Fine video! I don't think I said that the four-pommelled saddle was equal in effectiveness to the stirrup. It seems, though, that they were both fit enough for purpose. It could be that the Celtic saddle was actually a bit better. Yes, the stirrup does nothing to counter the recoil from a lance hit, and yet many people say that this was its revolutionary function, which I always found odd. Horse archers existed before stirrups. The American Indians developed cavalry very quickly, but they had the massive advantages of being given horses that had been bred for 3.5 millennia to be suitable for cavalry, and had the example of European cavalry to follow.
Thank you Lloyd, it's wonderful to see you here. You're absolutely correct, for all I know the Celtic saddle could be better. I've also added a notation to the video to represent what you said more accurately. That's a great point you make about the American Indians, not many saddles or stirrups there at all. Thanks for all the work you do and all the best in the future mate!
Could the stirrup be more useful for combat after a knight used his lance? Lances often were not in a state to be used again after the first hit. So knights probably spent more time fighting with a sword or mace.
I do think stirrup did contribute to the development of shock/heavy cavalry. You both hinted this in your videos. It was invaluable when you were able to wear heavier armour and still be able to efficiently mount or dismount when needed without the aid of other guy or some kind of stool (not talking about full plate knights though). Also, I agree with you about keeping your balance when using stirrups. Maybe it has something to do with what muscles you use when you try to pull yourself in as opposed to pushing up. Better balance gives you the option to get heavier with armour. How did Iranians and Parthians manage to field and use effectively their heavy armoured cavalry so much time before stirrups came out and what kind of saddle they used? I am no historian so I don't know but I am genuinely curious. Did they manage to develop something equivalent to Celtic saddle so much time before Romans encountered Celts? Or did they use a saddle horn to keep their balance?
But what is important for shock cavalry? I think it is a big and strong horse and heavy armor. The rider needs more protection because he is going straight towards the enemy now and not just passing by in a secure distance. So we put as much protective gear on him as possible. The bigger horse can carry more weight what means more armor for the rider. More weight means also momentum to the hit of the cavalry attacke. Maybe we even can put on some horse armor. Now we have a bigger horse and a rider covered in armor. I can't jump on a big horse with about 20 kg of Armor on me, like in the good old days. So there we first need a stirrup. Also it would be very hard to lean out and hold my self to the horns of the saddle because my abs have to support my upper body with that 20kg extra weight of armor from the left horn to the right side of the wider back of that bigger horse. Thanks god i have that stirrups so i can naturally stand with my feet on that side of the horse where im leaning out and its a bit less exhausting to carry al that extra weight.
Why not knights in plate armour? They still need to be able to get on and off their horses easily. I don't see why this doesn't apply to them in your opinion.
I have to disagree with u AND Einstein in this case: Truth is a binary choice, either its true and can be proofen or it is false. A subjective view on things cant make a false statement a true one. And thats exactly why i wrote what i wrote earlier: Historians never look for the one and only truth, cause they will never find it in most cases. Believe me, i AM a historian xD
+MrJaldal well i suppose in the natural world truth is something that can be found, but in regards to people's ways of thinking and their perspective truth can be relative in the sense that sometimes the proof can just not make sense to other people because of they just think radically differently? just a thought... and also, i didnt know that i was quoting einstein, that's kinda cool :^)
Both you and Loydd have overlooked Alexander the Great's Macedonians, who used shock cavalry to great effect in the 4th century BC. Also, the men recruited into shock cavalry in ancient (western/middle-eastern) civilizations were the upper classes (Greek Hippeis, Roman Equites, Gallic nobles) who had the money to provide their own horse(s) and equipment as even ancient civilizations often relied on their armed populace for raising armies like medieval kings did. Of course, in both time periods governments could also sponsor select warriors to make them cavalrymen or have a standing regiment of horse guards (usually mercenaries or younger aristocrats). Shock cavalry has for a long time been recruited from the elites of societies, not only because of the expense of maintaining a warhorse (often several+normal riding horses and pack animals for 1 cavalryman), but also because elites had another asset the middle and lower classes didn't have: Free Time to train at horsemanship and combat.
This weren't shock Cavalry though. Ancient cavalry was used to bring fighters quickly where they need to be and do a skirmish attack, not as a massive riding block breaking into the opponents line.
Christian Kunert But that's exactly what Alexander Companions did, In many of his famous battles. The Flying Wedge attack was essentially a shock charge manouvre with Kontos lances. Since Alexander, Hellenistic heavy cavalry had a shock attack doctrine. Roles of cavalry do vary between regions and peoples of course, but the companions are a prime example of pre-stirrup shock cavalry.
Quite late. Maxentius deployed some in one battle against Constantine (before that of the Milvian Bridge). Contemporaries (e.g. one of the XII Panegyrici Latini) described them as an extreme novelty (that ultimately failed because they were outmaneuvred surprisingly easy).
Well i would call them more hastas, because lances were a bit more different, they used these Long Hastas with both hands (cataphracts did) and got more momentum, these long hastas were almost as long as a sarissa which is.. Well you know, QUITE LONG don't you think?
Amen to that. Shad is VERY good about admitting to both mistakes or when he is not certain about his information. THAT is an attitude which has to spread more
@@caseyh1934 One step further, I've seen him openly debate religious ideas without it shaking his own religious faith. This isn't a casual church-goer we're talking about either, this guy walks the walk. I've nothing but respect for the man.
Respectfully, both you and Lindey are getting mired in technicalities. All you need to do is understand the military leader mind. The first and most important virtue of a horse in warfare is mobility. From the mobility standpoint a general will then look for ways to make them even more effective, such as mounted archers, or quick hitting flanking maneuvers, or harassment of moving troops. From that point the military mind will progress to find more ways to make use of the strength, stamina and fear generation of that advantage.
I think that the objective of a shock cavalry force, at least during the middle ages, would be to charge into the enemy and break their morale so that they retreat.
I think the choice of whether your troops are using stirrups or celtic saddles isn't down to the general. You're looking at it from far too modern a standpoint with standardised equipment and uniforms... this isn't how medieval and ancient warfare was waged. Instead a military leader baisically had to make do with what his troops chose to fight with, and couldn't easily train them to be something else. It's culture, not "military thinking" we should be looking at.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companion_cavalry en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataphract Shock cavalry in some form or another existed *long* before the medieval period. It's just that in ancient times the big, rich empires could afford to just pay for such units from the treasury (or hire them from the nearby nomadic horse-tribes). In post-Roman Europe no ruler was rich enough to maintain a constant army in the roman way (legionnaires were professional full-time soldiers, remember) even just with infantry (well, a small guards corps was usually kept), let alone the more expensive and demanding cavalry. So the army was just the population that could get mobilized when need be, but they had to lead a normal life and make a living otherwise plus they'd have to supply their own equipment (again, no money in the treasury). For basic infantry it was easy - a helmet, shield and spear are not that expensive. For heavy cavalry... well, if you wanted to have a shock cavalry element in your army you'd have to either just tag those, who are already rich (not a good idea, they'd have little loyalty to you), or take those loyal to you and provide them with the means to make enough money (and in those times it just meant give them some land and a few villages of serfs). So feudalism and the knight system really came from the fragmented, not very populous and generally poor (money-wise) state of European governments. The technology and tactics of shock cavalry were already available, they just got improved, not invented.
Yeah, exceptions proving the rule. In fact, many armies in Europe were professional. Professional mercenaries, that is (condottieri, landsknechts, Swiss pikers, etc.). But permanent standing national armies were very rare until well past the Renaissance.
It's the first time watching your video for me. You surprised me by talking about Loyd in such a civilized manner, even though he made a video which at a first glance looks ridiculously silly. Then you surprised me farther by expressing how you love being corrected by your subscribers, and how you always have an insightful discussion in the comments. My reaction at this point: "realy? is it the same youtube comment section that i know, the one filled with insults and hordes of people pretending to know it all?" Finally you won my heart at "whenever given a reason to question my opinions, i of course question them and do more research to find out what is true, cause i have far more interest in knowing the truth than being right" Thanks for giving me back a little of my faith in humanity, and in the possibility of creation a society of rationalists
My thoughts precisely while watching this, although I agree with a lot of it. While it's often not easy to ascertain the way cavalry was used in ancient times, in the case of the Alexandrian army it's pretty clear that it was shock cavalry. Also, while technological developments are of course often an important factor in military changes, I sometimes feel that most people overstate their importance while simultaneously neglecting social factors. I would venture to say, that very often (although not exclusively!) a strong emphasis on cavalry is found in societies with a strong aristocratic and/or monarchic elemen. This also in part explains the relatively minor role cavalry plays from the middle to late Roman Republic and onwards - while of course a monarchy under the emperors, the underlying society was not really strongly aristocratically structured, less than in Republican times even, with lots of social mobility, some equites class people and even freed slaves taking on huge roles under the emperors.
Prince Foxish I'm a layman and by no means an expert, but usually the purpose of different military units can be proven by the kind of equipment they used - and the Companion Cavalry used long spears, almost like lances. Also the stories about the battles fought mention them charging into flanks and even into the front of infantry units, as well as fighting other cavalry, and like much of Alexanders army, they changed their equipment after what was needed for the upcoming battle (like how the Hypaspists usually wore light or no armour, but put on bronze breastplates during sieges when combat got real close and personal). The long lances(spears) of the companions tell enough of a story about shock cavalry to debunk this myth about it not being used before medieval times in Europe. I'm also fairly sure that even the Romans used shock auxiliary cavalry - at first its allied latin states, and later is it grew from allied people beyond its borders. I think it's a bit hasty to say that the roman army didn't utilize cavalry to a large extent, because auxiliary forces of the legions could easily number in the thousands - with both bowmen and cavalry made up by roman allies.
First off, by no means I meant to say that the Romans didn't make due use of cavalry - this is not so, as you correctly point out. Still, infantry clearly takes up the major role during most of the Roman period - I think the term "auxiliary" for cavalry is speaking a bit for itself here, although, surely, their number could become quite extensive. There are of course exceptions - I mentioned the earlier to middle Republican era as an example, and you very fittingly mention the cavalry of the italic allies. Looking into the equites extraordinarii might give some useful insight on ancient shock cavalry. And definitely in some campaigns the circumstances will have dictated an emphasis that shifts away from the primary role infantry was usually given. And yes, indeed the equipment is indicative of tactics and role of a military force. That's not what I meant to point out - I meant to point out that (in premodern times at least) technological development was not the sole or even primary driving force of military development and tactics. As you say, the descriptions surviving through Arrian, Diodorus and others leave no doubt about their role as shock cavalry. The whole concept of hammer-and-anvil strategy would probably not make much sense anyway, otherwise. So not really any big differences between our points of view here - thanks for your extensive and well-written answer.
Lucius Foxish Yet again, I don't wish to be rude, but you seem to take the meaning of the word ''auxiliary'' the wrong way. The auxiliaries were just as important (and more numerous)to the roman legions as the heavy legionaries themselves - on top of that tmost auxilia weren't even cavalry. Pardon me for using wikipedia, ''The Auxilia (Latin, lit. "helps") constituted the *standing* non-citizen corps of the Imperial Roman army during the Principate era (30 BC-284 AD), alongside the citizen legions. By the 2nd century, the Auxilia *contained the same number of infantry as the legions and in addition provided almost all of the Roman army's cavalry and more specialised troops (especially light cavalry and archers). The auxilia thus represented three-fifths of Rome's regular land forces at that time.* Like their legionary counterparts, auxiliary recruits were mostly volunteers, not conscripts.'' en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxilia Today Auxilia carries a slight negative connotation, as in they're not really ''the real deal'', but back then nothing could be further from the truth - if the roman legions had no access to cavalry to screen and chase away enemy cavalry the fate of the heavier infantry would end in disaster almost every time. During the Roman Kingdom (when they still used greek stratagem), auxiliaries weren't used as extensively because the poorer citizens of Rome took up the role as javelin-throwing skirmishers themselves.
This is what I found on word Ritter: "Regional liegen die Ursprünge des mittelalterlichen Rittertums im heutigen Frankreich, das „fränkische (französische)“ Rittertum wurde dann über das niederländisch-lothringische Sprachgebiet nach Osten weitervermittelt. „Ritter“ ist deshalb nach der Ansicht einiger Historiker (etwa Reitzenstein) ein Lehnwort aus dem Niederländischen beziehungsweise dessen niederdeutschen Vorgängerdialekten (Ridder)." and "Ritter - Herkunft: von mittelhochdeutsch rit(t)er, rīter, rītære „Reiter“, im 12. Jahrhundert von mittelniederländisch riddere/reddere entlehnt, einer Lehnbedeutung von französisch chevalier" And on knight: "The word knight, from Old English cniht ("boy" or "servant"), is a cognate of the German word Knecht ("servant, bondsman"). This meaning, of unknown origin, is common among West Germanic languages (cf Old Frisian kniucht, Dutch knecht, Danish knægt, Swedish knekt, Norwegian knekt, Middle High German kneht, all meaning "boy, youth, lad", as well as German Knecht "servant, bondsman, vassal"). The Anglo-Saxon cniht had no particular connection to horsemanship: the word referred to any servant. A narrowing of the generic meaning "servant" to "military follower of a king or other superior" is visible by 1100. The specific military sense of a knight being a mounted warrior in the heavy cavalry emerges only in the Hundred Years' War." My interpretation is this: 1. there is Knecht in German(ic) meaning "servant" (8th c.) 2. there is cniht in English meaning "servant" 3. a cavalry develops in France, creating new meaning for "chevalier" (12th c.) (before that it meant simply "horseman") 4. a cavalry in England develops from the social stratum of servants>military followers; gradually "knight" gets its modern meaning (by 14th c.) 5. in German(y) social stratum of servants doesn't follow the same path OR not as fast and decisive (since Knecht did have a meaning of "vassal", but maybe derrived to late?) 6. German lacks a word for "knight/chevalier", so it borrows it (12th c.) from the same direction as the institution itself (France>Netherlands>Germany), but it uses a more litteral translation - hence: Ritter (horse-rider) 7. later, Ritter becomes commonly used for the military institution of knight in Germany, while Knecht is kept in use for lower servants/bondsmen. 8. note that English "knight" doesn't yet have its modern meaning at the time when German needs a word for the institution of knight. Since German then probably has more contact (in that specific aspect of culture) with French than with English, that is where it gets its word (Ritter), through intermediary.
Also czech word for knight "rytíř" came from german "Reiter". Intresting is, that czech word for shivalery came from rytíř, and not from "kavalérie" (cavalery)
Or a simpler explanation is that the English just had to be difficult again :p. In more seriousness, given its 11th century origins, it could be as mundane as it being due to the Frankish-Normandic invasion then, that the "knights" of england were those the people called the servants of the new rulers (who themselves, I would guess, spoke French and thus used chevalier), and eventually the popular term stuck. And/or a sign of what knighthood meant: that on the continent the military cavalry became nobility, while in England the nobility formed the cavalry. Chicken and egg, kinda.
so, excactly the same as the french did, naming it after someone who rides a horse. also i believe Gaelic (the language before english became dominant) uses the word 'Ridire' for horsemen. also i'm a dutch native speaker and we also use Ridder for knight, but the proper word for horseman is 'Ruiter' It should also be noted that the word Paladin is derived from a name for a servant of the roman emperor (making it properly synonimous with the 'knecht'-> knight) it was later revived in the court of Carolus Magnus (i used the latin name to avoid conflict between french and german speakers lol) where it was given to his guard consiting of his twelve best men. it was also used later for nobles who did not own land themselves and thus whent into service for another noble who could afford him, making him the 'knecht' talked about in the video) interesting stuff, etimology.
I was worried about clicking this video, but your clarification at the start of the video on his *actual* position, alleviated those concerns. Good job!
There was also quite a nice invention which transferred the shock of the lance hit to the saddle, it was a leather strip connected with the saddle with a small basket at its end. You put the back end of the lance inside it and after that the saddle was bearing most of the weight and additionally the shock of the lance hit.
Hussars even had lances with ball at the end, you put that ball in a leather strip attached to saddle - so that most of the force of impact was transferred to the saddle directly, not through your butt :) Notice the leather strip here: www.ekspedyt.org/wp-content/uploads/Husarz_pikinier.jpg BTW that lance is drilled empty inside to be lighter, that's why it's so long.
Roman armies, especially later Roman armies did make extensive use of different types of cavalry. Just read Maurice's Strategekon, most of the best troops by that point (where most call them Byzantines) were multipurpose cavalry with both lances and bows. While it started more as just a job for auxiliaries the growing importance over the whole imperial period left an ever larger proportion of the Roman army as a mounted force. Italy itself, particularly central and southern Italy, has limited pasturage which probably seriously curtailed the Roman's ability to form a large cavalry force of their own earlier on (plus as others have pointed out cavalry cost a lot of money). Other than that great video.
But (apart from pasturage) had there not perhaps been technological change which worked to the benefit of cavalry? I'm no expert, but my memory of classical legionary horsemen in illustrations was of a bloke sitting on a cloth, whereas at some point the saddle and the stirrup developed. The Goths were able to smash the late Romans/early Byzantine infantry in about 350 AD, using cavalry as heavy horse. This hadn't really happened centuries before, which implies that at some point a technological change had occurred. You mention the high cost of cavalry, but once cavalry had become somewhat more effective in a fight they might prove cheaper than an equivalent degree of force employed by infantry. The Romans had traditionally relied on professional and semi-professional infantry soldiers, which are expensive to upkeep. In contrast, effective cavalry might need only a bare acquaintance with arms and skill at riding a horse. Giving each horseman an estate and requiring him to come and fight in an emergency might be more cost effective than employing a standing regiment of infantry, and the cost to society of the useless mouths might be borne without much administrative cost from government.
At the Battle of Adrianople both armies had similar compositions with about one third of each consisting of cavalry. The result had a lot to do with the Romans arriving tired and much of their cavalry being chased off in the early phase. Alexander is often sighted as an early user of effective shock cavalry tactics, but we have plenty of other examples as well. The Roman general Crassus's army was annihilated by the Parthians at Carrahae thanks in large part to their use of cataphracts. This may have had more to do with the dissemination of technology (to include suitable breeds of horse) than the existence of what was needed. When it comes to cost parceling land off in a feudal system to gain knights means far less (if anything) can be gleamed for the state directly through taxation and rents. Infantry especially militias of infantry were always much cheaper and required something more of a social contract with the classes who would be expected to fight. Before the imperial period Roman armies tended to get mustered out once a campaign finished, so you did not need to spend copious amounts of money on keeping full time soldiers (loot comprised much of their pay). Standing armies in general are a luxury of rich and developed states (professional soldiers are expensive whether they are mounted or not) whereas most historical armies functioned more like sharks having to constantly move and be used just to hold together. That is actually why Alexander of Macedonian attacked when he did, instead of taking a couple years off to establish a family to ensure the continuation of his dynasty, his army was gathered and had become quite the instrument from years of campaigning but to keep it he had to use it.
I've also seen assertions that the staple crops grown in different locations influenced their horse usage, both because heavy plow-horses aren't as useful in a rice paddy as a wheat field, and because different grains produce different amounts of food per farmer growing them (since a big warhorse takes a lot of food). Not sure how accurate those assertions were, but it might be worth at least poking at possible connections between agriculture and horse usage.
Well, there's also motorcycles, jeeps and helicopters and MECHA. I like mecha, they're cool, they got lasers and shit. There's also bazookas, but then there's bazooka joe gum, which is tasty. I'm gonna watch saturday morning cartoons now (even though its monday), payce.
I think something that needs to be mentioned is that the evolution and use of cavalry did not follow a linear path. Sometimes it was not used, it then improved rapidly and was used before falling out of use again and then reappearing at a later period. It's also important to point out that it was not everywhere, but localised to distinct civilisations and then spreading to others at differing rates for different reasons. The rise of the knight as cavalryman was not the first rise of cavalry, it just rose again in that time period in that region, because local conditions allowed and favoured it. So the read thread here is that it's a rather complex history of events as any distinct feature in differing societies over a long period of time.
"The horse is something prepared for the day of battle . .." Proverbs 21:31 written in 762 b.C.E. "Harness the horses and mount, O you horsemen, and station yourselves with the helmet. Polish the lances. Clothe yourselves with coats of mail." Jeremiah 46:4, written in 580 b.C.E. "Bow and javelin they wield. They are cruel and will show no mercy. Their sound is like the roaring sea, as they ride on their horses. Like one man, they line up in battle formation against you." Jeremiah 50:42, written in 580 b.C.E. "Their horses are swifter than leopards, And they are fiercer than wolves in the night. Their warhorses gallop forward; Their horses come from far away. They swoop down like the eagle rushing to feed." Habakkuk 1:8, written in 628 b.C.E. "David captured 1,000 chariots, 7,000 horsemen, and 20,000 foot soldiers from him." 1 Chronicles 18:4, written in 460 b.C.E. "David captured 1,700 horsemen and 20,000 foot soldiers from him." 2 Samuel 8:4, written in 1040 b.C.E. Yeah, I'm thinking that "armored knights" are exactly as "new" an idea as many seem to think. And, perhaps, training horses for battle was just a . . . lost art, that needed to be relearned?
Yep! Many times during that ear, insurrection and civil war were perceived as the main threats. My "replies" keep 'failing to post' for some reason. Aggravating.
And your facts are? You know what lances meant short javelins at the time? Later we have word "lance" that means longer and thicker spear for cavalery.
+Shrekas 2 My facts are that I'm not an atheist. Your facts are that you are an atheist. Not going to argue the point with you, just going to ignore you from this point forward. Tell everyone you "won" the argument.
There is also a suggestion I've seen that the Roman word "equites" ("horseman" - "equus" meaning "horse"), representing the Roman mounted class, is the precursor for the European concept and nouns uses for "knight". In fact in the Latin world, the knight piece in chess was even called the "equite". A lot of the social pomp and prestige that we associate with French knights was in fact already present in the Roman tradition as well.
0:59 I dont think its quite accurate to say that those people misinterpreted what Lloyd said, since they didn't hear what he said in the first place, and just replied to the title of the video.
In the "Bellum Afrcanum" (the stroy of Caesar's battles in Africa) the author (an unknown Cesar's lieutenant) talks a lot about cavalry versus heavy infantry at that time. This because in that situation Caesar had a big army with almost no cavalry, while Pompeians could deploy a huge and tremendous cavalry, but not a comparable infantry. The author said clearly that using the cavalry for a direct shock attack would have ended eventually in its total destruction, with no major issues for the heavy infantry. On the other hand, the lack cavalry protection created enormous problems for the mobility to Caesar's army. If you like to investigate more on this topic, I really suggest you that book!
You didn't mention one important point - Alexander the Great also employed shock cavalry, the Companions, and used them effectively during his campaign.
10/10 for honest constructive clarifying commentary instead of "I have to disagree and you're wrong no matter what!" A great example of behavior for debate and discussion in general. Well deserved credit to you sir. Also after hearing your words, I wonder.... did stirups come about more so because of the increase in popularity of mounted knights? More of something tends to increase talk,thoughts, and developments on the topic.
The point about wealth is spurious -- various nomadic cultures, for example Scythians and Mongols, were both comparatively egalitarian and fought on horseback. Nomadic groups in general love mobility aides but do not tolerate vast wealth inequalities.
Mareșalul Alexandru Averescu. Sure, there's diversity, and some inequalities. But wealth inequality was not a prerequisite for mounted combat, and not all mounted combatants rode horses owned by the wealthy.
Mareșalul Alexandru Averescu. Yes, exactly. Shadiversity suggested in his video that you couldn't have cavalry without vast wealth inequalities, because how else could you shelter and feed the horses?
What Lindy failed to realize in his thinking is a] is the essential nuttiness of horse-people and b] that they had *already* been horse-people for hundreds if not thousands of years *before* they concocted the notion of being charioteers or cavalrymen in any serious notion of warfare. For such horse-people, cavalry, or chariots were simply a slight extension of what they had already been doing for generations.
I'll add an anecdote. Kip Monahan, an equestrian show/hunter/jumper lady competing at the top levels in North America in the 1980's and 1990's, a lady of my generation, recounting in a horse magazine interview her and her sister [if I'm remembering right] riding impromptu with their coats or jackets wrapped around the horse's neck using the jacket arms as reigns - *and nothing else.* When I'm talking about "crazy horse people" this is what I'm talking about that Lindy seems to have no real knowledge of, people for who using horses in warfare to swoop down upon their hapless victims was as normal as air. - for those ancient peoples there *was* no intellectual barrier! - only for their victims. On horseback was how they spent most of their daytime hours. It is only to **non*-horseback riding types that any of this seem strange at all.
I left pretty much the same comment on Lindybeige's video. I generally found that people making videos on military history have a poor grasp anything related to cavalry and nomadic cultures. The question that Lindy posed is the perfect example of this. He is just completely ignoring nomadic tribes and their history.
I think you have all misunderstood Lindys point. He was only talking about how unexpected the finished product is from the originally unlikely starting point. Hint: you have all talked about them "already" being horse-people. But he was talking about before that.
He was talking about riding the horse into battle. Which obviously didn't happen at the same time as the horse got domesticated (which he seems to imply). It was a natural evolution, that lasted probably for centuries and it doesn't seem unlikely when you view it in the context of the every day life of historical nomadic tribes.
***** I dont think he implied that at all. In fact to my memory he went out of his way to talk about the step-by-step nature of the development from domestication to shock cavalry. In fact that was the point of his video as far as i saw it.
Most of your videos are good. This one, however, is WONDERFUL! You hit every point, present your opinion, present evidence for that opinion and defend it. Very well done.
I believe the term you're looking for is 'posting'. The act of moving up and down on the saddle, which helps the rider keep in rhythm with the bounce/movement of the horse. This essential for horse archery, as sitting on the horse creates bounce, which hinders aim and accuracy. So you 'post' on the stirrups, which eliminates most, if not all, of the bounce effect. Stirrups can also assist in direction as well, as it helps keep your feet in relatively the same position. Consistent pressure to the side of the horse can be a signal (via training) to the horse that it needs to turn. A tap, or 'jab' with the foot may indicate an increase in speed, such as from a trot or canter, to a gallop, or a full charge. The training idea being that you don't use hands or verbal cues to move the horse, but leg and foot pressure. Bareback is not as easy as with a stirrup and saddle. In my view, stirrups are to horse riding as crossbows are to archery. (If that makes sense.)
G'day Shad, An interesting topic, but I suspect you're missing a big chunk of data. Consider, the Spear, both with & without Woomera or Atlatal, the Sling & Stone, and Bows with Arrows..., *none of them were First INVENTED for Killing other People...; all began as tools for hunting ANIMALS...,* and it was only later on, after people were so proficient in their usage that they'd overhunted their Territory that the (otherwise unemployable) Hunters began to deploy their Hunting-Tools as Weapons of War by using them against Humans. The EuroPeons had, and still have, a "Sport" which they call "Pig-Sticking", which consists of sitting astride a Horse while following Dogs tasked with locating & embaying some Wild Pigs and then skewering the Pigs with Spears or Lances from Horseback. When they ran short of Wild Porkers, presumably that's when the Proto-Cavalry turned to hunting "Long Pork" instead. All Warrior Rituals are Hunter's Rituals which have Bin-Adapted, and only Citibred people who've been raised on Butcher's Meat & John Wayne Fantasias could possibly entertain the notion that anybody ever commenced with Cavalry & War-Horses, & then worked their way back down to Pig-Sticking on Ponies. Nor did anybody ever begin with War Bows & then work backwards until they were archerising Deer & Wolves & Foxes & Ducks ; and even the Bible-based Yarn tells how David had spent 15 years slinging roughly 19,578,987 Stones at wayward Cattle, & Goats, & Sheep, before he ever took aim at Goliath..., is it not so ? As it happens, I spent 4 years attending Chevalier College, at Bowral..., wherein the *only* Horses were the ones on our Badges, painted on Signage, & printed on the School Stationery, "Fortes In Fides" being the School's motto (Strength in Truth)...; as against the 2 years at De La Salle College Armidale, where the motto was "Esto Vir" (Be a Man)... I still get sent Begging-Letters from the Horseless Chevalier College, every year ; the parasitic silly bastards are still waiting for me to become so rich, as a result of what they claim to have taught me, that I'll commence donating to augment the Tuition & Boarding Fees which they charged my parents in 1975-78... No wonder they have no Horses...! Have a good one, ;-p Ciao !
When I first saw Lloyd's video, I was under the impression that his main point was the origin of mounted fighters. I considered the whole discussion on shock cavalry to be a digression. On that point, I feel like everyone is missing the obvious. The main utility of mounted fighters is their mobility, and by that I don't mean strategic mobility (marching cavalry over long distances is not much faster than infantry) I mean tactical mobility. Having a few mounted troops is going to seriously threaten the flanks and rear of an opponent without cavalry, even if your riders are armed with nothing but a few javelins, or if they just intend to dismount and fight once they have outflanked you.
Lancea (origin of the word lance) was originally a Roman word for a short javelin, of Iberian origin. But as it became the Frankish word for spear it ironically came to mean the opposite as it was the Franks and Normans who developed Heavy cavalry.
ERE still had a well-known and well-established force of clibanarii, often also known as cataphracts. These soldiers used full-coverage maille and partial lamellar protection and had their horses clad in lamellar armour as well. They fought with heavy javelins, light lances, swords and maces, and were deployed as heavy cavalry. Just as an example, the Scholae Palatinate served from 4th century AD to 11th century AD, and retained their tactical role and largely also equipment for the whole time, serving as superheavy cavalry. Additionally India produced armoured cavalry from the antiquity until well into the British colonialization, and China wielded considerable numbers of heavy cavalry during the Han and Song dynasties. Furthermore much of the Islamic world used ghulams before the western knight was really emerged. It is thus pretty hard to argue that the Franks invented heavy cavalry in a world where it was unheard of, or even forgotten. Nobody just had the money to employ them in the west before the Franks became the dominant faction.
Shad has learned a lot, and I have loved this learning procedure. Him learning new things over time and then teaching US what's correct, we all get to learn thanks to this magnificent man!
This is my first time to the channel, but I love these videos. They just fit with my personal passions, I love the medieval period, castles, swords, etc. Thanks for the videos! :D
Perhaps Shad took back his statement a bit too early. If the stirrup made things easier than it might well have been important in the emergence of knights. If you can become a knight with a bit of training and stirrups you are more likely to become a knight than if you don't have stirrups and it takes a lifetime of dedication to do the same thing.
I agree, as a horse rider myself. Yeah you can ride without stirrups and often they are taken away as you're training so you can learn balance, it's actually harder if you are heavier. Since knights wore heavy metal armor, it adds the weight and it's harder to stay balanced. Also, stirrups help the horse as well! If you can get yourself off his back, he can take longer strides and run faster, because pushing yourself up and forward with the aid of stirrups, you're freeing up his spine for freedom of movement. Uncomfortable horses don't preform well, stirrups help the rider help the horse basically.
Yep. Also as a horserider, stirrups are great for many things that would be useful in combat. Any leaning sideways is made a lot safer. So yeah i think the increased use of the stirrup was a big thing, but not the cause in all of this.
Thing is, "knights" already existed long before any kind of modern stirrups, in the time of ancient Rome (arguably even earlier). And while in the broad sense knights could be any horse rider, the "medieval knight" would usually be a highly trained professional either way. The idea that the knight emerged in the middle ages may simply be because Rome didn't focus on it, and tended to rely on local mercenaries for that role, which I assume was mostly light cavalry. Perhaps simply because heavy cavalry is not only expensive, but nowhere near as versatile as light cavalry, and little suited for the fights the romans tended to face. Which may have largely continued into the dark ages, until Europe started becoming prosperous enough for new empire to emerge, which then created an arms race of that time's superweapon, the knight. One scenario that may be worth considering about stirrups is that they were rather a catalyst, making horse riding far more accessible, and thus promoting the horse again, and that this interest in turn fueled the re-emergence of the knight. Like any arms race: the only reason you start investing so much in that army, is that your damn neighbor does it... and he does it, because you do.
+sorsocksfake i'm just saying we shouldn't dismiss the stirrups as unimportant. Imagine being grabbed from the front and pushed. Thats just one example where a four-pommeled saddle just won't do it. It's not just a question of if it's possible or not, but also of safety. Also, maybe they have invented the stirrups but haven't really realized it's potential because they were used to a way of riding. Nowadays we alreadu learn how to mount with them, it's the norm.
I'm hardly experienced or researched in this field of history, but from what I know about history I think it developed from scouting to skirmishing/raiding. War and soldiering wasnt a full time profession at those times, wars took time off to plant crops and harvest before being able to conscript men, and when the war was over they went back to the farms and trades. But a lot of soldiers post war probably turned to banditry and that's where horse in combat took off. Petty feuds, raiding neighboring villages or countries. They probably werent used against enemy soldiers but against defenseless peasants in hit and run attacks. This would give the bandit cavalry experience and opportunity to train their steeds. But eventually war would come again and they'd reenlist and bring their new skills with them. Or perhaps similar how viking raiders were feared enough that nobles would hire them as body guards, local lords might say to the bandits plaguing them 'hey, i will give you rewards if you fight for me' or the bandits would establish themselves as local warlords themselves Hence the professional army cavalry was born. In fact this probably started to culminate in the Dark Ages about the time when Charles Martel was establishing feudalism and raising a professional full-time army. He trained up heavy horsemen very quickly, it's plausible that local raiders and mercenary bands had previous experience that Charles exploited.
It seems to have taken off in line with the biblical prophecies about the successions of empires. Each succeeding tactic seems to have been driven by the logistics and method of passing governmental control on to the next generation.
Tactics evolved in a logical progression according to military necessity to counter or overcome a previous tactic. That military systems exist to impose and maintain political control, to protect rulers both from foreign rivals and from the rest of the population, is a given. There are a few exceptions, where types of soldier and combinations of weapon and armour or lack thereof resulted from lack of resources to equip in the previously dominant heavier style, like slingers, Welsh longbowmen, and Hungarian and Russian light raiding cavalry, where it was a matter of making the best of what was available, and discovering an advantage in specializing in something which had been neglected, and having a lot of what the armies of richer peoples have little of.
If you look at a Roman or Gallic saddle, there were 4 horns with which to steady yourself. As long as you knew where to put your legs, it wasn't a horrible system and could be used for cavalry. It's sort of like asking how they steered ships before center-line rudders. They used a different system (quarter rudders) that might seem backwards, but actually was well thought out and worked surprisingly well.
Marcus Gonzalez This is from an article by Richard Alverez: (www.classicalfencing.com/articles/shock.php) "The tendency then, is for some researchers to see the saddle as being necessary for the delivery of the blow with the couched lance. Without the saddle, they believe, the couched lance charge is impossible. To test this, I removed the saddle, and made several repeated passes at the quintain. By utilizing a "Clenched Seat" position, I was able to deliver sufficient force to topple the target and ride on, safe and sound. The impact did cause my body to "slide back" somewhat on the horse, but by attenuating the impact with my own muscles, I was able to manage the impact well. I have even performed a joust without a saddle, when a girth broke and it was quicker to remove rather than replace the saddle."
www.classicalfencing.com/articles/shock.php Simply put, very few folks looking at cavalry have ridden a horse. Worse, they don't talk to people with extensive experience with horses. You can make them charge into a brick wall with enough training and trust, or a block of infantry. You can jump, gallop and joust riding bareback, it just takes a lifetime of experience. Ancient horse riders had that lifetime of experience with practical training gained from hunting on horseback and competitions. War horses were very expensive to breed, train and maintain. You wouldn't form a squadron of heavy cavalry unless you were convinced that they were effective in battle. You wouldn't train your whole life using a lance if it wasn't a good way to kill and stay alive doing it.
My own feeling of stirrup, from very limited experience and mostly from others with experience is that while everything is possible without it, it allows to extend the possibilities - lean further from the saddle, stand up for more stable aim, hit harder with the spear and regain balance faster. So it facilitates everything in the same way a well designed saddle would, add possibilies without the need to become superhuman. On the other hand, I dont see any real hindrance to try to couch a spear riding bareback, but the danger of falling vs ability to cause damage would be magnitudes smaller than doing so in proper high cantled saddle with stirrups. One more interesting thing to see would be the importance of saddle strapping design, there isnt much to this topic, nevertheless, especially with hard lances designed to penetrate, strapping saddle tightly through horses chest and croupe might make the big difference with the kind of forces a saddle has to endure without getting dislodged.
Honestly, his argument was kind of pointless. Before people learned to ride horses, cavalry was a stupid idea. Before people learned to make rockets, astronauts were a stupid idea. Before people learned about aerodynamics, flight was a stupid idea. Of course before the pivotal technologies or methods are invented the consequence seems ridiculous. It's called innovation.
LMcAwesome I know, but his argument and this video is still dumb. If someone had a channel about tea and they made a video saying that it was very hard to make tea without tea I'd think it was dumb.
Mareșalul Alexandru Averescu. Exactly. I mean, there is an argument to say that heavy cavalry was made vastly more effective following the advent of the stirrup and saddle but it definitely predates the existence of both. But my problem with this video's topic is a logical one, not a historical one.
Chinese used horses for battles too. First for chariots, you had one crossbowman, one warrior with hellberd and the man, who drives this thing. Later on cavalry proved to be even more usefull (their steppe neighbors showed them). It was like 300 years bc. Chariots even more earlier. Chise warriors were equiped with bronze weapon, so yeah, that was long time ago. At first you can think it is stupid idea, but people all over the world proved exact the opposite.
At first: thank you both, Shad and Lloyd for the videos, they get verry interesting poinst of cavalry! In german "stirrup" means "Steigbügel". I would translate it as a "climbing up - bow (or -shackle) and it means exactly what it is: a mounting aid. I ride horses for 15 to 20 years on medieval knight shows and museeums and now I try to find out more about ancient cavalry. I am riding without a saddle, with a saddle (an american millitary saddle) and of cause saddles with stirrups. Once I had the Chance to ride a rebuild roman saddle with four pommels. I know that you can do mostly everything without saddles, the saddle is the most important thing to develope havy cavalry and to have the lance under your armpit, and stirrups make many things easyer.But the main thing I think is that: against wich military forces cavalry fought most? Answer: against other cavalry! And ther it makes a difference, if you sitting on a larger horse than your opponent, and to get on a large horse, you need a mounting aid like stirrups. Against infantry, it makes no difference if you sit higher. So the Invention of stirrups made it possible to breed larger horses and use them in combat against other cavalry.
Surprised by the lack of mention of Phillip II and his Companions, which were the first shock cavalry. However, the advent of the saddle and cross-breed horses (both of which were used by Phillip II and Alexander) were mentioned. Anyhow, the stirrup came much later and expanded the roles that cavalry could play. Before the stirrup, there were pretty much two types of cavalry: heavily armored and armed with a lance or lightly armored and armed with a bow or sword. The stirrup allowed armored cavalrymen to use weapons that utilized their weight, and it was only then that you saw people like the Byzantines utilized armored lancers combined with armored bowmen.
Persian cataphracts, horse, camel, ELEFANT!!! The origins of knights started when the Romans were defined by a small force of Persian cataphracts (battle of carrhea for example) that they realized the utility of an armored shock cavalry which led to the development of there own version of the armored cavalry leading to knights (from a military perspective ).
Thanks, puts Lloyd's video into more reasonable perspective :). And as your annotation said, yes, cataphracts (though that was Parthia, not so much Rome, and some similar stuff by the Macedonians) were pretty much knights before Rome even had emperors :P. The primary misconception, it seems to me, is some idea that shock cavalry would go in fast and then just stand there and slaughter everything around them... when the point of using a horse is speed and momentum: mobility, impact, and fast retreat if necessary... even with the actual knights, if they got cocky against a serious army and overextended, that often didn't end well. I reckon that the popularity of the spear/polearm (not counting the sarissa, which is a rather different beast) is much a testament to the power of cavalry, that is, how much armies needed to have some kind of counter against it.
Shock cavalry was employed back in the Ancient Times. Philipp II reformed army of Macedon, creating phalang backnbone, light skirmishers and shock cavalry. Officially the first massive use of shock cavalry as a military force. About 350 BC (or maybe, BCE for Atheist Purists)
"I'm far more interested in knowing what is true than in being right". Sir, you just won a subscriber. If only more people would be adept to this mindset...
Some light cavalrly of South Eastern origin, like Hungarian and Polish, used very small saddles and standing in stirrups was main way to travel and fight. They sat down only to rest. This way they could use legs as damper/shock absorber making their weight less tiring for the horse and thanks to this traveling longer distances much faster. This was especially important in the case of cavarly only armies.
Nice video, but I want to add, that the concept of shock cavalry is even older, I made a video about this aswell quiet awhile ago. The Greek and Macedonians had also already shock cavalry, Phillip II. (the father of Alexander the Great) developed his battle tactics around his shock cavaly, called Companion cavalry. This was around the 4th century BC. Also important to note: the cataphract was in Persia in use even before Alexander arrived with his army.
Very good points. I also really love experimental archeaology backed up by finds in diggings. One question would be is it known if all shock cavalry at the height of their use in high medieval times were using some type of stirrup? Is there different kind of stirrups? Did it make them more effective in combat and other use than without it? For me it seems when I can perform a task easier with some tool, than having that tool will free me up to concentrate on other things thus giving me more options.
One thing that I can say is also extremely important is properly made boots. Main reason being that if fell or knocked from the saddle you can get dragged for a good way by your foot. I've actually seen this happen before funny but very dangerous.
Another small thing that was very useful for shock cavarly was "lance stirrup". It was simple leather strap with small cup in the end, attached to the saddle in front of right leg stirrup. While moving on the battlefield hussar could place lance there and easly keep it in vertical position, but when charging they would flip this leather strap behind their back, effectively transferring the force from the lance to the saddle and horse, all the hussars did was directing the lance. Thanks to this technique we have multipple accounts of hussars nailing five people on his lance and one witnessed account of hussar killing six infantryman at once with a lance.
Nice take. From my experience as a rider i have got to say the stirrup is not used to raise your self out of the sattle. That is actually a sign of bad horsemanship and my riding teacher would regularly have me do exerciceses were i would have to raise my self out of a sattle that did not have stirrups, just using my leg muscles and knees. I am not quite sure how this translates into english but i will try. If you have a propper Seat on your horse you wont need stirrups to raise your self out of the sattle. Of course i have to admit that this is a modern approach to riding and it might have been diffferent in days past.
I used to have horses, and ride them. One thing neither you nor lindy really covered is the advantage of being ale to twist around more with stirrups than without them. I rode bare back and with saddles, and with a saddle and stirrups, you can stand up and look behind you much easier than bare back, or just twisting in the saddle. Lances and spears were not the only weapons used from horse back, swords, flails and pretty much every other one handed weapons were used as well, and the extra arc of attack from being able to stand, and the weight shifting from the standing position would make using those weapons much more effective. Lindy did cover some of this with his demonstrating while standing limited arcs of attack, but the stirrups would have made that limitation slightly less, and therefore much preferred for combat. Also, a saddle is not required for stirrups, people have used basically ropes (or straps) with loops on each end as stirrups while riding bareback, with the rope over the horses back to help stabilize bareback riding. It does help, I have done that before. It won't help if you are falling sideways, but it does help with lowering you center of gravity, so does help when the horse is trotting especially.
To overcome projectile weapons like slings and bows it was necessary to either develop a bow with much longer range or find a way to get your archers closer to the enemy without losing all of them in the process.Dueling archers with their lack of armor and tight formations would be quite costly. Placing archers in wagons or chariots and on horseback allowed you to increase their range with as little risk to the archers as possible. Run forward, fire, and fall back, while offering a fast moving and hard to hit target was the idea. Heavy Cavalry armed with spears and lances were the tanks of their day and allowed you to break up the enemy front and disperse their people making it possible for your ground troops to close with and engage the enemy. Until the invention of the Pike. which provided a mobile defense against cavalry, it took fixed emplacements of protective posts and stakes to keep them at bay. Fixed emplacements which became useless if the enemy would not attack them but withdrew to draw you into the open. Necessity is the mother of invention. Changes to saddles and tack were driven by the need to improve the usefulness of the horse and were not the building block of the basic idea. The need to mount a taller horse and to stand while mounted drove the stirrup's invention and not the other way round.
May I ask if the position of the stirrups influence their influence on how the forces are dealt with upon impact with the lance? Most medieval illustrations show long stirrups, not shorter ones like the ones we use nowadays. Thanks and you both keep up the good job!
In regards to using the outside leg to pull you back up onto the horse. The way Lindybeige describe the use of the saddle is pretty much the same way you use your legs with the fuel tank on a motorcycle. You can slide from one side to the other easily and confidently.
Although I believe this has been mentioned before (at the very least by @Lindybeige), there are interesting analogies and cases to be found concerning horse-riding in the New World (including Latin America). For one, the natives of the Great Plains region were very quick in their uptake of horseback riding and warfare. Now, of course, one could argue that they were able to observe the way the Spanish used their horses and steal trained horses right from the Spanish stables, but it seems more likely that the first animals they encountered had broken free by themselves. These horses had become wild again, and were thus not ready to use. Native Americans therefore had to develop their own riding techniques, moreover frequently without the aid of saddles and stirrups as these materials were hard to come by or create. That having been said, examples of native saddles do exist (see the catalogue "Hau Kola!", for example), which have their own unique construction and particularities... Similarly, 19th-century stirrups from Colombia sometimes (don't know the exact spatial and temporal breadth, or frequency of occurrence) had closed metal-capped noses. Would this have had any use to Medieval shock cavalrism? Presumably this difference in design does affect function, though... Would this be for balance, increased ease of mounting the horse, protection of the foot while riding through crowds (kicking peasants, may be), or simply be a status symbol?
What would answer this question is actually being able to see what the knights were up against and how they fought but sadly we can't do that. But the simplest explanation as to why shock cavalry was dominant is that after the collapse of Rome there were no professional armies and the nobility did most of the fighting. It is a reflection of how societies were structured back then. Without professional soldiers, provided with arms and armor by the state, who were capable of standing in formation and acting as a cohesive unit, any troops on foot were likely highly vulnerable to a cavalry charge. A single, well executed charge could route entire armies. So it made sense to stick to shock cavalry and maximize its potential. The way people fought at that time was largely determined by the culture and social structure. The Longbow became part of English culture, the Pike was part of swiss culture, the nomadic peoples had horse archery because they grew up on horseback and all of that was nullified by the rise of states, professional armies, gunpowder and artillery. After that everyone started fighting in more or less a similar fashion
Which was more important I can't say, but some points: Of course you could have stirrups without a saddle, just strap them on using some kind of harness. Not very logical perhaps, but possible. More important, not having stirrups is extremely limiting to both what kind of maneuvers you can perform on horseback and to your balance. Bracing comes up in the video; most of the bracing you do on horseback is done by squeezing your legs together. Having stirrups makes this much more effective, both since it keeps your legs bent, allowing for better power utilization, and since it gives another point of contact for your legs- Try sitting in a riding position on anything with your legs dangling and try to squeeze them together effectively: almost impossible. For balance they are invaluable, even rather advanced riders find it difficult to maneuver at a gallop without them. More so if you only have one hand available to control the reins and no possibility to grab the saddle or horse's mane. Add to this performing advanced maneuvers, controlling the horse in an extremely stressful situation and using a weapon effectively.. if someone suggested it to me I'd say impossible. I don't of course have combat training on horseback, but I do have 30 years of experience, mainly in eventing and cross country riding.
Military harness (unlike the so-called western harness most North American horsemen use) had the stirrups slung very low so that the rider's knees were almost straight, probably so that his center of gravity would be as low as possible. Also, I think the raised, stiff "back part" of the saddle is called the cantle.
well from my (very limited) experience of horse riding I can say that stirrups really are very useful, especially if you are going to be leaning around in the saddle. It can be quite easy to lose your balance on a horse, and if your are leaning around and standing up it can be quite difficult, and stirrups are indeed helpful. Moreover to be standing up without stirrups you need to REALLY grip with your thighs, and doing that for even a short time really starts to hurt, I could imagine over the course of a battle it would really start to decrease the effectiveness of your cavalry.
Actually, I would argue that it is not just the development of the stirrup and the saddle that lead to the development of the Knight, but rather the development of an effective way of implementing those two things. That is, the couched lance. Couching the lance, a new development required specialized training (and equipment required, being the mail shirt, lance, and large horse with saddle and stirrup) which separated the heavy cavalryman, or the 'Knight' or "miles" in the Latin, from the normal mounted solider or dismounted soldier. To quote Maurice Keen's (an eminent historian on the subject, arguably the basis for any modern study of the topic), Chivalry, "New tactics and improved technology (being the stirrup/saddle and the couched lance) at each step strengthened the arostpcractoc bias of recruitment into the knighthood, sharpened in its ranks the awareness of a common bond, called chivalry, uninting all who could aspire to ride to wars and tournaments. (Keen, Maurice, Chivalry; 1984, Yale University Press, pg. 27)
as a beginer in horse riding with weapons the most important thing is to wrork with your leg muscles they are actualy the most important thing in horse riding. the way you impact the horse with them can anable you to not use the reins. If you want to gain a bigger understanging of what I'm saying just check out a style of riding called DŻYGITÓWKA it's a style used for quick stikes and escaping.
well, I've never tried to ride a horse in armor before, but I have done quite a bit of riding without stirrups and even without a saddle, and it is pretty difficult to stay on a horse in full gallop without stirrups, especially if you are doing quick turns. It's mostly a question of balance, because at high speeds it becomes much harder to correct being off balance which is extremely difficult without stirrups in the first place. Add in the extra weight of armor that would pull you off-balance even quicker and I imagine it would be quite difficult to stay on.
The main purpose of cavalry was reconnaissance, finding the enemy and, screening, keep his from finding your army. European cavalry had heavy cavalry, cuirassiers, who acted as a shock factor, like knights in pitched battles.
+Shadiversity What Lloyd was talking about with the pommeled saddle was the centre of balance when over reaching. If you are overbalanced to that extent, you have noting to push against to push yourself to vertical, and if you attempted to force yourself upyou will inevitably strike the horses flank causing a further turn To give a context example You are over balanced to the left, if you use the leg under strain you will kick the horse in the left flank you will make the horse turn right If you use your right leg to drag yourself upright you may kick the horse in the right flank, and pull the reigns to help you up and the horse will now turn left, helping your left leaning balance
I see comments mentionning cataphracts, but in the latin text of Vegetius, you can see "catafractis/as/es" used just to mean armored/reinforced/clad in iron, or armor, in a very generic way, often refering to infantry: www.thelatinlibrary.com/vegetius.html The armored horsemen were called Equites catafractarii, were catafractarii just means armoured (but infantry second line of the battle order, Principes, could also be qualified as catafractarii, as well as third line Triarii, who were very heavily armored and armed), and equites means horsemen. On the other hand, there was a real "knightly" class in Ancient Rome, and those were the Equites, members of the Ordo Equester: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equites
What I meant is that the important part is not the armor, but the horseman and his horse, as the subject is cavalry. There also was armored infantry, like the triarii (reserve infantry of the Roman army). Sure, being able to afford an armor is a sign of wealth, but nobility of either the medieval knight or the roman eques doesn't lie in his armor, but in his horse. Now maybe the nobility of the persian cataphracts lied in their armor and not their horse, but this would have to be proven to me. Cavalry and a knightly class can exist even without armor, that's what I mean. The armor is just optional and bonus.
I've just recently discovered your channel through one of your fantasy related topics and I must say thank you. while I am passionate about medieval.. well... EVERYTHING!! I didn't know much about it and your channel has taught me a lot. now to my actual comment: the emergence of shock cavalry in the medieval period was almost directly preceded by the invention of the stirrup but Was not directly responsible for shock cavalry becoming a valuable asset to a medieval army. this is the argument I've extrapolated from this video. now my question: did the stirrup enable alternate saddle designs that became far more effective than other designs and were therefore adapted by the "Chevalièr"? and so did stirrups in fact through combination with the new saddle designs prompt the dawn of chivalry.
So a couple of questions before I launch into a rant. What exactly is shock cavalry? What is non-shock cavalry? If you were an ancient or medieval military commander, would you see a difference between the two? I mean if your light cavalry which is guarding your wings manages to flank the enemy formation and charge them from behind.....are they now suddenly "shock cavalry"? Pretty shocking to the army being flanked. My point is, I don't think there is a real difference between the two to an ancient or medieval military commander. There is just "cavalry". Second, why do we assume that cavalry is the superior military unit? The Romans and Greeks surely used cavalry, but a well trained infantry corps really won the battle in their style of combat. For the Greeks and Romans, cavalry are mostly support units. They guard the wings of the formation, preventing a flanking maneuver. In fact, cavalry can be a bit of a problem. Once turned loose by a commander, the cavalry is somewhat uncontrollable...sometimes smashing into friendly formations. So why do we assume that the cavalry was so important in the middle ages? Is it just because Medieval authors write more about knights than infantry soldiers? By that logic, peasants weren't important to medieval society because medieval authors almost never write about them. However the truth is, a society's food producers are a society's most important people. If you don't believe me, try and eat your computer next time you get hungry. My point is, do we really have good reason to assume the medieval knight was the most important person on the battlefield? I don't think it was shock cavalry which allowed for the sacking of Jerusalem in 1099. So on to my rant:I don't think the rise of cavalry in the middle ages....if it was even actually real, had anything to do with success on the battlefield or technology. It was mostly economic. Lets look at Roman warfare. It is mostly infantry based. Cavalry units are mostly support units and often filled by auxiliary soldiers from other parts of the empire. In fact, if you look at Roman (and Greek) art, civilized people don't wear pants. Barbarians wear pants. Pants are probably popularized by horse riding cultures. True Roman warriors don't wear pants. Barbarian cavalry soldiers do. Romans and Greeks were among the most technologically advanced peoples in Europe until the renaissance...and maybe until the industrial revolution. I doubt very much that they couldn't come up with a way to use cavalry effectively in combat. I'm not even entirely sure you can argue that they weren't exposed to peoples using the stirrup. They just didn't really need to utilize cavalry. The hoplite phalanx and the legions were doing fine. But your cavalry corps are wealthy people who can not only afford a horse, but also afford being away from their farms for long periods of time. Infantry is a little bit worse off. They cant afford horses and typically can only conduct seasonal warfare. Romans thwart this problem because the empire can afford a professional army. I think we underestimate the value of having a permanent and professional army in a world when most armies exist only between March and September-ish. So in late antiquity and the middle ages, we have a fracturing of the Roman Empire. Europe becomes poorer. The Roman Army becomes more based off of mercenaries and auxiliary units. In the Middle Ages you completely lack a professional army. A local warlord simply cannot afford a permeant army and as a result the infantry corps melts away. Fewer and fewer people can pull themselves away from food production and into fighting. The rich people, that is to say the cavalry, can always fight. They can always afford to leave their land and go on an extended campaign. So I would argue that the medieval knight didn't gain importance because of stirrups or even because he was a superior military unity (I'm looking at you Crecy and Agincourt). But simply put, you no longer could afford a permanent professional infantry corps. The knight, somewhat ironically, is a product of general economic decline is a society. So instead, kights just went to battle with their fellow rich buddies (other knights) supported by a small batch of infantry and archers. And this is assuming the cavalry were in fact the most important people on the medieval battlefield. I suspect the knights were just the most popular unit. I think it is possible that the real winners of the medieval battlefield were the infantry, just that they weren't really written about. Infantry wins wars.
A horse charging at you is extremely intimidating. This fits into Col. Dave Grossmans "Bigger Bang Theory", in that horses charging at you make a lot of noise, flying mud & the fact that this animal is going to squash you if it runs over you. A heavy, war horse would takes around 3 years to train. Which as you say is a huge investment.
You know, I watched Lind's video from start to finish and I hadn't picked up that nuance mentioned in your disclaimer because, even later on in his video, the discussion of how it was used didn't seem terribly practical.
Shock cavalry were quite common before knights. For example, Alexander at the head of his companions over a thousand years before knights. They used their lance (xyston) two handed, but had no stirrups and lacked much in the way of saddles either. This was common throughout the early Hellenistic period. Parthian cataphracts and Sarmatians were also shock cavalry in a similar style. In the east, the Xiongnu, Xianbei and the Northern Dynasties and subsequent dynasties in China proper used shock cavalry in the early 1st millennium AD. It's also thought the Goths (Ostrogoths) and Vandals were shock cavalry - though whether they "Saramiticized" (and hence used a two handed thrust with a lance) or an overhead thrust with a spear is uncertain.
Your initial oppinon about the stirrups was actualy right. ;) Their are a few things missing in almost all of the modern research and that is the skills of the modern riders that are being studied. When researchers sturdy the jousting of today they are generally not seeing the caliber of rider that would accurately represent the medieval knight. The idea that the body rocks back and the feet go out in front when jousting or striking with a lance is absolutely incorrect. This only happens when the jousting is done poorly. When done correctly the stirrup is an essential part of maintaining the riders seat as well as an essential part of the signaling of the horse. A good place too see this is on the UA-cam channel of Arne Koets. You will see a good representation of historically accurate riding and jousting. You will also see a historically accurate representation of melee combat. In both the stirrup is essential as it allows the rider far more flexibility in the shifting of his balance and in sudden changes of direction as often happens in both melee combat and in combat with a lance. If you speak to riders such as Arne who are as skilled as the knights of old, they will tell you that the stirrup is not just important but essential. BTW, why should you listen to my opinion? ;) Well I have not only jousted a LOT but if you happen to see a video of Arne Koets sword fright a cowboy on a palomino horse, that cowboy is me. ;)
I think the idea of the stirrup being the crux of mounted cavalry development was an idea James Burke proposed in either his book "The day the Universe Changed" or "Connections" of which there is a bbc show a lot of people of a certain age saw.
It's going to be pretty funny if in another 7 months we get a video titled "The TRUTH about shock cavarly (the right truth this time)". This is what I love about history - so much is up to debate and new evidence pops up all the time, making you question and rethink everything. Way easier to keep discussions going than subjects where pretty much everything's set in stone.
Great vid. But I think this applies to Europe in the middle ages specifically? Cataphracts, Macedonian companions, and Punic cavalry all were shock cavalry used successfully in battle were they not?
Friend of mine have put allow of research into fighting on horseback, she is presently work thought the work of Pluvinel, and the main reason for strips she can find is they prevent you lower legs from falling asleep on long rides.
I think the key thing you said in the video was that stirrups make riding easier. So if they make riding easier than means you don't have to spend as long training, so you can do other things. That's how shock cavalry go from a very small elite of either a Guards Corps or professional soldiery to knights, who are really semi-professional part-timers. Also, if stirrups make it easier to ride and fight that means you can start learning later in life and even people who are less naturally adept can become highly competent. Hence the feudal Knight develops in parallel to the spread of the stirrup. By that point though "shock cavalry" with very similar applications had been around for a thousand years, but without stirrups or the couched lance.
The drungarious in late Roman and Byzantine light cavalry were essential for skirmishing and is likely based on Gallic auxila who used the horned saddle.
Very good video as always. Only thing is many civilizations besides the Romans, and Celts made excellent use of shock cavalry. The Persians had used it to some extent to build their empire (though many of them were probably horse archers they had cataphracts too.), Alexander the Great had elite cavalry known as Companion Cavalry, and the Carthaginians used it against the Roman legions during the Punic wars, and did have some success (They are more well known for their elephants . Usually they would be used to flank the enemy, or kill retreating soldiers though, not to steamroll through them like Medieval Knights and Polish Winged Hussars. The reason for this was that infantry was packed more closely together in tight formations, some units carried pikes, and obviously armor was not anywhere near as advanced meaning a frontal charge would have been suicidal. A very good example of successful use of cavalry is the Battle of Cannae. Hannibal deployed his infantry in an arch formation and because his center appeared weak, the Romans took the bait and attacked the center. Eventually the formation turned into a U shape as the Romans pushed through the center, and the Romans started to get flanked. The Romans now could not go to the left, or the right, so as they started to get slaughtered, they tried to retreat backwards. Hannibal's cavalry killed any Romans who tried to retreat by attacking the Romans flank, and it became a killing field. Sure shock cavalry was not as powerful in this day, but when used correctly as we can see here, it can be extremely effective.
Byzantine Cataphracts only adopted the stirrup in the 7th century from the Avars. The Chinese were using them earlier than that. Yet the Byzantines were known as having good calvary even before the stirrup. The changes in calvary use is likely due mostly to advancing military strategy, horses and differing horse training methods.
As a further elaboration of the Romans' use of the Cataphract, which they actually called the Clibanarii, was basically calvary tactics, ahem, stolen from the Parthians and the Persians (who actually called them Cataphractoi, emulating the Sassanid Greek terminology), who had used them as early as 80 BCE against Marcus Licinius Crassus at Carrhae. I suspect that the Cataphractoi and subsequently, the Clibanarii were the model used for the Norman knights, who learned it from the Franks, who learned it from the conquered Romans in Gallia. The Norman model had ultimately influenced the development of the knights and became relatively standard for the rest of Europe.
I'm surprised so few people are talking about Philip's Companions (not Alexander's as they were formed and their general cavalry doctrine was developed by Philip). I've even seen them being called the first shock cavalry in history and they didn't have stirrups or saddles, yet were the deciding factor in most of Alexander's victories.
I like this video much better that the one from Lindybeige. You make it clear that you talk about shock (heavy) cavalry and not cavalry in general. As someone who rides a horse I agree pretty much with all your findings. Btw. mounted archers are also part of cavalry as well as more modern dragoons, carabiniers or similar units. Bow or firearm gives you even better range advantage than lance ;)
Also note that successful shock cavalry predates the stirrup by a significant period - Alexander's Companion cavalry which broke the Persian line at Gaugamela did not use stirrups; neither did the various Iranian cataphracts. In fact, cavalry shock tactics seem to decline once the stirrup comes into existence, if only because by this point competent spear/halberd/pike infantry formations had become more prevalent.
In your place i would like to read about early nomadic warfare (as it certainly predates others), and completely ruled the battlefield when employed properly. Also in their case, the horses weren't really a big additional investment, as they were quiet common (which is easy for nomads, who have lot of place to graze their animals, and need some aid to move around faster - not to mention that horsemeat is tasty, and its milk can be made into alcoholic beverage - while for aggricultural civilisations, large herbivores can be a problems, as they can eat/trample...etc. the crops, you work hard to raise)
I have a question regarding lances on horseback. Shock cavalry is often depicted as a lance unit charging in and delivering tremendous piercing attacks with their lances. My question is, did the knights recover their lances after a successful hit, or did the lance break and was essentially a "one hit usage"? could someone even retrieve a lance from an opponent if it's stuck in the persons body? I find it interesting because the shock cavalry in video games, such as total war series, have the ability to charge in and out repeatably without their lances braking.
Guinevere: "Arthur, come to bed."
Arthur: "Not yet. I need a name for my new cavalrymen."
Guinevere: "K night."
Arthur: "Guin, you're a genius."
Made my day!
the world needs to see this
Guinevere: "Arthur, come to bed."
Arthur: "Not yet. I need a name for my new doge."
Guinevere: "K 9."
Arthur: "Guin, you're a genius."
+RGA1944 but.... *MOON MOON*
+Dildo Faggins its quite old, actually
Fine video! I don't think I said that the four-pommelled saddle was equal in effectiveness to the stirrup. It seems, though, that they were both fit enough for purpose. It could be that the Celtic saddle was actually a bit better. Yes, the stirrup does nothing to counter the recoil from a lance hit, and yet many people say that this was its revolutionary function, which I always found odd. Horse archers existed before stirrups. The American Indians developed cavalry very quickly, but they had the massive advantages of being given horses that had been bred for 3.5 millennia to be suitable for cavalry, and had the example of European cavalry to follow.
Thank you Lloyd, it's wonderful to see you here. You're absolutely correct, for all I know the Celtic saddle could be better. I've also added a notation to the video to represent what you said more accurately. That's a great point you make about the American Indians, not many saddles or stirrups there at all.
Thanks for all the work you do and all the best in the future mate!
Could the stirrup be more useful for combat after a knight used his lance?
Lances often were not in a state to be used again after the first hit. So knights probably spent more time fighting with a sword or mace.
I do think stirrup did contribute to the development of shock/heavy cavalry. You both hinted this in your videos. It was invaluable when you were able to wear heavier armour and still be able to efficiently mount or dismount when needed without the aid of other guy or some kind of stool (not talking about full plate knights though). Also, I agree with you about keeping your balance when using stirrups. Maybe it has something to do with what muscles you use when you try to pull yourself in as opposed to pushing up. Better balance gives you the option to get heavier with armour. How did Iranians and Parthians manage to field and use effectively their heavy armoured cavalry so much time before stirrups came out and what kind of saddle they used? I am no historian so I don't know but I am genuinely curious. Did they manage to develop something equivalent to Celtic saddle so much time before Romans encountered Celts? Or did they use a saddle horn to keep their balance?
But what is important for shock cavalry?
I think it is a big and strong horse and heavy armor.
The rider needs more protection because he is going straight towards the enemy now and not just passing by in a secure distance. So we put as much protective gear on him as possible.
The bigger horse can carry more weight what means more armor for the rider. More weight means also momentum to the hit of the cavalry attacke. Maybe we even can put on some horse armor.
Now we have a bigger horse and a rider covered in armor. I can't jump on a big horse with about 20 kg of Armor on me, like in the good old days. So there we first need a stirrup.
Also it would be very hard to lean out and hold my self to the horns of the saddle because my abs have to support my upper body with that 20kg extra weight of armor from the left horn to the right side of the wider back of that bigger horse. Thanks god i have that stirrups so i can naturally stand with my feet on that side of the horse where im leaning out and its a bit less exhausting to carry al that extra weight.
Why not knights in plate armour? They still need to be able to get on and off their horses easily. I don't see why this doesn't apply to them in your opinion.
"I'm far more interested in knowing what is true than being right"~ Shad
Words to live by
History is never about finding out the truth, but some possibilities.
+MrJaldal truth is relative
I have to disagree with u AND Einstein in this case: Truth is a binary choice, either its true and can be proofen or it is false. A subjective view on things cant make a false statement a true one. And thats exactly why i wrote what i wrote earlier: Historians never look for the one and only truth, cause they will never find it in most cases. Believe me, i AM a historian xD
+MrJaldal well i suppose in the natural world truth is something that can be found, but in regards to people's ways of thinking and their perspective truth can be relative in the sense that sometimes the proof can just not make sense to other people because of they just think radically differently? just a thought... and also, i didnt know that i was quoting einstein, that's kinda cool :^)
@Rafael Llaban Truth and all aside....is that a corgi...wearing an imperial commissar's uniform?
Both you and Loydd have overlooked Alexander the Great's Macedonians, who used shock cavalry to great effect in the 4th century BC.
Also, the men recruited into shock cavalry in ancient (western/middle-eastern) civilizations were the upper classes (Greek Hippeis, Roman Equites, Gallic nobles) who had the money to provide their own horse(s) and equipment as even ancient civilizations often relied on their armed populace for raising armies like medieval kings did. Of course, in both time periods governments could also sponsor select warriors to make them cavalrymen or have a standing regiment of horse guards (usually mercenaries or younger aristocrats).
Shock cavalry has for a long time been recruited from the elites of societies, not only because of the expense of maintaining a warhorse (often several+normal riding horses and pack animals for 1 cavalryman), but also because elites had another asset the middle and lower classes didn't have: Free Time to train at horsemanship and combat.
You saved me from typing a full paragraph to them...cavalry is extremely expensive which was why it was used by nation-states.
Honestly I clicked on this to see if he accurately showed how the Companion cavalry of Alexander's army revolutionized horse combat.... Disappointed.
This weren't shock Cavalry though. Ancient cavalry was used to bring fighters quickly where they need to be and do a skirmish attack, not as a massive riding block breaking into the opponents line.
+Christian Kunert uhmmm yes. They were cavalry. No argument
Christian Kunert
But that's exactly what Alexander Companions did, In many of his famous battles. The Flying Wedge attack was essentially a shock charge manouvre with Kontos lances.
Since Alexander, Hellenistic heavy cavalry had a shock attack doctrine.
Roles of cavalry do vary between regions and peoples of course, but the companions are a prime example of pre-stirrup shock cavalry.
Look up Cataphract. The romans had fully armoured cavalry with long spears and lances and they were not the only ones. Basically knights.
You're absolutely correct. I've added a notation to the video clarifying this. Thanks mate!
Which they copied off the persians. Dony try to credit the romans of the idea the persians invented the cathapract.
Quite late. Maxentius deployed some in one battle against Constantine (before that of the Milvian Bridge). Contemporaries (e.g. one of the XII Panegyrici Latini) described them as an extreme novelty (that ultimately failed because they were outmaneuvred surprisingly easy).
Well i would call them more hastas, because lances were a bit more different, they used these Long Hastas with both hands (cataphracts did) and got more momentum, these long hastas were almost as long as a sarissa which is.. Well you know, QUITE LONG don't you think?
hazzmati I didn't say they came up with the idea. Just that they had them.
"I'm far more interested in knowing what is true than being right." If only more people took this view - you've gained a subscriber. :-)
Amen to that. Shad is VERY good about admitting to both mistakes or when he is not certain about his information. THAT is an attitude which has to spread more
@@caseyh1934 One step further, I've seen him openly debate religious ideas without it shaking his own religious faith. This isn't a casual church-goer we're talking about either, this guy walks the walk. I've nothing but respect for the man.
Respectfully, both you and Lindey are getting mired in technicalities. All you need to do is understand the military leader mind. The first and most important virtue of a horse in warfare is mobility. From the mobility standpoint a general will then look for ways to make them even more effective, such as mounted archers, or quick hitting flanking maneuvers, or harassment of moving troops. From that point the military mind will progress to find more ways to make use of the strength, stamina and fear generation of that advantage.
I agree, I think intimidation was probably one of the primary uses of cavalry.
I think that the objective of a shock cavalry force, at least during the middle ages, would be to charge into the enemy and break their morale so that they retreat.
+GreenNinja IN COMES WINGED HUSSAR
I think the choice of whether your troops are using stirrups or celtic saddles isn't down to the general. You're looking at it from far too modern a standpoint with standardised equipment and uniforms... this isn't how medieval and ancient warfare was waged. Instead a military leader baisically had to make do with what his troops chose to fight with, and couldn't easily train them to be something else. It's culture, not "military thinking" we should be looking at.
Initially they probably weren't that organised. They have these resources such a people who ride on horses and they use them.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companion_cavalry
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataphract
Shock cavalry in some form or another existed *long* before the medieval period. It's just that in ancient times the big, rich empires could afford to just pay for such units from the treasury (or hire them from the nearby nomadic horse-tribes). In post-Roman Europe no ruler was rich enough to maintain a constant army in the roman way (legionnaires were professional full-time soldiers, remember) even just with infantry (well, a small guards corps was usually kept), let alone the more expensive and demanding cavalry. So the army was just the population that could get mobilized when need be, but they had to lead a normal life and make a living otherwise plus they'd have to supply their own equipment (again, no money in the treasury). For basic infantry it was easy - a helmet, shield and spear are not that expensive. For heavy cavalry... well, if you wanted to have a shock cavalry element in your army you'd have to either just tag those, who are already rich (not a good idea, they'd have little loyalty to you), or take those loyal to you and provide them with the means to make enough money (and in those times it just meant give them some land and a few villages of serfs).
So feudalism and the knight system really came from the fragmented, not very populous and generally poor (money-wise) state of European governments. The technology and tactics of shock cavalry were already available, they just got improved, not invented.
You said it much better than me ^_^
Yeah, exceptions proving the rule. In fact, many armies in Europe were professional. Professional mercenaries, that is (condottieri, landsknechts, Swiss pikers, etc.). But permanent standing national armies were very rare until well past the Renaissance.
It's the first time watching your video for me. You surprised me by talking about Loyd in such a civilized manner, even though he made a video which at a first glance looks ridiculously silly. Then you surprised me farther by expressing how you love being corrected by your subscribers, and how you always have an insightful discussion in the comments. My reaction at this point: "realy? is it the same youtube comment section that i know, the one filled with insults and hordes of people pretending to know it all?"
Finally you won my heart at "whenever given a reason to question my opinions, i of course question them and do more research to find out what is true, cause i have far more interest in knowing the truth than being right"
Thanks for giving me back a little of my faith in humanity, and in the possibility of creation a society of rationalists
Thanks mate, I'm honoured.
Why isn't anyone talking about the Companion Cavalry of Alexander the Great?
or Cataphracts for that matter
My thoughts precisely while watching this, although I agree with a lot of it.
While it's often not easy to ascertain the way cavalry was used in ancient times, in the case of the Alexandrian army it's pretty clear that it was shock cavalry.
Also, while technological developments are of course often an important factor in military changes, I sometimes feel that most people overstate their importance while simultaneously neglecting social factors. I would venture to say, that very often (although not exclusively!) a strong emphasis on cavalry is found in societies with a strong aristocratic and/or monarchic elemen. This also in part explains the relatively minor role cavalry plays from the middle to late Roman Republic and onwards - while of course a monarchy under the emperors, the underlying society was not really strongly aristocratically structured, less than in Republican times even, with lots of social mobility, some equites class people and even freed slaves taking on huge roles under the emperors.
Prince Foxish
I'm a layman and by no means an expert, but usually the purpose of different military units can be proven by the kind of equipment they used - and the Companion Cavalry used long spears, almost like lances.
Also the stories about the battles fought mention them charging into flanks and even into the front of infantry units, as well as fighting other cavalry, and like much of Alexanders army, they changed their equipment after what was needed for the upcoming battle (like how the Hypaspists usually wore light or no armour, but put on bronze breastplates during sieges when combat got real close and personal).
The long lances(spears) of the companions tell enough of a story about shock cavalry to debunk this myth about it not being used before medieval times in Europe.
I'm also fairly sure that even the Romans used shock auxiliary cavalry - at first its allied latin states, and later is it grew from allied people beyond its borders. I think it's a bit hasty to say that the roman army didn't utilize cavalry to a large extent, because auxiliary forces of the legions could easily number in the thousands - with both bowmen and cavalry made up by roman allies.
First off, by no means I meant to say that the Romans didn't make due use of cavalry - this is not so, as you correctly point out. Still, infantry clearly takes up the major role during most of the Roman period - I think the term "auxiliary" for cavalry is speaking a bit for itself here, although, surely, their number could become quite extensive.
There are of course exceptions - I mentioned the earlier to middle Republican era as an example, and you very fittingly mention the cavalry of the italic allies. Looking into the equites extraordinarii might give some useful insight on ancient shock cavalry. And definitely in some campaigns the circumstances will have dictated an emphasis that shifts away from the primary role infantry was usually given.
And yes, indeed the equipment is indicative of tactics and role of a military force. That's not what I meant to point out - I meant to point out that (in premodern times at least) technological development was not the sole or even primary driving force of military development and tactics. As you say, the descriptions surviving through Arrian, Diodorus and others leave no doubt about their role as shock cavalry. The whole concept of hammer-and-anvil strategy would probably not make much sense anyway, otherwise.
So not really any big differences between our points of view here - thanks for your extensive and well-written answer.
Lucius Foxish
Yet again, I don't wish to be rude, but you seem to take the meaning of the word ''auxiliary'' the wrong way.
The auxiliaries were just as important (and more numerous)to the roman legions as the heavy legionaries themselves - on top of that tmost auxilia weren't even cavalry.
Pardon me for using wikipedia,
''The Auxilia (Latin, lit. "helps") constituted the *standing* non-citizen corps of the Imperial Roman army during the Principate era (30 BC-284 AD), alongside the citizen legions. By the 2nd century, the Auxilia *contained the same number of infantry as the legions and in addition provided almost all of the Roman army's cavalry and more specialised troops (especially light cavalry and archers). The auxilia thus represented three-fifths of Rome's regular land forces at that time.* Like their legionary counterparts, auxiliary recruits were mostly volunteers, not conscripts.''
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxilia
Today Auxilia carries a slight negative connotation, as in they're not really ''the real deal'', but back then nothing could be further from the truth - if the roman legions had no access to cavalry to screen and chase away enemy cavalry the fate of the heavier infantry would end in disaster almost every time.
During the Roman Kingdom (when they still used greek stratagem), auxiliaries weren't used as extensively because the poorer citizens of Rome took up the role as javelin-throwing skirmishers themselves.
I really enjoy your throwbacks and corrections to your previous videos. It helps remind me that people are constantly evolving.
So true. I figure you just got to embrace it because no matter who you are, you're going to be wrong about something eventually ^_^
But reading the discussions over the internet you seems to be endangered species. :)
At least he did not "APE" his prior errors... ;)
Cavalry should be changed into "Horse force"
Chuck Norris starring in Delta Horse.
Cavalry sounds better
You misspelled "Farce"... :)
Don't you mean, "Stallion Battalion?"
If you ain't cav, you ain't sh*t...
Actually the german word for knight "Ritter" came from rider "Reiter". Middle high german riddere -> rider.
This is what I found on word Ritter: "Regional liegen die Ursprünge des mittelalterlichen Rittertums im heutigen Frankreich, das „fränkische (französische)“ Rittertum wurde dann über das niederländisch-lothringische Sprachgebiet nach Osten weitervermittelt. „Ritter“ ist deshalb nach der Ansicht einiger Historiker (etwa Reitzenstein) ein Lehnwort aus dem Niederländischen beziehungsweise dessen niederdeutschen Vorgängerdialekten (Ridder)." and "Ritter - Herkunft: von mittelhochdeutsch rit(t)er, rīter, rītære „Reiter“, im 12. Jahrhundert von mittelniederländisch riddere/reddere entlehnt, einer Lehnbedeutung von französisch chevalier"
And on knight: "The word knight, from Old English cniht ("boy" or "servant"), is a cognate of the German word Knecht ("servant, bondsman"). This meaning, of unknown origin, is common among West Germanic languages (cf Old Frisian kniucht, Dutch knecht, Danish knægt, Swedish knekt, Norwegian knekt, Middle High German kneht, all meaning "boy, youth, lad", as well as German Knecht "servant, bondsman, vassal"). The Anglo-Saxon cniht had no particular connection to horsemanship: the word referred to any servant. A narrowing of the generic meaning "servant" to "military follower of a king or other superior" is visible by 1100. The specific military sense of a knight being a mounted warrior in the heavy cavalry emerges only in the Hundred Years' War."
My interpretation is this: 1. there is Knecht in German(ic) meaning "servant" (8th c.)
2. there is cniht in English meaning "servant"
3. a cavalry develops in France, creating new meaning for "chevalier" (12th c.) (before that it meant simply "horseman")
4. a cavalry in England develops from the social stratum of servants>military followers; gradually "knight" gets its modern meaning (by 14th c.)
5. in German(y) social stratum of servants doesn't follow the same path OR not as fast and decisive (since Knecht did have a meaning of "vassal", but maybe derrived to late?)
6. German lacks a word for "knight/chevalier", so it borrows it (12th c.) from the same direction as the institution itself (France>Netherlands>Germany), but it uses a more litteral translation - hence: Ritter (horse-rider)
7. later, Ritter becomes commonly used for the military institution of knight in Germany, while Knecht is kept in use for lower servants/bondsmen.
8. note that English "knight" doesn't yet have its modern meaning at the time when German needs a word for the institution of knight. Since German then probably has more contact (in that specific aspect of culture) with French than with English, that is where it gets its word (Ritter), through intermediary.
Also czech word for knight "rytíř" came from german "Reiter". Intresting is, that czech word for shivalery came from rytíř, and not from "kavalérie" (cavalery)
Or a simpler explanation is that the English just had to be difficult again :p.
In more seriousness, given its 11th century origins, it could be as mundane as it being due to the Frankish-Normandic invasion then, that the "knights" of england were those the people called the servants of the new rulers (who themselves, I would guess, spoke French and thus used chevalier), and eventually the popular term stuck.
And/or a sign of what knighthood meant: that on the continent the military cavalry became nobility, while in England the nobility formed the cavalry. Chicken and egg, kinda.
Same for polish "rycerz"(knight) and "rycerskość"(chivalry).
so, excactly the same as the french did, naming it after someone who rides a horse.
also i believe Gaelic (the language before english became dominant) uses the word 'Ridire' for horsemen.
also i'm a dutch native speaker and we also use Ridder for knight, but the proper word for horseman is 'Ruiter'
It should also be noted that the word Paladin is derived from a name for a servant of the roman emperor (making it properly synonimous with the 'knecht'-> knight) it was later revived in the court of Carolus Magnus (i used the latin name to avoid conflict between french and german speakers lol) where it was given to his guard consiting of his twelve best men. it was also used later for nobles who did not own land themselves and thus whent into service for another noble who could afford him, making him the 'knecht' talked about in the video)
interesting stuff, etimology.
I was worried about clicking this video, but your clarification at the start of the video on his *actual* position, alleviated those concerns. Good job!
There was also quite a nice invention which transferred the shock of the lance hit to the saddle, it was a leather strip connected with the saddle with a small basket at its end. You put the back end of the lance inside it and after that the saddle was bearing most of the weight and additionally the shock of the lance hit.
Hussars even had lances with ball at the end, you put that ball in a leather strip attached to saddle - so that most of the force of impact was transferred to the saddle directly, not through your butt :)
Notice the leather strip here: www.ekspedyt.org/wp-content/uploads/Husarz_pikinier.jpg
BTW that lance is drilled empty inside to be lighter, that's why it's so long.
Roman armies, especially later Roman armies did make extensive use of different types of cavalry. Just read Maurice's Strategekon, most of the best troops by that point (where most call them Byzantines) were multipurpose cavalry with both lances and bows. While it started more as just a job for auxiliaries the growing importance over the whole imperial period left an ever larger proportion of the Roman army as a mounted force. Italy itself, particularly central and southern Italy, has limited pasturage which probably seriously curtailed the Roman's ability to form a large cavalry force of their own earlier on (plus as others have pointed out cavalry cost a lot of money).
Other than that great video.
But (apart from pasturage) had there not perhaps been technological change which worked to the benefit of cavalry? I'm no expert, but my memory of classical legionary horsemen in illustrations was of a bloke sitting on a cloth, whereas at some point the saddle and the stirrup developed. The Goths were able to smash the late Romans/early Byzantine infantry in about 350 AD, using cavalry as heavy horse. This hadn't really happened centuries before, which implies that at some point a technological change had occurred.
You mention the high cost of cavalry, but once cavalry had become somewhat more effective in a fight they might prove cheaper than an equivalent degree of force employed by infantry. The Romans had traditionally relied on professional and semi-professional infantry soldiers, which are expensive to upkeep. In contrast, effective cavalry might need only a bare acquaintance with arms and skill at riding a horse. Giving each horseman an estate and requiring him to come and fight in an emergency might be more cost effective than employing a standing regiment of infantry, and the cost to society of the useless mouths might be borne without much administrative cost from government.
At the Battle of Adrianople both armies had similar compositions with about one third of each consisting of cavalry. The result had a lot to do with the Romans arriving tired and much of their cavalry being chased off in the early phase. Alexander is often sighted as an early user of effective shock cavalry tactics, but we have plenty of other examples as well. The Roman general Crassus's army was annihilated by the Parthians at Carrahae thanks in large part to their use of cataphracts. This may have had more to do with the dissemination of technology (to include suitable breeds of horse) than the existence of what was needed.
When it comes to cost parceling land off in a feudal system to gain knights means far less (if anything) can be gleamed for the state directly through taxation and rents. Infantry especially militias of infantry were always much cheaper and required something more of a social contract with the classes who would be expected to fight. Before the imperial period Roman armies tended to get mustered out once a campaign finished, so you did not need to spend copious amounts of money on keeping full time soldiers (loot comprised much of their pay). Standing armies in general are a luxury of rich and developed states (professional soldiers are expensive whether they are mounted or not) whereas most historical armies functioned more like sharks having to constantly move and be used just to hold together. That is actually why Alexander of Macedonian attacked when he did, instead of taking a couple years off to establish a family to ensure the continuation of his dynasty, his army was gathered and had become quite the instrument from years of campaigning but to keep it he had to use it.
I've also seen assertions that the staple crops grown in different locations influenced their horse usage, both because heavy plow-horses aren't as useful in a rice paddy as a wheat field, and because different grains produce different amounts of food per farmer growing them (since a big warhorse takes a lot of food). Not sure how accurate those assertions were, but it might be worth at least poking at possible connections between agriculture and horse usage.
Horses are the key to all of this, if we can get them working.
Cause they're a faster mount than we've ever had in the other wars before.
It's stylistically designed to be that way
Well, there's also motorcycles, jeeps and helicopters and MECHA. I like mecha, they're cool, they got lasers and shit. There's also bazookas, but then there's bazooka joe gum, which is tasty.
I'm gonna watch saturday morning cartoons now (even though its monday), payce.
You have given us much to chew on... ;)
did you try turning the horse on and off again?
i like to fuck my horse
I think something that needs to be mentioned is that the evolution and use of cavalry did not follow a linear path. Sometimes it was not used, it then improved rapidly and was used before falling out of use again and then reappearing at a later period. It's also important to point out that it was not everywhere, but localised to distinct civilisations and then spreading to others at differing rates for different reasons. The rise of the knight as cavalryman was not the first rise of cavalry, it just rose again in that time period in that region, because local conditions allowed and favoured it. So the read thread here is that it's a rather complex history of events as any distinct feature in differing societies over a long period of time.
"The horse is something prepared for the day of battle . .." Proverbs 21:31 written in 762 b.C.E.
"Harness the horses and mount, O you horsemen, and station yourselves with the helmet. Polish the lances. Clothe yourselves with coats of mail." Jeremiah 46:4, written in 580 b.C.E.
"Bow and javelin they wield. They are cruel and will show no mercy. Their sound is like the roaring sea, as they ride on their horses. Like one man, they line up in battle formation against you." Jeremiah 50:42, written in 580 b.C.E.
"Their horses are swifter than leopards, And they are fiercer than wolves in the night. Their warhorses gallop forward;
Their horses come from far away. They swoop down like the eagle rushing to feed." Habakkuk 1:8, written in 628 b.C.E.
"David captured 1,000 chariots, 7,000 horsemen, and 20,000 foot soldiers from him." 1 Chronicles 18:4, written in 460 b.C.E.
"David captured 1,700 horsemen and 20,000 foot soldiers from him." 2 Samuel 8:4, written in 1040 b.C.E.
Yeah, I'm thinking that "armored knights" are exactly as "new" an idea as many seem to think. And, perhaps, training horses for battle was just a . . . lost art, that needed to be relearned?
Yep! Many times during that ear, insurrection and civil war were perceived as the main threats.
My "replies" keep 'failing to post' for some reason. Aggravating.
Anthony Hargis armoured cavalery isnt new. Shock cavalery was an invention, however.
+Shrekas 2 No, merely forgotten . . . temporarily.
And your facts are?
You know what lances meant short javelins at the time? Later we have word "lance" that means longer and thicker spear for cavalery.
+Shrekas 2 My facts are that I'm not an atheist. Your facts are that you are an atheist. Not going to argue the point with you, just going to ignore you from this point forward. Tell everyone you "won" the argument.
There is also a suggestion I've seen that the Roman word "equites" ("horseman" - "equus" meaning "horse"), representing the Roman mounted class, is the precursor for the European concept and nouns uses for "knight". In fact in the Latin world, the knight piece in chess was even called the "equite". A lot of the social pomp and prestige that we associate with French knights was in fact already present in the Roman tradition as well.
0:59 I dont think its quite accurate to say that those people misinterpreted what Lloyd said, since they didn't hear what he said in the first place, and just replied to the title of the video.
In the "Bellum Afrcanum" (the stroy of Caesar's battles in Africa) the author (an unknown Cesar's lieutenant) talks a lot about cavalry versus heavy infantry at that time.
This because in that situation Caesar had a big army with almost no cavalry, while Pompeians could deploy a huge and tremendous cavalry, but not a comparable infantry.
The author said clearly that using the cavalry for a direct shock attack would have ended eventually in its total destruction, with no major issues for the heavy infantry.
On the other hand, the lack cavalry protection created enormous problems for the mobility to Caesar's army.
If you like to investigate more on this topic, I really suggest you that book!
You didn't mention one important point - Alexander the Great also employed shock cavalry, the Companions, and used them effectively during his campaign.
10/10 for honest constructive clarifying commentary instead of "I have to disagree and you're wrong no matter what!" A great example of behavior for debate and discussion in general.
Well deserved credit to you sir.
Also after hearing your words, I wonder.... did stirups come about more so because of the increase in popularity of mounted knights? More of something tends to increase talk,thoughts, and developments on the topic.
The point about wealth is spurious -- various nomadic cultures, for example Scythians and Mongols, were both comparatively egalitarian and fought on horseback. Nomadic groups in general love mobility aides but do not tolerate vast wealth inequalities.
Mareșalul Alexandru Averescu. Sure, there's diversity, and some inequalities. But wealth inequality was not a prerequisite for mounted combat, and not all mounted combatants rode horses owned by the wealthy.
Mareșalul Alexandru Averescu. Yes, exactly. Shadiversity suggested in his video that you couldn't have cavalry without vast wealth inequalities, because how else could you shelter and feed the horses?
He was talking about shock cavalry, who tends to feature heavier armor and arms than you would find your average nomad with.
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This defies my prior understanding of the stirrup. Thank you for your study.
What Lindy failed to realize in his thinking is a] is the essential nuttiness of horse-people and b] that they had *already* been horse-people for hundreds if not thousands of years *before* they concocted the notion of being charioteers or cavalrymen in any serious notion of warfare. For such horse-people, cavalry, or chariots were simply a slight extension of what they had already been doing for generations.
I'll add an anecdote. Kip Monahan, an equestrian show/hunter/jumper
lady competing at the top levels in North America in the 1980's and
1990's, a lady of my generation, recounting in a horse magazine
interview her and her sister [if I'm remembering right] riding impromptu
with their coats or jackets wrapped around the horse's neck using the
jacket arms as reigns - *and nothing else.* When I'm talking about
"crazy horse people" this is what I'm talking about that Lindy seems to
have no real knowledge of, people for who using horses in warfare to
swoop down upon their hapless victims was as normal as air. - for those
ancient peoples there *was* no intellectual barrier! - only for their
victims. On horseback was how they spent most of their daytime hours.
It is only to **non*-horseback riding types that any of this seem
strange at all.
I left pretty much the same comment on Lindybeige's video. I generally found that people making videos on military history have a poor grasp anything related to cavalry and nomadic cultures. The question that Lindy posed is the perfect example of this. He is just completely ignoring nomadic tribes and their history.
I think you have all misunderstood Lindys point. He was only talking about how unexpected the finished product is from the originally unlikely starting point. Hint: you have all talked about them "already" being horse-people. But he was talking about before that.
He was talking about riding the horse into battle. Which obviously didn't happen at the same time as the horse got domesticated (which he seems to imply). It was a natural evolution, that lasted probably for centuries and it doesn't seem unlikely when you view it in the context of the every day life of historical nomadic tribes.
***** I dont think he implied that at all. In fact to my memory he went out of his way to talk about the step-by-step nature of the development from domestication to shock cavalry. In fact that was the point of his video as far as i saw it.
Most of your videos are good. This one, however, is WONDERFUL! You hit every point, present your opinion, present evidence for that opinion and defend it. Very well done.
Are you going to do a video on his dance?
I believe the term you're looking for is 'posting'. The act of moving up and down on the saddle, which helps the rider keep in rhythm with the bounce/movement of the horse. This essential for horse archery, as sitting on the horse creates bounce, which hinders aim and accuracy. So you 'post' on the stirrups, which eliminates most, if not all, of the bounce effect. Stirrups can also assist in direction as well, as it helps keep your feet in relatively the same position. Consistent pressure to the side of the horse can be a signal (via training) to the horse that it needs to turn. A tap, or 'jab' with the foot may indicate an increase in speed, such as from a trot or canter, to a gallop, or a full charge.
The training idea being that you don't use hands or verbal cues to move the horse, but leg and foot pressure. Bareback is not as easy as with a stirrup and saddle. In my view, stirrups are to horse riding as crossbows are to archery. (If that makes sense.)
G'day Shad,
An interesting topic, but I suspect you're missing a big chunk of data.
Consider, the Spear, both with & without Woomera or Atlatal, the Sling & Stone, and Bows with Arrows..., *none of them were First INVENTED for Killing other People...; all began as tools for hunting ANIMALS...,* and it was only later on, after people were so proficient in their usage that they'd overhunted their Territory that the (otherwise unemployable) Hunters began to deploy their Hunting-Tools as Weapons of War by using them against Humans.
The EuroPeons had, and still have, a "Sport" which they call "Pig-Sticking", which consists of sitting astride a Horse while following Dogs tasked with locating & embaying some Wild Pigs and then skewering the Pigs with Spears or Lances from Horseback.
When they ran short of Wild Porkers, presumably that's when the Proto-Cavalry turned to hunting "Long Pork" instead.
All Warrior Rituals are Hunter's Rituals which have Bin-Adapted, and only Citibred people who've been raised on Butcher's Meat & John Wayne Fantasias could possibly entertain the notion that anybody ever commenced with Cavalry & War-Horses, & then worked their way back down to Pig-Sticking on Ponies.
Nor did anybody ever begin with War Bows & then work backwards until they were archerising Deer & Wolves & Foxes & Ducks ; and even the Bible-based Yarn tells how David had spent 15 years slinging roughly 19,578,987 Stones at wayward Cattle, & Goats, & Sheep, before he ever took aim at Goliath..., is it not so ?
As it happens, I spent 4 years attending Chevalier College, at Bowral..., wherein the *only* Horses were the ones on our Badges, painted on Signage, & printed on the School Stationery, "Fortes In Fides" being the School's motto (Strength in Truth)...; as against the 2 years at De La Salle College Armidale, where the motto was "Esto Vir" (Be a Man)...
I still get sent Begging-Letters from the Horseless Chevalier College, every year ; the parasitic silly bastards are still waiting for me to become so rich, as a result of what they claim to have taught me, that I'll commence donating to augment the Tuition & Boarding Fees which they charged my parents in 1975-78...
No wonder they have no Horses...!
Have a good one,
;-p
Ciao !
When I first saw Lloyd's video, I was under the impression that his main point was the origin of mounted fighters. I considered the whole discussion on shock cavalry to be a digression. On that point, I feel like everyone is missing the obvious. The main utility of mounted fighters is their mobility, and by that I don't mean strategic mobility (marching cavalry over long distances is not much faster than infantry) I mean tactical mobility. Having a few mounted troops is going to seriously threaten the flanks and rear of an opponent without cavalry, even if your riders are armed with nothing but a few javelins, or if they just intend to dismount and fight once they have outflanked you.
Lancea (origin of the word lance) was originally a Roman word for a short javelin, of Iberian origin. But as it became the Frankish word for spear it ironically came to mean the opposite as it was the Franks and Normans who developed Heavy cavalry.
I was under the impression that the lancea was a particularly nasty variety of celtic spear.
Heavy cavalry was around long before the Franks and Normans. Called cataphracts.
They were forgotten by the time I am talking about, the Franks and Normans had to reinvent it.
I thought I heard that stirrups were the Norman's big advantage over the Saxons at Hastings.
ERE still had a well-known and well-established force of clibanarii, often also known as cataphracts. These soldiers used full-coverage maille and partial lamellar protection and had their horses clad in lamellar armour as well. They fought with heavy javelins, light lances, swords and maces, and were deployed as heavy cavalry.
Just as an example, the Scholae Palatinate served from 4th century AD to 11th century AD, and retained their tactical role and largely also equipment for the whole time, serving as superheavy cavalry.
Additionally India produced armoured cavalry from the antiquity until well into the British colonialization, and China wielded considerable numbers of heavy cavalry during the Han and Song dynasties. Furthermore much of the Islamic world used ghulams before the western knight was really emerged.
It is thus pretty hard to argue that the Franks invented heavy cavalry in a world where it was unheard of, or even forgotten. Nobody just had the money to employ them in the west before the Franks became the dominant faction.
Shad has learned a lot, and I have loved this learning procedure.
Him learning new things over time and then teaching US what's correct, we all get to learn thanks to this magnificent man!
parthians had shock cavalry without stirrup. Also east roman empire had always shock cavalry, at first with no stirrup
This is my first time to the channel, but I love these videos. They just fit with my personal passions, I love the medieval period, castles, swords, etc. Thanks for the videos! :D
Awesome to hear!
Thought you were going to say something about Alexander the Great, than I remembered you’re a medieval enthusiast XD
The quality differences betwen the both videos are huge!
Seriously shed, you deserve much more subs/views!
Perhaps Shad took back his statement a bit too early. If the stirrup made things easier than it might well have been important in the emergence of knights. If you can become a knight with a bit of training and stirrups you are more likely to become a knight than if you don't have stirrups and it takes a lifetime of dedication to do the same thing.
I agree, as a horse rider myself. Yeah you can ride without stirrups and often they are taken away as you're training so you can learn balance, it's actually harder if you are heavier. Since knights wore heavy metal armor, it adds the weight and it's harder to stay balanced. Also, stirrups help the horse as well! If you can get yourself off his back, he can take longer strides and run faster, because pushing yourself up and forward with the aid of stirrups, you're freeing up his spine for freedom of movement. Uncomfortable horses don't preform well, stirrups help the rider help the horse basically.
Exactly! As armour became heavier (more metal) it would create a greater need for strirrups.
Yep. Also as a horserider, stirrups are great for many things that would be useful in combat. Any leaning sideways is made a lot safer. So yeah i think the increased use of the stirrup was a big thing, but not the cause in all of this.
Thing is, "knights" already existed long before any kind of modern stirrups, in the time of ancient Rome (arguably even earlier). And while in the broad sense knights could be any horse rider, the "medieval knight" would usually be a highly trained professional either way.
The idea that the knight emerged in the middle ages may simply be because Rome didn't focus on it, and tended to rely on local mercenaries for that role, which I assume was mostly light cavalry. Perhaps simply because heavy cavalry is not only expensive, but nowhere near as versatile as light cavalry, and little suited for the fights the romans tended to face.
Which may have largely continued into the dark ages, until Europe started becoming prosperous enough for new empire to emerge, which then created an arms race of that time's superweapon, the knight.
One scenario that may be worth considering about stirrups is that they were rather a catalyst, making horse riding far more accessible, and thus promoting the horse again, and that this interest in turn fueled the re-emergence of the knight. Like any arms race: the only reason you start investing so much in that army, is that your damn neighbor does it... and he does it, because you do.
+sorsocksfake i'm just saying we shouldn't dismiss the stirrups as unimportant. Imagine being grabbed from the front and pushed. Thats just one example where a four-pommeled saddle just won't do it. It's not just a question of if it's possible or not, but also of safety.
Also, maybe they have invented the stirrups but haven't really realized it's potential because they were used to a way of riding. Nowadays we alreadu learn how to mount with them, it's the norm.
I'm hardly experienced or researched in this field of history, but from what I know about history I think it developed from scouting to skirmishing/raiding. War and soldiering wasnt a full time profession at those times, wars took time off to plant crops and harvest before being able to conscript men, and when the war was over they went back to the farms and trades. But a lot of soldiers post war probably turned to banditry and that's where horse in combat took off. Petty feuds, raiding neighboring villages or countries. They probably werent used against enemy soldiers but against defenseless peasants in hit and run attacks. This would give the bandit cavalry experience and opportunity to train their steeds. But eventually war would come again and they'd reenlist and bring their new skills with them. Or perhaps similar how viking raiders were feared enough that nobles would hire them as body guards, local lords might say to the bandits plaguing them 'hey, i will give you rewards if you fight for me' or the bandits would establish themselves as local warlords themselves Hence the professional army cavalry was born. In fact this probably started to culminate in the Dark Ages about the time when Charles Martel was establishing feudalism and raising a professional full-time army. He trained up heavy horsemen very quickly, it's plausible that local raiders and mercenary bands had previous experience that Charles exploited.
It seems to have taken off in line with the biblical prophecies about the successions of empires. Each succeeding tactic seems to have been driven by the logistics and method of passing governmental control on to the next generation.
Tactics evolved in a logical progression according to military necessity to counter or overcome a previous tactic. That military systems exist to impose and maintain political control, to protect rulers both from foreign rivals and from the rest of the population, is a given. There are a few exceptions, where types of soldier and combinations of weapon and armour or lack thereof resulted from lack of resources to equip in the previously dominant heavier style, like slingers, Welsh longbowmen, and Hungarian and Russian light raiding cavalry, where it was a matter of making the best of what was available, and discovering an advantage in specializing in something which had been neglected, and having a lot of what the armies of richer peoples have little of.
How did they do cataphracts without a stirrup though...
With saddle technology to brace themselves.
If you look at a Roman or Gallic saddle, there were 4 horns with which to steady yourself. As long as you knew where to put your legs, it wasn't a horrible system and could be used for cavalry.
It's sort of like asking how they steered ships before center-line rudders. They used a different system (quarter rudders) that might seem backwards, but actually was well thought out and worked surprisingly well.
I mean the early middle eastern cataphracts, not the Roman adopted ones.
Marcus Gonzalez
This is from an article by Richard Alverez:
(www.classicalfencing.com/articles/shock.php)
"The tendency then, is for some researchers to see the saddle as being necessary for the delivery of the blow with the couched lance. Without the saddle, they believe, the couched lance charge is impossible. To test this, I removed the saddle, and made several repeated passes at the quintain. By utilizing a "Clenched Seat" position, I was able to deliver sufficient force to topple the target and ride on, safe and sound. The impact did cause my body to "slide back" somewhat on the horse, but by attenuating the impact with my own muscles, I was able to manage the impact well. I have even performed a joust without a saddle, when a girth broke and it was quicker to remove rather than replace the saddle."
www.classicalfencing.com/articles/shock.php
Simply put, very few folks looking at cavalry have ridden a horse. Worse, they don't talk to people with extensive experience with horses.
You can make them charge into a brick wall with enough training and trust, or a block of infantry. You can jump, gallop and joust riding bareback, it just takes a lifetime of experience. Ancient horse riders had that lifetime of experience with practical training gained from hunting on horseback and competitions.
War horses were very expensive to breed, train and maintain. You wouldn't form a squadron of heavy cavalry unless you were convinced that they were effective in battle. You wouldn't train your whole life using a lance if it wasn't a good way to kill and stay alive doing it.
My own feeling of stirrup, from very limited experience and mostly from others with experience is that while everything is possible without it, it allows to extend the possibilities - lean further from the saddle, stand up for more stable aim, hit harder with the spear and regain balance faster. So it facilitates everything in the same way a well designed saddle would, add possibilies without the need to become superhuman. On the other hand, I dont see any real hindrance to try to couch a spear riding bareback, but the danger of falling vs ability to cause damage would be magnitudes smaller than doing so in proper high cantled saddle with stirrups.
One more interesting thing to see would be the importance of saddle strapping design, there isnt much to this topic, nevertheless, especially with hard lances designed to penetrate, strapping saddle tightly through horses chest and croupe might make the big difference with the kind of forces a saddle has to endure without getting dislodged.
Honestly, his argument was kind of pointless.
Before people learned to ride horses, cavalry was a stupid idea.
Before people learned to make rockets, astronauts were a stupid idea.
Before people learned about aerodynamics, flight was a stupid idea.
Of course before the pivotal technologies or methods are invented the consequence seems ridiculous. It's called innovation.
He was clearly remarking on the original unlikeliness when compared to the eventual massive usefulness.
LMcAwesome
I know, but his argument and this video is still dumb.
If someone had a channel about tea and they made a video saying that it was very hard to make tea without tea I'd think it was dumb.
Mareșalul Alexandru Averescu. Exactly. I mean, there is an argument to say that heavy cavalry was made vastly more effective following the advent of the stirrup and saddle but it definitely predates the existence of both.
But my problem with this video's topic is a logical one, not a historical one.
even when you rode horses, calvary was a stupid idea, horses were too small, that's why chariots were a thing, then came the big hoofers.
Chinese used horses for battles too. First for chariots, you had one crossbowman, one warrior with hellberd and the man, who drives this thing. Later on cavalry proved to be even more usefull (their steppe neighbors showed them). It was like 300 years bc. Chariots even more earlier. Chise warriors were equiped with bronze weapon, so yeah, that was long time ago.
At first you can think it is stupid idea, but people all over the world proved exact the opposite.
At first: thank you both, Shad and Lloyd for the videos, they get verry interesting poinst of cavalry! In german "stirrup" means "Steigbügel". I would translate it as a "climbing up - bow (or -shackle) and it means exactly what it is: a mounting aid. I ride horses for 15 to 20 years on medieval knight shows and museeums and now I try to find out more about ancient cavalry. I am riding without a saddle, with a saddle (an american millitary saddle) and of cause saddles with stirrups. Once I had the Chance to ride a rebuild roman saddle with four pommels. I know that you can do mostly everything without saddles, the saddle is the most important thing to develope havy cavalry and to have the lance under your armpit, and stirrups make many things easyer.But the main thing I think is that: against wich military forces cavalry fought most? Answer: against other cavalry! And ther it makes a difference, if you sitting on a larger horse than your opponent, and to get on a large horse, you need a mounting aid like stirrups. Against infantry, it makes no difference if you sit higher. So the Invention of stirrups made it possible to breed larger horses and use them in combat against other cavalry.
I am giving you points because you asked riders....well done. You guys should do that more often. Lots of riders are interested in this stuff.
Surprised by the lack of mention of Phillip II and his Companions, which were the first shock cavalry. However, the advent of the saddle and cross-breed horses (both of which were used by Phillip II and Alexander) were mentioned.
Anyhow, the stirrup came much later and expanded the roles that cavalry could play. Before the stirrup, there were pretty much two types of cavalry: heavily armored and armed with a lance or lightly armored and armed with a bow or sword. The stirrup allowed armored cavalrymen to use weapons that utilized their weight, and it was only then that you saw people like the Byzantines utilized armored lancers combined with armored bowmen.
Persian cataphracts, horse, camel, ELEFANT!!! The origins of knights started when the Romans were defined by a small force of Persian cataphracts (battle of carrhea for example) that they realized the utility of an armored shock cavalry which led to the development of there own version of the armored cavalry leading to knights (from a military perspective ).
Thanks, puts Lloyd's video into more reasonable perspective :). And as your annotation said, yes, cataphracts (though that was Parthia, not so much Rome, and some similar stuff by the Macedonians) were pretty much knights before Rome even had emperors :P.
The primary misconception, it seems to me, is some idea that shock cavalry would go in fast and then just stand there and slaughter everything around them... when the point of using a horse is speed and momentum: mobility, impact, and fast retreat if necessary... even with the actual knights, if they got cocky against a serious army and overextended, that often didn't end well.
I reckon that the popularity of the spear/polearm (not counting the sarissa, which is a rather different beast) is much a testament to the power of cavalry, that is, how much armies needed to have some kind of counter against it.
Shock cavalry was employed back in the Ancient Times. Philipp II reformed army of Macedon, creating phalang backnbone, light skirmishers and shock cavalry. Officially the first massive use of shock cavalry as a military force. About 350 BC (or maybe, BCE for Atheist Purists)
"I'm far more interested in knowing what is true than in being right". Sir, you just won a subscriber. If only more people would be adept to this mindset...
I can suggest "The Wheel, the Horse, and Language" on the development of horse riding, and by extension cavalry.
I have a question - did the spears and lances usually break in impact? After initial charge would they drop the spears and switch to a sword or mace?
Some light cavalrly of South Eastern origin, like Hungarian and Polish, used very small saddles and standing in stirrups was main way to travel and fight. They sat down only to rest. This way they could use legs as damper/shock absorber making their weight less tiring for the horse and thanks to this traveling longer distances much faster. This was especially important in the case of cavarly only armies.
Nice video, but I want to add, that the concept of shock cavalry is even older, I made a video about this aswell quiet awhile ago.
The Greek and Macedonians had also already shock cavalry, Phillip II. (the father of Alexander the Great) developed his battle tactics around his shock cavaly, called Companion cavalry. This was around the 4th century BC.
Also important to note: the cataphract was in Persia in use even before Alexander arrived with his army.
Very good points. I also really love experimental archeaology backed up by finds in diggings. One question would be is it known if all shock cavalry at the height of their use in high medieval times were using some type of stirrup? Is there different kind of stirrups? Did it make them more effective in combat and other use than without it? For me it seems when I can perform a task easier with some tool, than having that tool will free me up to concentrate on other things thus giving me more options.
One thing that I can say is also extremely important is properly made boots. Main reason being that if fell or knocked from the saddle you can get dragged for a good way by your foot. I've actually seen this happen before funny but very dangerous.
Another small thing that was very useful for shock cavarly was "lance stirrup". It was simple leather strap with small cup in the end, attached to the saddle in front of right leg stirrup. While moving on the battlefield hussar could place lance there and easly keep it in vertical position, but when charging they would flip this leather strap behind their back, effectively transferring the force from the lance to the saddle and horse, all the hussars did was directing the lance. Thanks to this technique we have multipple accounts of hussars nailing five people on his lance and one witnessed account of hussar killing six infantryman at once with a lance.
Nice take. From my experience as a rider i have got to say the stirrup is not used to raise your self out of the sattle. That is actually a sign of bad horsemanship and my riding teacher would regularly have me do exerciceses were i would have to raise my self out of a sattle that did not have stirrups, just using my leg muscles and knees. I am not quite sure how this translates into english but i will try. If you have a propper Seat on your horse you wont need stirrups to raise your self out of the sattle.
Of course i have to admit that this is a modern approach to riding and it might have been diffferent in days past.
I used to have horses, and ride them. One thing neither you nor lindy really covered is the advantage of being ale to twist around more with stirrups than without them. I rode bare back and with saddles, and with a saddle and stirrups, you can stand up and look behind you much easier than bare back, or just twisting in the saddle. Lances and spears were not the only weapons used from horse back, swords, flails and pretty much every other one handed weapons were used as well, and the extra arc of attack from being able to stand, and the weight shifting from the standing position would make using those weapons much more effective. Lindy did cover some of this with his demonstrating while standing limited arcs of attack, but the stirrups would have made that limitation slightly less, and therefore much preferred for combat.
Also, a saddle is not required for stirrups, people have used basically ropes (or straps) with loops on each end as stirrups while riding bareback, with the rope over the horses back to help stabilize bareback riding. It does help, I have done that before. It won't help if you are falling sideways, but it does help with lowering you center of gravity, so does help when the horse is trotting especially.
To overcome projectile weapons like slings and bows it was necessary to either develop a bow with much longer range or find a way to get your archers closer to the enemy without losing all of them in the process.Dueling archers with their lack of armor and tight formations would be quite costly. Placing archers in wagons or chariots and on horseback allowed you to increase their range with as little risk to the archers as possible. Run forward, fire, and fall back, while offering a fast moving and hard to hit target was the idea.
Heavy Cavalry armed with spears and lances were the tanks of their day and allowed you to break up the enemy front and disperse their people making it possible for your ground troops to close with and engage the enemy. Until the invention of the Pike. which provided a mobile defense against cavalry, it took fixed emplacements of protective posts and stakes to keep them at bay. Fixed emplacements which became useless if the enemy would not attack them but withdrew to draw you into the open.
Necessity is the mother of invention. Changes to saddles and tack were driven by the need to improve the usefulness of the horse and were not the building block of the basic idea. The need to mount a taller horse and to stand while mounted drove the stirrup's invention and not the other way round.
I will always envision the origin of the Knight, Western Roman Empire's Catafractarii & The Eastern Roman Clibanarii
May I ask if the position of the stirrups influence their influence on how the forces are dealt with upon impact with the lance? Most medieval illustrations show long stirrups, not shorter ones like the ones we use nowadays. Thanks and you both keep up the good job!
I know it's out of your usual time period but you should most certainly do a video on WINGED HUSSARS.
Just because you know, Winged Hussars.
Seriously though.
Looking at it, the raised cantle may well have come from the rear pommels of the Celtic/Roman saddle.
In regards to using the outside leg to pull you back up onto the horse. The way Lindybeige describe the use of the saddle is pretty much the same way you use your legs with the fuel tank on a motorcycle. You can slide from one side to the other easily and confidently.
Although I believe this has been mentioned before (at the very least by @Lindybeige), there are interesting analogies and cases to be found concerning horse-riding in the New World (including Latin America). For one, the natives of the Great Plains region were very quick in their uptake of horseback riding and warfare. Now, of course, one could argue that they were able to observe the way the Spanish used their horses and steal trained horses right from the Spanish stables, but it seems more likely that the first animals they encountered had broken free by themselves. These horses had become wild again, and were thus not ready to use. Native Americans therefore had to develop their own riding techniques, moreover frequently without the aid of saddles and stirrups as these materials were hard to come by or create. That having been said, examples of native saddles do exist (see the catalogue "Hau Kola!", for example), which have their own unique construction and particularities...
Similarly, 19th-century stirrups from Colombia sometimes (don't know the exact spatial and temporal breadth, or frequency of occurrence) had closed metal-capped noses. Would this have had any use to Medieval shock cavalrism? Presumably this difference in design does affect function, though... Would this be for balance, increased ease of mounting the horse, protection of the foot while riding through crowds (kicking peasants, may be), or simply be a status symbol?
What would answer this question is actually being able to see what the knights were up against and how they fought but sadly we can't do that. But the simplest explanation as to why shock cavalry was dominant is that after the collapse of Rome there were no professional armies and the nobility did most of the fighting. It is a reflection of how societies were structured back then. Without professional soldiers, provided with arms and armor by the state, who were capable of standing in formation and acting as a cohesive unit, any troops on foot were likely highly vulnerable to a cavalry charge. A single, well executed charge could route entire armies. So it made sense to stick to shock cavalry and maximize its potential. The way people fought at that time was largely determined by the culture and social structure. The Longbow became part of English culture, the Pike was part of swiss culture, the nomadic peoples had horse archery because they grew up on horseback and all of that was nullified by the rise of states, professional armies, gunpowder and artillery. After that everyone started fighting in more or less a similar fashion
Which was more important I can't say, but some points: Of course you could have stirrups without a saddle, just strap them on using some kind of harness. Not very logical perhaps, but possible. More important, not having stirrups is extremely limiting to both what kind of maneuvers you can perform on horseback and to your balance. Bracing comes up in the video; most of the bracing you do on horseback is done by squeezing your legs together. Having stirrups makes this much more effective, both since it keeps your legs bent, allowing for better power utilization, and since it gives another point of contact for your legs- Try sitting in a riding position on anything with your legs dangling and try to squeeze them together effectively: almost impossible. For balance they are invaluable, even rather advanced riders find it difficult to maneuver at a gallop without them. More so if you only have one hand available to control the reins and no possibility to grab the saddle or horse's mane. Add to this performing advanced maneuvers, controlling the horse in an extremely stressful situation and using a weapon effectively.. if someone suggested it to me I'd say impossible. I don't of course have combat training on horseback, but I do have 30 years of experience, mainly in eventing and cross country riding.
Military harness (unlike the so-called western harness most North American horsemen use) had the stirrups slung very low so that the rider's knees were almost straight, probably so that his center of gravity would be as low as possible. Also, I think the raised, stiff "back part" of the saddle is called the cantle.
well from my (very limited) experience of horse riding I can say that stirrups really are very useful, especially if you are going to be leaning around in the saddle. It can be quite easy to lose your balance on a horse, and if your are leaning around and standing up it can be quite difficult, and stirrups are indeed helpful. Moreover to be standing up without stirrups you need to REALLY grip with your thighs, and doing that for even a short time really starts to hurt, I could imagine over the course of a battle it would really start to decrease the effectiveness of your cavalry.
Actually, I would argue that it is not just the development of the stirrup and the saddle that lead to the development of the Knight, but rather the development of an effective way of implementing those two things. That is, the couched lance. Couching the lance, a new development required specialized training (and equipment required, being the mail shirt, lance, and large horse with saddle and stirrup) which separated the heavy cavalryman, or the 'Knight' or "miles" in the Latin, from the normal mounted solider or dismounted soldier. To quote Maurice Keen's (an eminent historian on the subject, arguably the basis for any modern study of the topic), Chivalry, "New tactics and improved technology (being the stirrup/saddle and the couched lance) at each step strengthened the arostpcractoc bias of recruitment into the knighthood, sharpened in its ranks the awareness of a common bond, called chivalry, uninting all who could aspire to ride to wars and tournaments. (Keen, Maurice, Chivalry; 1984, Yale University Press, pg. 27)
as a beginer in horse riding with weapons the most important thing is to wrork with your leg muscles they are actualy the most important thing in horse riding. the way you impact the horse with them can anable you to not use the reins. If you want to gain a bigger understanging of what I'm saying just check out a style of riding called DŻYGITÓWKA it's a style used for quick stikes and escaping.
well, I've never tried to ride a horse in armor before, but I have done quite a bit of riding without stirrups and even without a saddle, and it is pretty difficult to stay on a horse in full gallop without stirrups, especially if you are doing quick turns. It's mostly a question of balance, because at high speeds it becomes much harder to correct being off balance which is extremely difficult without stirrups in the first place. Add in the extra weight of armor that would pull you off-balance even quicker and I imagine it would be quite difficult to stay on.
The main purpose of cavalry was reconnaissance, finding the enemy and, screening, keep his from finding your army. European cavalry had heavy cavalry, cuirassiers, who acted as a shock factor, like knights in pitched battles.
+Shadiversity What Lloyd was talking about with the pommeled saddle was the centre of balance when over reaching.
If you are overbalanced to that extent, you have noting to push against to push yourself to vertical, and if you attempted to force yourself upyou will inevitably strike the horses flank causing a further turn
To give a context example
You are over balanced to the left, if you use the leg under strain you will kick the horse in the left flank you will make the horse turn right
If you use your right leg to drag yourself upright you may kick the horse in the right flank, and pull the reigns to help you up and the horse will now turn left, helping your left leaning balance
I see comments mentionning cataphracts, but in the latin text of Vegetius, you can see "catafractis/as/es" used just to mean armored/reinforced/clad in iron, or armor, in a very generic way, often refering to infantry:
www.thelatinlibrary.com/vegetius.html
The armored horsemen were called Equites catafractarii, were catafractarii just means armoured (but infantry second line of the battle order, Principes, could also be qualified as catafractarii, as well as third line Triarii, who were very heavily armored and armed), and equites means horsemen.
On the other hand, there was a real "knightly" class in Ancient Rome, and those were the Equites, members of the Ordo Equester:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equites
What I meant is that the important part is not the armor, but the horseman and his horse, as the subject is cavalry. There also was armored infantry, like the triarii (reserve infantry of the Roman army). Sure, being able to afford an armor is a sign of wealth, but nobility of either the medieval knight or the roman eques doesn't lie in his armor, but in his horse. Now maybe the nobility of the persian cataphracts lied in their armor and not their horse, but this would have to be proven to me. Cavalry and a knightly class can exist even without armor, that's what I mean. The armor is just optional and bonus.
I've just recently discovered your channel through one of your fantasy related topics and I must say thank you. while I am passionate about medieval.. well... EVERYTHING!! I didn't know much about it and your channel has taught me a lot.
now to my actual comment: the emergence of shock cavalry in the medieval period was almost directly preceded by the invention of the stirrup but Was not directly responsible for shock cavalry becoming a valuable asset to a medieval army.
this is the argument I've extrapolated from this video.
now my question: did the stirrup enable alternate saddle designs that became far more effective than other designs and were therefore adapted by the "Chevalièr"? and so did stirrups in fact through combination with the new saddle designs prompt the dawn of chivalry.
So a couple of questions before I launch into a rant. What exactly is shock cavalry? What is non-shock cavalry? If you were an ancient or medieval military commander, would you see a difference between the two? I mean if your light cavalry which is guarding your wings manages to flank the enemy formation and charge them from behind.....are they now suddenly "shock cavalry"? Pretty shocking to the army being flanked. My point is, I don't think there is a real difference between the two to an ancient or medieval military commander. There is just "cavalry". Second, why do we assume that cavalry is the superior military unit? The Romans and Greeks surely used cavalry, but a well trained infantry corps really won the battle in their style of combat. For the Greeks and Romans, cavalry are mostly support units. They guard the wings of the formation, preventing a flanking maneuver. In fact, cavalry can be a bit of a problem. Once turned loose by a commander, the cavalry is somewhat uncontrollable...sometimes smashing into friendly formations. So why do we assume that the cavalry was so important in the middle ages? Is it just because Medieval authors write more about knights than infantry soldiers? By that logic, peasants weren't important to medieval society because medieval authors almost never write about them. However the truth is, a society's food producers are a society's most important people. If you don't believe me, try and eat your computer next time you get hungry. My point is, do we really have good reason to assume the medieval knight was the most important person on the battlefield? I don't think it was shock cavalry which allowed for the sacking of Jerusalem in 1099. So on to my rant:I don't think the rise of cavalry in the middle ages....if it was even actually real, had anything to do with success on the battlefield or technology. It was mostly economic. Lets look at Roman warfare. It is mostly infantry based. Cavalry units are mostly support units and often filled by auxiliary soldiers from other parts of the empire. In fact, if you look at Roman (and Greek) art, civilized people don't wear pants. Barbarians wear pants. Pants are probably popularized by horse riding cultures. True Roman warriors don't wear pants. Barbarian cavalry soldiers do. Romans and Greeks were among the most technologically advanced peoples in Europe until the renaissance...and maybe until the industrial revolution. I doubt very much that they couldn't come up with a way to use cavalry effectively in combat. I'm not even entirely sure you can argue that they weren't exposed to peoples using the stirrup. They just didn't really need to utilize cavalry. The hoplite phalanx and the legions were doing fine. But your cavalry corps are wealthy people who can not only afford a horse, but also afford being away from their farms for long periods of time. Infantry is a little bit worse off. They cant afford horses and typically can only conduct seasonal warfare. Romans thwart this problem because the empire can afford a professional army. I think we underestimate the value of having a permanent and professional army in a world when most armies exist only between March and September-ish. So in late antiquity and the middle ages, we have a fracturing of the Roman Empire. Europe becomes poorer. The Roman Army becomes more based off of mercenaries and auxiliary units. In the Middle Ages you completely lack a professional army. A local warlord simply cannot afford a permeant army and as a result the infantry corps melts away. Fewer and fewer people can pull themselves away from food production and into fighting. The rich people, that is to say the cavalry, can always fight. They can always afford to leave their land and go on an extended campaign. So I would argue that the medieval knight didn't gain importance because of stirrups or even because he was a superior military unity (I'm looking at you Crecy and Agincourt). But simply put, you no longer could afford a permanent professional infantry corps. The knight, somewhat ironically, is a product of general economic decline is a society. So instead, kights just went to battle with their fellow rich buddies (other knights) supported by a small batch of infantry and archers. And this is assuming the cavalry were in fact the most important people on the medieval battlefield. I suspect the knights were just the most popular unit. I think it is possible that the real winners of the medieval battlefield were the infantry, just that they weren't really written about. Infantry wins wars.
A horse charging at you is extremely intimidating. This fits into Col. Dave Grossmans "Bigger Bang Theory", in that horses charging at you make a lot of noise, flying mud & the fact that this animal is going to squash you if it runs over you.
A heavy, war horse would takes around 3 years to train. Which as you say is a huge investment.
You know, I watched Lind's video from start to finish and I hadn't picked up that nuance mentioned in your disclaimer because, even later on in his video, the discussion of how it was used didn't seem terribly practical.
Shock cavalry were quite common before knights.
For example, Alexander at the head of his companions over a thousand years before knights. They used their lance (xyston) two handed, but had no stirrups and lacked much in the way of saddles either. This was common throughout the early Hellenistic period. Parthian cataphracts and Sarmatians were also shock cavalry in a similar style. In the east, the Xiongnu, Xianbei and the Northern Dynasties and subsequent dynasties in China proper used shock cavalry in the early 1st millennium AD.
It's also thought the Goths (Ostrogoths) and Vandals were shock cavalry - though whether they "Saramiticized" (and hence used a two handed thrust with a lance) or an overhead thrust with a spear is uncertain.
Your initial oppinon about the stirrups was actualy right. ;) Their are a few things missing in almost all of the modern research and that is the skills of the modern riders that are being studied. When researchers sturdy the jousting of today they are generally not seeing the caliber of rider that would accurately represent the medieval knight. The idea that the body rocks back and the feet go out in front when jousting or striking with a lance is absolutely incorrect. This only happens when the jousting is done poorly. When done correctly the stirrup is an essential part of maintaining the riders seat as well as an essential part of the signaling of the horse. A good place too see this is on the UA-cam channel of Arne Koets. You will see a good representation of historically accurate riding and jousting. You will also see a historically accurate representation of melee combat. In both the stirrup is essential as it allows the rider far more flexibility in the shifting of his balance and in sudden changes of direction as often happens in both melee combat and in combat with a lance. If you speak to riders such as Arne who are as skilled as the knights of old, they will tell you that the stirrup is not just important but essential.
BTW, why should you listen to my opinion? ;) Well I have not only jousted a LOT but if you happen to see a video of Arne Koets sword fright a cowboy on a palomino horse, that cowboy is me. ;)
I think the idea of the stirrup being the crux of mounted cavalry development was an idea James Burke proposed in either his book "The day the Universe Changed" or "Connections" of which there is a bbc show a lot of people of a certain age saw.
It's going to be pretty funny if in another 7 months we get a video titled "The TRUTH about shock cavarly (the right truth this time)". This is what I love about history - so much is up to debate and new evidence pops up all the time, making you question and rethink everything. Way easier to keep discussions going than subjects where pretty much everything's set in stone.
ha ha ha, yeah, probably.
Great vid. But I think this applies to Europe in the middle ages specifically?
Cataphracts, Macedonian companions, and Punic cavalry all were shock cavalry used successfully in battle were they not?
You have no idea how great it is to have your two favorite youtubers cover the same topic.
We need to get Shad and Lloyd in a room together.
Friend of mine have put allow of research into fighting on horseback, she is presently work thought the work of Pluvinel, and the main reason for strips she can find is they prevent you lower legs from falling asleep on long rides.
I think the key thing you said in the video was that stirrups make riding easier. So if they make riding easier than means you don't have to spend as long training, so you can do other things. That's how shock cavalry go from a very small elite of either a Guards Corps or professional soldiery to knights, who are really semi-professional part-timers. Also, if stirrups make it easier to ride and fight that means you can start learning later in life and even people who are less naturally adept can become highly competent. Hence the feudal Knight develops in parallel to the spread of the stirrup.
By that point though "shock cavalry" with very similar applications had been around for a thousand years, but without stirrups or the couched lance.
The drungarious in late Roman and Byzantine light cavalry were essential for skirmishing and is likely based on Gallic auxila who used the horned saddle.
Very good video as always. Only thing is many civilizations besides the Romans, and Celts made excellent use of shock cavalry. The Persians had used it to some extent to build their empire (though many of them were probably horse archers they had cataphracts too.), Alexander the Great had elite cavalry known as Companion Cavalry, and the Carthaginians used it against the Roman legions during the Punic wars, and did have some success (They are more well known for their elephants . Usually they would be used to flank the enemy, or kill retreating soldiers though, not to steamroll through them like Medieval Knights and Polish Winged Hussars. The reason for this was that infantry was packed more closely together in tight formations, some units carried pikes, and obviously armor was not anywhere near as advanced meaning a frontal charge would have been suicidal. A very good example of successful use of cavalry is the Battle of Cannae. Hannibal deployed his infantry in an arch formation and because his center appeared weak, the Romans took the bait and attacked the center. Eventually the formation turned into a U shape as the Romans pushed through the center, and the Romans started to get flanked. The Romans now could not go to the left, or the right, so as they started to get slaughtered, they tried to retreat backwards. Hannibal's cavalry killed any Romans who tried to retreat by attacking the Romans flank, and it became a killing field. Sure shock cavalry was not as powerful in this day, but when used correctly as we can see here, it can be extremely effective.
Byzantine Cataphracts only adopted the stirrup in the 7th century from the Avars. The Chinese were using them earlier than that. Yet the Byzantines were known as having good calvary even before the stirrup. The changes in calvary use is likely due mostly to advancing military strategy, horses and differing horse training methods.
As a further elaboration of the Romans' use of the Cataphract, which they actually called the Clibanarii, was basically calvary tactics, ahem, stolen from the Parthians and the Persians (who actually called them Cataphractoi, emulating the Sassanid Greek terminology), who had used them as early as 80 BCE against Marcus Licinius Crassus at Carrhae. I suspect that the Cataphractoi and subsequently, the Clibanarii were the model used for the Norman knights, who learned it from the Franks, who learned it from the conquered Romans in Gallia. The Norman model had ultimately influenced the development of the knights and became relatively standard for the rest of Europe.
I'm surprised so few people are talking about Philip's Companions (not Alexander's as they were formed and their general cavalry doctrine was developed by Philip). I've even seen them being called the first shock cavalry in history and they didn't have stirrups or saddles, yet were the deciding factor in most of Alexander's victories.
I like this video much better that the one from Lindybeige. You make it clear that you talk about shock (heavy) cavalry and not cavalry in general. As someone who rides a horse I agree pretty much with all your findings. Btw. mounted archers are also part of cavalry as well as more modern dragoons, carabiniers or similar units. Bow or firearm gives you even better range advantage than lance ;)
Also note that successful shock cavalry predates the stirrup by a significant period - Alexander's Companion cavalry which broke the Persian line at Gaugamela did not use stirrups; neither did the various Iranian cataphracts. In fact, cavalry shock tactics seem to decline once the stirrup comes into existence, if only because by this point competent spear/halberd/pike infantry formations had become more prevalent.
In your place i would like to read about early nomadic warfare (as it certainly predates others), and completely ruled the battlefield when employed properly.
Also in their case, the horses weren't really a big additional investment, as they were quiet common (which is easy for nomads, who have lot of place to graze their animals, and need some aid to move around faster - not to mention that horsemeat is tasty, and its milk can be made into alcoholic beverage - while for aggricultural civilisations, large herbivores can be a problems, as they can eat/trample...etc. the crops, you work hard to raise)
I have a question regarding lances on horseback. Shock cavalry is often depicted as a lance unit charging in and delivering tremendous piercing attacks with their lances. My question is, did the knights recover their lances after a successful hit, or did the lance break and was essentially a "one hit usage"? could someone even retrieve a lance from an opponent if it's stuck in the persons body? I find it interesting because the shock cavalry in video games, such as total war series, have the ability to charge in and out repeatably without their lances braking.