Ste Genevieve 7th Annual Joust
MEET THE CLANS
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The colourful, whimsical carnival rides we call carousels today actually emerged out of a middle-eastern combat training exercise dating to the 12th century!
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In the 1100s, European crusaders witnessed Arabic and Turkish soldiers performing a cavalry training exercise in which they rode their horses around in a circle while tossing a perfume filled clay ball back and forth. The game helped strengthen horsemanship and agility, and was incentivized by the perfume inside the ball – the trainee who failed to catch it and had it break on him would reek of perfume. The crusaders nicknamed this spectacle “little war” – garosella in Italian, and carosella in Spanish.
The crusaders brought the exercise back to Europe, where it was adopted into the roster of martial games (like jousting) which were popular during the Middle Ages and Renaissance period. The French later developed a practice device consisting of wooden horses which were suspended on arms radiating out from central rotating pole. Eventually the perfume ball fell out of favor, and instead, the riders would use their lances to spear rings hanging overhead from poles. |