(no subject)

[ivyfic]

I've been researching an article on stirrups (yes, the kind on saddles, you dirty-minded people). There's a lot of debate about how important stirrups are—starting with the assertion by an academic in the 1960's that the adoption of the stirrup in eighth century Europe caused feudalism. The argument goes like this—the stirrup allowed the use of shock tactics (that is, using the momentum of the horse as part of the weapon; picture knights on horseback with lances, charging), which changed the military paradigm to cavalry, and the requirements of maintaining a cavalry made the feudal system necessary.

This argument has been entirely refuted, but there's still a lot of debate about whether you need stirrups to use a lance in combat.

The best article I found about this was from an SCA guy who actually joists and calls all the academics who are debating this idiots who've never ridden a horse in their lives. According to him, it's perfectly possible to joust and withstand the impact without being thrown from your horse without stirrups—he's even done it bareback. In fact, with the exception of standing in the saddle (which isolates the motion of the rider from the horse and improves the accuracy of bow and arrow on horseback), you can do anything without stirrups that you can with. You can even post, which you'd do from the knees.

All this description of using your muscles to absorb the impact of a lance and bracing yourself on a horse with just your thighs (which Roman style saddles were designed for) makes me think all these riders must have had thighs like treetrunks. Which, naturally, since much of the discussion of pre-stirrup horsemanship revolves around the Sarmatians, made me think of King Arthur. Oh, there's a thought…

Comments

[cubby-t-bear.livejournal.com]

Huh. I was under the impression that the rise of cavalry was mostly a function of necessity -- the Roman Empire was hit with enough plagues, civil wars, and what-not that they had to have greater mobility out of their limited manpower, which meant putting more troops on horses.

Given that this happened at the same time that the emperors started locking people into particular professions by birth (to keep certain professions from going extinct), this meant that you had a hereditary military caste that had time to engage in lots of training from a very young age, with the requirement of mobility.

But that's dimly remembered late Roman history :)

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I know exactly jack about military history, and the argument about stirrups causing feudalism was completely specious. It was based on the observation that stirrups arrived in Europe about the same time feudalism started (8th century). The academic then assumed that the advent of stirrups must have meant the widespread adoption of shock tactics, even though the earliest evidence of such tactics is a tapestry of the Battle of Hastings from 1088. So, a few giant leaps of logic later... Yeah.

One article also pointed out that "feudalism" does not mean the same thing in all places at all points of history--it wasn't a uniform system.

[mithras03.livejournal.com]

speeeeeeeeeecious!! hahahaha - i love that word :-P

[mithras03.livejournal.com]

wait, is the tapestry from 1088, or are you referring to the actual battle?

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

The tapestry was 1088. See, I know what I'm talking about. :)