It seems a sense of honour and the chivalric code might not be enough to keep knights on the straight and narrow - VAR is to be used at jousting tournaments this summer to make sure hits are correctly recorded.

VAR or Video Assistant Referee technology is regularly used in sports such as cricket, football and tennis to help officials.

Now the charity English Heritage is collaborating with VAR specialist Hawk-Eye to trial the technology today with jousters at Pendennis Castle in Cornwall.

The charity said accuracy was vital in "England's first national sport" - which sees participants wearing chain mail and charging at each other on horseback - as each hit with the lance to different parts of the shield or helmet is worth different points.

Emily Sewell, English Heritage's head of events, said that one of the misconceptions around jousting was that the "intense clashes" were choreographed.


"It takes a great deal of precision and skill to aim the 12ft lance at a moving target and make the hit with the most points and it really matters to the knights - their honour is everything," she said.

"But it also currently requires our Knight Marshall to accurately observe the location of each hit every time, which is quite a challenge."

Image: A painting of Jean de Saintre vanquishing an opponent while the French king Jean le Bon looks on in a tournament circa 1350

Jousting tournaments grew out of the training of knights for combat, replicating the use of the lance by heavy cavalry.

Deriving from the the Old French word joster meaning to battle or compete, jousting was popular across Europe in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, although it was stopped in France following the death of King Henry II in a tournament accident in 1559.

The modern revival of jousting began in the 1970s and has gradually grown to the point where in 2016 English Heritage launched a campaign for it to become an Olympic sport.