Baltic Frontier, edited by Alan V. Murray and Anti Selart, was published in the renowned publishing house Brepols.

You can follow the event on Zoom.