Heavy cavalry
Heavy cavalry refers to heavily armed and armoured mounted troops, as opposed to
light cavalry, in which the riders are relatively lightly-armoured. The origins of heavy cavalry, a near impossibility before
saddle and
stirrup, lie in
Parthian and
Sassanid Persia. Through the course of the
Roman-Persian Wars, the
Romans adopted much of the Persian tradition and this Roman cavalry continued in existence as part of the
Byzantine army until the end of the
Middle Ages. In the Middle Ages, heavy cavalry developed independently in
Western Europe. Many
Germanic peoples had a history of cavalry and the introduction of stirrups allowed for the increase in the weight of a rider's armour. In
Francia, these men-at-arms became known as
knights and the tradition of
chivalry and dominated European warfare until the
Renaissance. Today, heavy cavalry has been replaced through
mechanisation, mostly by
tanks.
Antiquity
Greeks
The
ancient Greeks called the heavy armoured cavalry
kataphraktoi. The term was later borrowed by the Romans and from there it continued to be used until the Middle Ages in Europe, to designate heavily-armoured cavalry. Among the most famous representatives of ancient Greek heavy cavalry were the
companion cavalry of
Alexander the Great and the
Diadochi. During the latter period, the armour of these shock troops even increased.
Persians
Ammianus Marcellinus, a
Roman general and historian, who served in the army of
Constantius II in
Gaul and Persia, fought against the Persians under
Julian the Apostate and took part in the retreat of his successor,
Jovian. He describes the Persian knight as:
 |
| The oldest known relief of a heavily armoured cavalryman, from the Sassanid empire, at Taq-i Bostan, near Kermanshah, Iran (4th century). |
:
"All their companies clad in iron, and all parts of their bodies were covered with thick plates, so fitted that the stiff joints conformed with those of their limbs; and forms of the human faces were so skillfully fitted to their heads, that since their entire bodies were covered with metal, arrows that fell upon them could lodge only where they could see a little through tiny openings opposite the pupil of the eye, or where through the tips of their noses they were able to get a little breath.""The Persians opposed us serried bands of mail-clad horsemen in such close order that the gleam of moving bodies covered with closely fitting plates of iron dazzled the eyes of those who looked upon them, while the whole throng of horses was protected by coverings of leather. "Sarmatians
Up to the fifth century,
Sarmatians cavalry units were stationed in
Britain as part of the Roman army (see
Roman departure from Britain), allowing for a direct influence of Roman cataphracts on
Migration Period Europe. According to a theory of Littleton and Thomas (1978), the legend of
King Arthur, the prototypical knight of
High Medieval literature, was directly inspired by these Sarmatian troops (however, it is most likely that the only reason we view Arthur and his retainers as knights was simply because the
Arthurian Cycle became popular in a time in which knighthood was predominant); and Sir
Thomas Malory's descriptions reflect his own time, in which the plate-wearing tournament knight was again prevalent.
Romans
The roots of the cataphract probably lay with the nomad peoples of the
steppes; their heavy cavalry traditions (reserved for their nobility) were probably passed onto the sedentary peoples of the ancient
Near East. The
western Greeks then first encountered heavily armoured cavalry during their wars with the
Persian Empire. From the Greeks the Romans learned a few tricks and thus heavy cavalry traditions made their way to the West, where they were epitomised by the knights of western Europe.
Equipment and tactics varied, but cataphracts generally wore heavy
armor of
scale armour,
mail,
lamellar armour,
horn, or thick
quilted cloth, carried a
shield, sat on an armoured horse, and charged with
lances (
kontos) in a tight knee-to-knee formation.
Middle Ages
Byzantines
Byzantine cataphracts were a much feared force in their heyday. The army of Emperor
Nicephorus II, the 'Pale Death' himself, relied on its cataphracts as its nucleus, coupling cataphract archers with cataphract lancers to create a self-perpetuating 'hammer blow' tactic where the cataphract lancers would charge again and again until the enemy broke, all the while supported by cataphract archers.
Contemporary depictions however imply that they were not as completely armoured as earlier Roman and Sassanid types â€" horse armour is noticeably absent. Byzantine cataphracts of the 10th century were drawn from the ranks of the middle class landowners through the theme system, providing the Byzantine Empire with a motivated and professional force. An experimental type of cataphract was brought to the fore in the 10th and 11th centuries known as the
klibanaphoros â€" named after the clibanarius and a throwback to the super-heavy cavalry of earlier days. However, the traditional view is that after the loss of prestige, men and material and the horse-rearing plains of
Anatolia after the
Battle of Manzikert, they slowly dropped out of use.
But according to J. Birkenmeier in "The development of the Komnenian army: 1081-1180", units of 'Kataphraktoi' (cataphracts) were still being used during the twelfth century. The
Komnenian restoration of the Byzantine Empire during that century created a new kind of Byzantine army, which is known as the
Komnenian army. Yet it seems that the cataphract was eventually superseded by other types of heavy cavalry. The emperor
Manuel I Komnenos, for example, re-equipped his elite cavalry in the style of western knights.
It is difficult to determine when exactly the cataphract saw his final day. After all, cataphracts and knights both fulfilled a similar role on the medieval battlefield, and the armoured knight survived well into the modern age. The Byzantine army maintained units of heavily armoured cavalrymen up to its last years, while neighbouring
Bulgars,
Lithuanians,
Albanians,
Russian states and other eastern European peoples emulated Byzantine military equipment.
Knights
In the early Middle Ages the rank of knight was loosely defined. In late
Carolingian France (
10th Century) persons occupying this role were known by the Latin term
miles (plur.
milites). This term designated a professional fighting man in the emerging
feudal system. Many were as poor as the peasant class. However, over time, as this class of fighter became more prominent in post-Carolingian France, they became wealthier and began to hold and inherit land. Eventually fighting on horseback became synonymous with the elite warrior caste.
From the
12th century, the concept continued being tied to
cavalry, mounted and
armoured
soldiers, and thus to the earlier class of noble
Roman warriors known as
equites (see
esquire). Because of the cost of equipping oneself in the cavalry, the term became associated with wealth and social status, and eventually knighthood became a formal title. Significantly the nobility, who at this time were also expected to be leaders in times of war, responded to this new class by becoming members of it. Nobles had their sons trained as gentlemen and as professional fighters in the household of another noble. When the young man had completed his training he was ready to become a knight, and would be honoured as such in a ceremony known as "
dubbing" (knighting) from the French "adoubement". It was expected that all young men of noble birth be knights and often take oaths swearing allegiance, chastity, protection of other Christians, and respect of the laws laid down by their forebears, though this varied from period to period and on the rank of the individual.
