What is it about?
Popular culture still sees the Early Middle Ages as the Dark Ages, where warfare was brutal and without finesse. However, a study of the sources and battle descriptions of the time shows that riding techniques in the Early Middle Ages must have been quite sophisticated. This is only possible if there was organised training of both horse and rider. This in turn suggests a fairly high level of investment and organisation. The article traces the evidence in the sources and looks at where this training might have been provided.
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Why is it important?
Especially popular culture still peddles misconceptions about the Early Middle Ages - historical research has for some decades drawn a more differentiated picture of the time, but it has not yet percolated through to popular culture. The article reinforces the differentiated picture of newer historians. Also, there are many misconceptions about the war horses of the Middle Ages. There is still a wide-spread belief that war horses would have been over 16 hands tall and draughty. Archaeology shows that this is flatly wrong - war horses were about 14½ hands tall, and of medium build.
Perspectives
Showing that cavalry training in the Early Middle Ages must have been sophisticated and required expert, long-term training suggests that we are missing some important aspects of the economy, military organisation and the structure of government of the time. Again, this is a suspicion that is widespread among modern historians - we know that the certainties propounded by 19th C historians on such matters as "feudalism" are wrong, but we don't yet know with what to replace those theories.
Dr. Jürg Gassmann
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This page is a summary of: Combat Training for Horse and Rider in the Early Middle Ages, Acta Periodica Duellatorum, June 2018, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.2478/apd-2018-0003.
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