NARRATOR: Curator Donald LaRocca.

DONALD LAROCCA: This is an album of tournaments and parades that was made in Nuremberg in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. The wonderful thing about it is that it shows us how people participating in tournaments would look with all of their equipment on—fully dressed, very colorful costumes—and gives us a sense of what the events look like in a way that we can’t get from seeing the objects in the galleries necessarily.

Tournaments in the Middle Ages were training for warfare, and they were very rough and dangerous events. By the time of this tournament book in the sixteenth century, tournament armor had become very specialized. And although it was still effective as a training for young noblemen and patricians who might have to participate in battle, it was more of a civic event, a spectacle, a large sporting event. They were major happenings on the cultural calendar of the city at the time.

In other parts of this case, you can see tournament equipment just like that that is shown in the book.

NARRATOR: Today, re-enactments preserve the traditions of the tournament. Press play to watch a joust from a modern-day tournament.