Osprey - General Military - Knight - The Warrior and ... - Brego-weard

The knight would have different horses for different purposes. The biographer of the
15th-century Spanish knight Don Pero Nino noted that his lord had horses trained
for war, horses trained for the tournament and horses trained for parades. As with the
description of armour, it is not always clear what sort of horse is being described, and
very often the commentator is more interested in the colour and behaviour of the mount
than in its conformation. Some types we can recognize, however. The knight would
have had riding animals, known as rounceys, hackneys, amblers or trotters, with an
easy and comfortable gait. He would have had similar horses for his squires and
servants, as well as pack horses (or sumpters) and mules. A relatively late addition to
the military stable was the courser, a horse bred for hunting. In the 14th century this
became a popular alternative to the 'great horse' as the main mount for combat.
The actual number of horses a knight might take on campaign varied substantially
over time and, of course, depending on the wealth of the individual knrght, but a sense
of the number of mounts considered proper and necessary can be gained by looking at
the instructions laid down in the Rule of the Templars. Being based upon a monastic
community, albeit one that fought the enemies of God with swords rather than prayers,
the brothers were allowed minimal personal belongings, everythrng else being provided
for them by the Order itself. The Rule held that the knight-brothers were to be permitted
three mounts each, with a fourth for his squire, if the officers of his house felt it necessaiy.
The senior officers were allowed four horses and a riding mount. At the other end of the
scale the sergeant-brothers were allowed one horse each, although those with special
duties, such as the qonfannier (who would carry the Order's black and white banner into
battle) or the farrier, could have two. Knights who joined the Order of the Knights
Hospitaller were to arrive with their own equipment, including three mounts.
Andrew Ayton's work on the horse inventories that were created by English royal
clerks at the outset of royal campaigns in the mid-1300s as part of the system of
redtauro eqiwrum by which the Crown underwrote the value of some of the horses
taken on campaign, suggests a similar range of numbers.* In 1340, for example, the
Crown undertook to transport four horses for each knight returning from the Flemish
port of Sluys. Ayton notes that the value (and presumably quality) of mounts
fluctuates, and that the type of horse taken on campaign also changes. Whilst the
courser was the popular mount for campaigns against the Scots, Welsh and Irish,
a larger number of 'great horses' are recorded for the campaigns against the French.
He suggests this might be because the knights felt that there would be greater
opportunity to use these highly specialized and valued mounts against the French than
against their British neighbours, who were much less likely to offer pitched battle on
* Andrew Ayton, Knights and Warhorses, pp.57-59.