Sub-Roman Britain (Cavalry etc)

[Medicus matt]

Also another question, perhaps unanswerable but it piques me. Might Gildas have described an "Arthurian" cavalry in his statement, "guider of the vehicle of the bear." :?:

It's definately (as definate as anything we can get from Gildas...damn him...why couldn't he just write "Dear diary, met Arthur for lunch today and he kept going on and on about how great he'd been at the seige on Badon and how it was him and not Ambrosius
who'd really saved the day. I wish him and his 300 horsemen would bugger off back to ...etc") not a direct cavalry reference.

The text referring to Cuneglasus reads "aurigaque currus receptaculi ursi".

The 'auriga' element of 'aurigaque' can mean either 'charioteer' or 'stable groom' so it's either "charioteer" or "groom" of the chariot from the bear's refuge. NOTE: not 'of the bear'. It's a reference to a place with 'bear' associations, not a person.


Yes, a united nation with a decent social and agricultural infrastructure is able to field and support armed forces with a ratio of 25:1. However, a fragemented nation, where no one area controls sufficient quantities of all the resources needed to equip and support a large number of dedicated warriors, would have trouble getting to, let alone sustaining anything like that level.