03-30-2014, 02:31 PM
The deep seat with an exaggeratedly straight leg, with the heels depicted lower than the toes, is characteristic of illustrations contemporary with the use of the couched lance. You can view 11th century Byzantine illustrations and this characteristic is not visible. For other styles of fighting, particularly horse archery, a shorter stirrup allowed the rider to stand with his fundament clear of the saddle and this gave the rider the necessary freedom of movement demanded by his fighting style.
I suspect that the straight leg and deep seat was used in order to brace the rider's pelvis against the high cantle of the saddle employed by all riders using the true couched lance technique. An unbraced rider using a couched lance would be slammed backwards into the cantle and probably be injured by any impact of the small of the back with it.
Show me an image of a cavalryman sitting in anything other than a high cantled saddle, with any other than a straight-legged, braced, posture and you are showing me an image of a cavalryman who could not use the true couched lance technique.
Substantial pieces of Byzantine mail exist, in Athonite monasteries for example, and it is of the same one in four ring construction used in Western Europe. The Alexiad admonition to shoot at the horses applies only to archery, not lances or other weapons, and could be taken as being significant in relation to the relative absence of horse barding in the West.
In the 1080s at Dyrrachion Byzantine kataphraktoi were routed by Western knights. In the 1160s at Sirmium, Byzantine kataphraktoi broke a Hungarian army whose strike-force was composed of knights on barded horses. Both sides are described as fighting with lances and that the "lances were shattered." Kinnamos (folio 125), states that Emperor Manuel I (1143-1180) organised training for his cavalry (jousting), "Thus charging with blunted lances, they practised manoeuvring in arms. So in a brief time the Roman [Byzantine] excelled the mettle of French and Italians." Something had happened between Dyrrachion and Sirmium to drastically improve the performance of Byzantine heavy cavalry when faced with Western knights, and Kinnamos tells us what it was.
I suspect that the straight leg and deep seat was used in order to brace the rider's pelvis against the high cantle of the saddle employed by all riders using the true couched lance technique. An unbraced rider using a couched lance would be slammed backwards into the cantle and probably be injured by any impact of the small of the back with it.
Show me an image of a cavalryman sitting in anything other than a high cantled saddle, with any other than a straight-legged, braced, posture and you are showing me an image of a cavalryman who could not use the true couched lance technique.
Substantial pieces of Byzantine mail exist, in Athonite monasteries for example, and it is of the same one in four ring construction used in Western Europe. The Alexiad admonition to shoot at the horses applies only to archery, not lances or other weapons, and could be taken as being significant in relation to the relative absence of horse barding in the West.
In the 1080s at Dyrrachion Byzantine kataphraktoi were routed by Western knights. In the 1160s at Sirmium, Byzantine kataphraktoi broke a Hungarian army whose strike-force was composed of knights on barded horses. Both sides are described as fighting with lances and that the "lances were shattered." Kinnamos (folio 125), states that Emperor Manuel I (1143-1180) organised training for his cavalry (jousting), "Thus charging with blunted lances, they practised manoeuvring in arms. So in a brief time the Roman [Byzantine] excelled the mettle of French and Italians." Something had happened between Dyrrachion and Sirmium to drastically improve the performance of Byzantine heavy cavalry when faced with Western knights, and Kinnamos tells us what it was.
Martin
Fac me cocleario vomere!
Fac me cocleario vomere!
