09-07-2006, 08:16 PM
Charlton,
Thank you. Just what I need. Yes, there is great uncertainty when the stirrup appeared. The well-known third century graffito of a Roman clibanarius in Dura Europus, shows the rider helmeted and mailed (the horse as well!), but shows no recognizable stirrup.
An alternate theory, which I didn't want to clutter my original original submission with, suggests that the stirrup and mounted warfare arrived with the Alans (also from the east) who settled in heavy numbers in Armorica (Brittany) about the time the Western Empire broke up. Since many Britons fleeing the Anglo-Saxons settled there--hence the name--they could have absorbed cavalry technology and tactics from the Alans, and perhaps even sent them, as they are recorded sending horses, back to the remnant of Britannia.
Armorica was not completely subdued by the Franks for several centuries either. The Alans are also credited with the equipment and tactics which figured in William of Normandy's conquest of Angland, ironically, some centuries later. Harold's lack of answering cavalry is often mentioned as one in a long list of factors in his loss to William at Hastings.
Many sources attest to the Anglo-Saxons not being horsemen. I may have overreached in connecting that with Tacitus's Germania. Tacitus wrote several hundred years earlier, so things may have changed. Since it took the Anglo-Saxons centuries to conquer Britannia, never subduing what is now Wales, they certainly could have picked up horses--and mounted tactics--in that time.
Not looking for a closed case, I suspect such impossible, just probability. You're arguing "improbable", right?
Thank you. Just what I need. Yes, there is great uncertainty when the stirrup appeared. The well-known third century graffito of a Roman clibanarius in Dura Europus, shows the rider helmeted and mailed (the horse as well!), but shows no recognizable stirrup.
An alternate theory, which I didn't want to clutter my original original submission with, suggests that the stirrup and mounted warfare arrived with the Alans (also from the east) who settled in heavy numbers in Armorica (Brittany) about the time the Western Empire broke up. Since many Britons fleeing the Anglo-Saxons settled there--hence the name--they could have absorbed cavalry technology and tactics from the Alans, and perhaps even sent them, as they are recorded sending horses, back to the remnant of Britannia.
Armorica was not completely subdued by the Franks for several centuries either. The Alans are also credited with the equipment and tactics which figured in William of Normandy's conquest of Angland, ironically, some centuries later. Harold's lack of answering cavalry is often mentioned as one in a long list of factors in his loss to William at Hastings.
Many sources attest to the Anglo-Saxons not being horsemen. I may have overreached in connecting that with Tacitus's Germania. Tacitus wrote several hundred years earlier, so things may have changed. Since it took the Anglo-Saxons centuries to conquer Britannia, never subduing what is now Wales, they certainly could have picked up horses--and mounted tactics--in that time.
Not looking for a closed case, I suspect such impossible, just probability. You're arguing "improbable", right?
"Fugit irreparabile tempus" (Irrecoverable time glides away) Virgil
Ron Andrea
Ron Andrea
