Cavalry in Middle Ages

The late Roman Empire saw a transition away from the infantry legions which had built it toward cavalry, necessary to defend it against the horse soldiers of invading barbarian tribes. During the second millennium C.E., the Fulbe of West Africa built an empire from horseback, as did the feudal knights of Songhay. In fact, cavalry empires dominated West Africa until they met their match in the infantry of the Ashante and other coastal and forest peoples, newly armed with European firearms. The Bedouin empire was won by Arabian cavalry, while the Mongols conquered the greatest land empire in history from the backs of fleet war ponies, and with composite bows and incomparable ruthlessness. The Mamlu-ks of Egypt were a cavalry dynasty that held the reins of overlordship in much of the eastern Mediterranean for nearly 800 years. They survived in truncated form nearly to the 19th century, until crushed by Napoleon at the ”Battle of the Pyramids” in 1798. Ottoman armies were dominated by akinci freelance cavalry, heavy mailed sipahis, light cavalry timariots, and allied Tatar scouts and skirmishers. Even at the peak of Janissary enlistment Ottoman armies never exceeded one infantryman for every two horse soldiers. The armies of the Safavids of Iran were almost exclusively cavalry until the time of Abbas I. Then the Safavids shifted from cavalry as their principal arm, not least because they lost too often and badly to Ottoman gun-bearing infantry and mobile artillery. Horse cavalry did not dominate Indian warfare primarily because the humid Indian climate was inimical to most breeds. Instead, Indian armies relied on elephants as cavalry, military transports, and in construction of fortifications.

Whatever the breed of warhorse, and despite sharp limitations imposed on horse archers by siege warfare, only cavalry could effectively patrol borders, provide swift reinforcement of threatened areas, and hound and pursue a defeated enemy. Medieval Europe was constructed socially as well as militarily around the mounted warrior, as much or more than it was based on the Church. In England, medieval cavalrymen were divided into bannerets, knights, and men-at-arms. In France the key distinction was between those knights who were ”dubbed,” and those who were not (sergeants or squires) Knights became progressively more heavily armored in response to the penetrating power of the crossbow and of early gunpowder weapons. They were the core of all Crusader armies and frequently won against staggeringly greater numbers of Muslim infantry and light horse. Their dominance of the battlefield in Europe began to erode from the late 13th century when England’s heavy cavalry was surprised and defeated by William Wallace’s army of fierce Scots at Stirling Bridge (1297).