Jousting a sin?

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Richard_I

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Okay m question is Pope Innocent II condemned jousting and tournaments at the second council of Clermnot and in a Lateran Council. Does this mean Catholics are to see these sports as sins? Also did Catholic Christians that partake in such activities commit a sin? If so was it Venial or Mortal?
Blessings!
P. S. I love Medieval History and was wanting to know the church’s position on these sports.
 
Richard_I said:
Okay m question is Pope Innocent II condemned jousting and tournaments at the second council of Clermnot and in a Lateran Council. Does this mean Catholics are to see these sports as sins? Also did Catholic Christians that partake in such activities commit a sin? If so was it Venial or Mortal?
Blessings!
P. S. I love Medieval History and was wanting to know the church’s position on these sports.
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Could you cite your source on this please?

As to the potential motives, if he actually did, it was probably because jousting usually resulted in bodily harm to one or both individuals, and occasionally could result in death. Given that jousts were primarily sport, and served no other practical purpose, then the high potential for severe injury or death would be considered immoral, placing God’s gift of life in undue jeopardy.
 
ProdglArchitect said:
Could you cite your source on this please?

As to the potential motives, if he actually did, it was probably because jousting usually resulted in bodily harm to one or both individuals, and occasionally could result in death. Given that jousts were primarily sport, and served no other practical purpose, then the high potential for severe injury or death would be considered immoral, placing God’s gift of life in undue jeopardy.
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Tell that to base jumpers.
 
philipl said:
Tell that to base jumpers.
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I think the argument could be made that base jumping might be at least a venial sin. That said, I don’t think the mortality and severe injury rate is quite as high with base jumping as it was with jousting.
 
Here is the reference to the Lateran Council.
papalencyclicals.net/Councils/ecum10.htm
Simple goolge Pope Innocent II and 2nd Council of Clermont for more.
That being said not all jousting killed people. It was common to be chilvarous to your opponent. So why would this be banned by the Catholic Church?
 
Jousting is the official sport of my home state of Maryland so I certainly hope not. (Incidentally, Maryland was established as a colony by Lord Baltimore to be a refuge for persecuted English Catholics.)
 
Richard_I said:
So why would this be banned by the Catholic Church?
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As I said, due to the high probably of severe injury or death.

Just because you were chivalrous to your opponent doesn’t change the fact that you were colliding a large piece of wood into his chest, face, or arm, going roughly twenty-five miles per hour, while they were attempting to do the same going in the opposite direction. All told, this was equivalent to running into a stick while going fifty miles per hour. Even with plate armor, you can only mitigate so much damage. That’s not even considering the fall after being hit. Five feet may not be much normally, but flying backwards off a horse while wearing around a hundred / hundred-fifty pounds of armor is going to cause some damage regardless.
 
ProdglArchitect said:
As I said, due to the high probably of severe injury or death.

Just because you were chivalrous to your opponent doesn’t change the fact that you were colliding a large piece of wood into his chest, face, or arm, going roughly twenty-five miles per hour, while they were attempting to do the same going in the opposite direction. All told, this was equivalent to running into a stick while going fifty miles per hour. Even with plate armor, you can only mitigate so much damage. That’s not even considering the fall after being hit. Five feet may not be much normally, but flying backwards off a horse while wearing around a hundred / hundred-fifty pounds of armor is going to cause some damage regardless.
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Yet something tells me people weren’t as squeamish about grievous bodily harm in the Middle Ages - or even two hundred years ago - as they are today.
 
tomarin said:
Yet something tells me people weren’t as squeamish about grievous bodily harm in the Middle Ages - or even two hundred years ago - as they are today.
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It’s not a matter of being squeamish about it. The problem was that people were being maimed and killed in the name of entertainment.
 
This makes me think of something slightly OT, but related to the conversation- what about motorsports? Certain types of auto/motorcycle racing are also very dangerous. Are these activities sinful too? Just some food for thought.
 
ctb95 said:
This makes me think of something slightly OT, but related to the conversation- what about motorsports? Certain types of auto/motorcycle racing are also very dangerous. Are these activities sinful too? Just some food for thought.
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What about boxing? People are seriously injured and even die in boxing, which is for the purposes of entertainment. At least jousting gave young knights a chance to sharpen their combat skills which they might very well be called upon to use.
 
tomarin said:
What about boxing? People are seriously injured and even die in boxing, which is for the purposes of entertainment. At least jousting gave young knights a chance to sharpen their combat skills which they might very well be called upon to use.
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There are various opinions about boxing for sport. One wishes Paul would have added another line when he mentions boxing in 1 Cor. 9:26… There is a temptation to say, “What about football? What about NASCAR? What about skiing?” The difference with those is that the point is something other than physically debilitating your opponent by inflicting damage (as opposed to wrestling). I lean towards saying it is immoral.

youtu.be/Yh1BbhsmJI0?t=86

Sorry Rocky, I’m with Adrian on this one. But I’ll still root for you. 👍

These days, jousting is mostly safe. There were various forms of the sport in the Middle Ages, some of which were pretty brutal, some of which were not. My uninformed guess is that the Pope was condemning the former, given his description.
 
ProdglArchitect said:
It’s not a matter of being squeamish about it. The problem was that people were being maimed and killed in the name of entertainment.
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I can see that as a problem, and you can see that as a problem, I’m just wondering if people were more used to and/or desensitized to violence in the Middle Ages. From what little I’ve read about the Crusades, that seems to be the case. Anyway if a Pope denounced jousting as sinful I have no doubt that that is what happened, but we shouldn’t assume his reasoning for doing so was as modern as we might be tempted to.
 
I think the point that was condemned was the callous nature towards injury (one must remember a splinter injury back then could easily kill you due to infection unlike today)

Jousting did actually (to a point) serve a good purpose as far a way to maintain combat skills during peacetime. It later became more a source of entertainment then training, and worse an entertainment that did not hold the value of life properly (in a similar way to gladiator fights)
Code: 
I have studied some contemporary church writings on the Knightly class and there is a wide range of opinions. Some church writers hold it up as a great Christian example and some quite acutely condemn it usually due to those who abused their station instead of using it properly to defend the innocent and Christendom. However those knights who did act according to proper Christian morality (especially the Knightly orders) were greatly praised. There was a large range of moral compass in the knight social class, from some little better than brigands, to those who were shinning examples of chivalry and piety.
That being said there was a show in the history channel a few years ago called “Full Metal Jousting” where they actually engaged in modern day jousting. With modern protective equipment it was very unlikely for anyone to get more injured than some bruising. I do not think anyone could condemn it any more than they could boxing for MMA fighting.
 
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