Jousting, Backgammon, and Fencing: an Analysis

I am going to talk about three medieval games; jousting, backgammon and fencing.

Jousting is a contest where two knights are riding horse and they charge at each other with lances and try to make each other fall off. In tournament the knights use blunted lances, but serious injuries still occur. The horses are blindfolded and charge at each other from 60 paces in a space called a Jousting Run. On the last part of the charge, as they knights get closer to each other, each knight swings his lance to the left, aiming for the other knights shield, the top of the helmet or his throat. If a knight hits and knocks off his opponent, he wins the joust. If a knight retreats by taking off his helmet, the other knight is the winner. A knight that retreats is a hostage of the winning knight, and the winning knight can set a ransom for him. Most often the winning knight takes the losers horse, armor and weapons as ransom.

Backgammon is game of skill and a little luck. You play with two people and 15 checkers on a square or rectangle board that is divided in two by a bar. One side is the inner table and one is the outer table. There are 12 long triangle called points that come out from each side of the table. Each player has 15 pieces called men, stones or counters, and they are of two different colors. You also need two dice cups, four dice and a doubling cube that has the numbers 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32. You use the doubling cube to double bets if you are gambling. The object of the game is to be the first one to move all 15 men into the inner table and then take them off the board. Backgammon is through to be about 5,000 years old. It was popular in France and England in the 1600s. There are Backgammon clubs all over the world and dozens of servers on the Internet where you can play anytime.

Fencing was a form of combat and is now a sport. Fencing was first included in the Olympic Games in 1896. The equipment used by a fencer is a mask, a padded jacket, glove and one of three weapons, the foil, the epee or the sabre. The main objective of a fencing bout, or game, is the score 15 points in direct elimination or 5 points in preliminary pool play. You must score before your opponent scores on you. Each time a fencer scores a touch, they receive a point. Fencing bouts are officiated by a president who has the help of judges. The playing area is a strip. Direct elimination bouts consist of three three-minute periods.

There are three weapons to use in fencing. The first is the foil. It has a flexible rectangular blade that is 35 inches long and weighs less than a pound. Points are scored with the tip of the blade, and you must hit the torso of the body, from the neckband of the fencers uniform to the hipline, front and back. The epee (EPP-pay) is almost the same length as the foil but is heavier and has a stiffer blade. It weighs about 27 ounces more and has a larger guard to protect the hand. Points are scored only with the point of the blade, but you can hit anywhere on the body. The sabre is the modern cavalry sword and is the same length and weight as the foil. The biggest difference is that the sabre is point-thrusting weapon as well as a cutting weapon. You score points by touching and cutting. The target area is from the hips, both front and back, to the top of the head. Today all fencing matches use electricity to score. For the foil and epee a spring-loaded tip is attached to the point and is connected to a wire that runs inside the blade and through the sleeve of the fencers jacket and into a scoring machine that lights up with each hit. In the sabre, there is a sensor in the hand guard that connects to the scoring machine.