Annual jousting tournament has been this Maryland congregation’s labor of love for 157 years

[Episcopal News Service] At Christ Episcopal Church in Calvert County, Maryland, you can expect the familiar liturgical seasons – Advent, Lent, Pentecost – and also anticipate another annual celebration that has become, over more than a century and a half, a beloved and uniquely homegrown event on the parish calendar: a jousting tournament.

“A lot of churches have the Christmas and Easter crowds,” the Rev. Christopher Garcia told Episcopal News Service. “We have the Christmas, Easter and tournament crowds.”

In the Middle Ages, jousting featured men on horseback using lances to knock their opponents off their horses. Christ Church’s annual jousting tournament features a different, noncombative competition, known as ring jousting. Competitors ride their horses through a short course and use the pointed tip of their lances to spear and retrieve a series of small rings.

The tournament, which the church will host for its 157th year on Aug. 31, is part of a circuit of events sanctioned by the Maryland Jousting Tournament Association, upholding a centuries-old tradition in Maryland, where jousting is the official state sport. A thousand or so competitors, spectators and church volunteers typically turn out for the event. It is Christ Church’s largest annual fundraiser, with other attractions that include a bazaar, kids’ activities, a community dinner and live music. Organizers describe a festive atmosphere akin to a family reunion.

“It’s just a fun day. Everybody is happy,” said Nancy Zinn, the church’s longtime senior warden. At age 80, she has attended and volunteered at many of the church’s jousting tournaments and chairs this year’s sit-down dinner. “As long as the weather cooperates, we are doing good,” Zinn told ENS.

Christ Church is located south of Annapolis and east of Washington, D.C., in the unincorporated community of Port Republic in central Calvert County, a thumb-shaped peninsula bordered by the Chesapeake Bay and Patuxent River. The congregation’s origins date to 1672, and Garcia, the rector, said the local tradition of ring jousting likely was started by people on farms looking for something to do in their spare time.

“It’s still a heavily rural county with a heavy agricultural presence,” he said. Christ Church, with typical Sunday attendance of 60-70, isn’t a large congregation, but everyone chips in to ensure the success of the congregation’s premiere public event, held each year on the last Saturday in August. “It really feels like you’re at an old-fashioned county fair for a day,” Garcia said.

Its mid-morning bazaar features jams, jellies and other homemade food items. Under the tents set up on the church grounds, guests can shop for used books and used kids’ toys while children enjoy face painting, pony rides and a petting zoo. Tours are available of a historic one-room schoolhouse.

Afternoon concerts featuring a variety of music are provided inside the church, and the meal is served in the parish hall from 2-6 p.m., either takeout or sit-down dining. The entree is ham, fried chicken and deviled crab (pick two), with numerous side dishes. Homemade applesauce is a Christ Church specialty.

“It’s very festive,” Zinn said. “It’s like a homecoming. Everyone is so happy to see each other.”

And then there is the jousting. After an opening ceremony at noon, riders of all ages and abilities compete for “cash and glory” in a jousting field next to the parish cemetery. “If you’re fairly new and don’t know much about jousting, it’s obviously something very unique,” Richard Dodd, the event’s publicity chair, told ENS. “It’s not like other sports.”

Any questions about the sport are best answered by Peter Cochran, a Christ Church member who serves as the event’s liaison to the Maryland Jousting Tournament Association. Cochran, though not a rider himself, loves helping to organize events and has more than 20 years of service with the state association.

“The camaraderie is out of this world. The people come from all different walks of life,” Cochran told ENS. “It’s very exciting.”

Each rider competes at one of four difficulty levels: novice, amateur, semipro and pro. Results in each category are based on a rider’s success during three passes through the course, collecting up to three rings each time, for a maximum score of nine per round. Each ring hangs from an arch at 6 feet 9 inches from the ground. In each round, riders have nine seconds to cover 80 yards from start to finish, which typically requires bringing the horse up to a decent trot.

The real difficulty is the rings themselves. They are very small.

The novice riders must put the tips of their lances through rings 1 3/4 inches wide. The rings’ width tightens in the higher levels to a mere inch for pro riders, and when any round ends in a tie, the course is set up for the next round with progressively smaller rings. By the end, the winner may be collecting rings barely larger than a shirt button.

Cochran said the Christ Church tournament likely will draw up to 50 competitors, some as young as 3 years old. The youngest competitors participate in a subset of the novice category that allows an adult to lead the children’s horses by a rope.

Garcia expressed amazement and pride that his congregation can transform the church grounds into such a grand event in a short span of time. When it is over, volunteer crews clean everything up just as quickly, so by Sunday morning there may be no trace that a jousting tournament had just taken place.

And though evangelism isn’t the primary reason that the congregation keeps this tradition alive year after year, the door of the church is always open Sunday for anyone who enjoyed themselves on Saturday.

“We make sure they’re all invited to come back and join us for worship,” Garcia said.

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.