Despite the arrival of the stirrup, which made direct cavalry charges feasible,
the Franks and other Europeans who adopted it still avoided shock action
when possible. h is was partly because cavalry armor still gave riders only
minimal protection. So although a charge by horsemen could potentially
devastate the front ranks of an enemy’s infantry, those foot soldiers could, in
turn, badly damage the mounted attackers. As a result, for a while cavalry
units were more often used to protect the l anks (sides) of traveling armies,
to chase away ambushers, to raid villages, to harass the l anks and backs of
enemy troops during a battle, and to pursue l eeing enemy soldiers.
Charges by heavy cavalry composed of knights did,
however, eventually become a frightening fact of warfare.
h is was made possible primarily by a steady series
of improvements in cavalry armor during the High
Middle Ages, which lasted from about 1000 to 1300.
Starting in the eleventh century, when Duke William
scored his great victory at Hastings, the mail shirt, now
called a hauberk, became longer and heavier. Also, cavalrymen
adopted the coif, a mail hood that covered the head. h en came
arm and leg protectors, along with gloves made of mail.
h e twelfth and thirteenth centuries witnessed still more improvements
in cavalry armor. From about 1150, for example, most European
knights started using a loose cloth garment—the surcoat (or surcote)—
over their mail armor. Later, in the 1200s, according to Ayton,
iron plate or hardened leather defenses for the elbows, knees,
and shins i rst appeared. And during the following hundred and
i fty years, protection for arms and hands, legs, and feet became
steadily more complete. From the mid-to-late thirteenth century,
the torso of a well-equipped knight would be protected by a surcoat
of cloth or leather lined with metal plates—a coat of plates,
which by the mid-to-late fourteenth century would be supplemented,
or wholly replaced by a solid breast-plate.17
h e late 1300s therefore marked the zenith of this ongoing trend
toward the adoption of full suits of plate armor by mounted warriors.
h ese true knights typically provided heavy armor for their horses as
well. Calling units of these i ghters heavy infantry was completely appropriate,
for as Jones explains, “A suit of the new armor could weigh seventy
pounds. And, together with its own armor, the horse had to carry over
100 pounds of metal alone. With a horse protected from lance wounds
in the chest and the rider virtually proof against [protected from] harm,
the knight became far more formidable.”18
World History
