Sports And Betting In Middle Age Europe

[Note: OK, in this case the author probably didn't just walk out of a Middle Age jousting tournament with a fistful of coins, but I thought the article was interesting, nevertheless.]

Sports And Betting In Middle Age Europe

Sports and athletic activities in the middle ages of Europe were born from military training and combat skills.

During the European medieval period all things were usually solved either with the help of the Church, or with the help of force: so most landlords who wanted to survive had to develop their own armies and everyone benefited from constant military training. Nobles stimulated their subjects to train for war and even went as far as prohibiting other sorts of games so that people would only concentrate in becoming better warriors.

In this way, tournaments and jousts were born as the most popular sort of medieval sport, probably by imitation of Roman history but at least with the intention of not being so bloody: while knights died in fact during tournaments, that was not the result sought. All sorts of combat variants appear over time: on horse, on foot, one on one, teams and the meleé, which was something like a pillow battle but with armour and blunt weapons.

People developed sympathies for certain knights and teams, and fans even behaved tumultuously from time to time, just like in any modern stadium; and naturally, money began circulating in the form of prizes and bets. Eventually, money surpassed the original goal of these activities, and knights became professional athletes in some cases, looking for the hefty prizes paid, and the nice betting money that they could get out of the tournaments.

However, as the sport developed, kings and queens saw that they could make some nice tax money from them and hefty entry fees were placed. Moreover, the gear required to participate, like horses, special armour, special blunt weapons became sophisticated and expensive, and so, in the end, only the upper classes, even among nobles, fetched everything.

By Pablo Edronkin

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