I have. They have them every year at the nearby Southwest Ohio Renaissance Festival (I even worked there a few years). You sort of get how brutal it actually was when a piece of lance breaks off and flies over your head. Jousting, if you didn’t know, is an actual championship sport in Canada and the United States, and I believe parts of Europe as well, and the jousters generally support their sport by hiring themselves out to medieval and renaissance fairs around the country. Armor and horses ain’t cheap you know.
I just had to post this BBC article about jousting because at the bottom it actually mentions the great El Cid. (No, not that one. That one!)
The Tizona Group 
January 21, 2008, 8:11 pm at 8:11 pm
The era is on my mind because I spent the day helping my grandson build a castle for a class project. It’s the third time I’ve had to do this, and thank God, it’s the last time.
January 21, 2008, 8:48 pm at 8:48 pm
After one melee, William Marshal went missing, delaying the presentation of his prize as best fighter. They eventually found him in the blacksmith’s with his head in the anvil as his helmet was beaten back into shape so he could take off his armour.
I would say that in today’s nomenclature, “the Marshal” was one bad ass dude.
January 21, 2008, 9:54 pm at 9:54 pm
Rebecca: Yes! I saw some jousting events at a Renaissance Fair in Virginia. It was thrilling!
January 21, 2008, 10:59 pm at 10:59 pm
You’re making me all sniffly, dammit. One of our yearly traditions was the Renaissance Pleasure Faire at the old Paramount Ranch in Agoura, CA. I went for the total Elizabethan immersion, Ebola went for the swords and knights, while major dad went for wenches falling (continually) out of their…um…muslin. Whatever your fancy, it was a total immersion experience. I remember a mum in the line ahead of me going ballistic because there was no soda available for her precious, thirsty Pugsley. Only lemonade, tea or water ~ i.e: “only things they had when Shakespeare was scribbling”. Damned inconvenient, the diet of centuries past, n’est pas?
A good time was had by all.
January 22, 2008, 12:20 am at 12:20 am
Ahemmm, straighten up people, we have an important guest here…(psssstttt, see #4)
January 22, 2008, 12:17 pm at 12:17 pm
Only lemonade, tea or water ~ i.e: “only things they had when Shakespeare was scribbling”. Damned inconvenient, the diet of centuries past, n’est pas?
So they were offering dysentary milkshakes and typhoid burgers, Sis? Great fun!
January 22, 2008, 12:45 pm at 12:45 pm
Now, now Mr. Bingley…Tiz your sister, you know…:).
January 22, 2008, 10:51 pm at 10:51 pm
Hey, she’s a Marine! She loves that stuff!