Abstract

It is towards the end of the Middle Ages that crossbow and rifle shooting show a distinct tendency to turn into sport. Reports on shooting competitions, letters of invitation, targets as well as lists with the names of competitors clearly document how the best performers were determined and ranked. Results, competition and records are regarded as dominant attributes of present day sports. Do these 'characteristics of modern sports' represent epochal distinguishing features in the history of sports and is not that where the 'industrial behavioral pattern' sport finds its utmost expression? Do those phenomena outline some sort of continuity in the history of the development of sport? Epochal and structural comparison approaches certainly mark a signposting trend within sport historiography but they not give due regard to the tournaments and the marksmanship as the culminating point of medieval sports. The more recent studies by Joachim K. Ruehl about the history of tournaments present a hitherto unknown type of source in the so-called 'score cheques'. Here, for the first time examples are presented of a well-constructed system for the quantitative measurement of results used in a medieval sport. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that late medieval shooting tournaments and competitions were organized so that standardized results could be compared and documented. This will be demonstrated using typical sources from shooting history, although the lists of the competitors are almost unknown in sport history. Eaton