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

CONTRARY TO THE POPULAR IMAGE KNIGHTS DID NOT CRUDELY
hack away at each other until one was beaten into
submission. Success in combat required skill, intelligence and
talent as well as brute strength. The weapons they used had evolved
into precision tools and handling them successfully required training
and practice to perfect. Riding too was a skill that had to be mastered,
the more so as the knight would be in armour and fighting for his life
at the same time.
INDIVIDUAL SKILLS
Horsemanship was probably the first skill that a medieval knight learnt. There is little
doubt that a child was learning to ride long before he could hold a sword or bear the
weight of a hauberk. It was one of the fundamental accomplishments of all the noble
elite. Jordanus Rufus, a southern Italian who wrote a treatise on the care ol horses in
the 13th century, says that 'it is by horses that princes, magnates and knights are
separated from lesser people and ... a lord cannot fittingly be seen amongst private
citizens except through the mediation of a horse'. Simply put, quality rode where lesser
folk walked.
For the knight more was required than being able to ride through a crowd of
peasants. He had to be able to mount, dismount and ride whilst armoured and carrying
his shield and lance. He needed to be adept at manoeuvring his horse through tight
turns and wheels at high speed, maintaining that control in the midst of battle. Whilst
his mount might be somewhat inured to the noise and chaos of battle (16th-century
manuals, surely based on earlier practice, advocated that the warhorse in training was
to be ridden past servants waving banners, shouting and beating drums to prepare it
for battle) there was still a danger of it panicking. As we have noted, it was the stallion
that was chosen for the role of the 'great horse' or dejtrier because its strength and
fiery temperament could be used on the field. Control of such powerful beasts was
considered a martial virtue. It is a motif of heroic literature that the hero should
have a horse that only he could tame, the quintessential example being Alexander the
Great's horse Bucephalus (literally bull headed'). Almost certainly using that legend
as a basis, the biographer of William Marshal tells us how at the onset of one of his first
major tournaments William, impoverished and lacking a mount, was forgotten when
horses from the stable of his lord William de Tancarville were given to members of the
household. When Marshal complained he was given the last remaining horse,
a strong, fine and well-proportioned horse, very lively, swift and powerful... A horse