Why did English knights not use horses extensively like French knights and instead prefer to fight on foot?
For example at the battle of boroughbridge there was a notable lack of cavalry amongst the knights.
The same tactic was employed at the battle of dupplin moor and throughout the HYW whereas the French (an other medieval kingdoms) extensively used cavalry.
Now i know for certain that there wasn't a shortage of horses as they were used for travel and transport of goods all the way back to Saxon times.
It's true that the Normans used cavalry in great abundance, but in England that seemed to die out. What gives?
Dismounted English Knights
Brandon Ross
Caleb Brown
Also please don't turn this into a "Angl*s are retards" thread. Serious answers appreciated
Jeremiah Thomas
Because you need the gentry to train how to fight in group, that is why some knights could do this and others could not.
For instance, when the Normans fought the Germans in Italy during the 11th century, they praised the Germans for their capability to dismount and form an infantry troop at whim, while they themselves could not.
It is not as easy as just dismounting, the men have to be trained how to fight on foot as a troop.
Jack Campbell
This. Fighting on foot and on horses require completely different fencing techniques and training.
Jason Gonzalez
Wasn't fighting on horseback more effective though? You could move faster and hit harder on horseback.
Actually I'd like to extend my original question. Why did the English in general not practice cavalry (pre-Norman and post-Norman)?
Justin Reed
>English knights
No such things
There were "French knights who lived in England", but there were no "English knights" as post-1066, the only remaining Anglos were peasants
Gavin Cooper
Ok
Anthony Garcia
Ignore him user.
Initially they were French but they assimilated and became English through intermarriage.
Liam Howard
Can you not have a pointless nationalist debate.
I just want to know why the English didn't train for cavalry. Surely it's more effective
Landon Russell
>ITT: idiot answers.
PROTIP: there's really nothing that says that Knights should be specialist cavalrymen.
The Medieval Knight originated from the Frankish "Miles" of the Frankish Kingdom. A Miles was literally a "Soldier." A professional one. Who stood in stark contrast to the part timers that formed the mass of the Frankish army.
Now for the cunts to remain professional, Frankish lords alloted Miles plots of land in order to liberate the Soldier from anything other than professional military service. During this time there was no social difference between the Miles who were stuck in infantry roles and the Miles who served as cavalry. They were social equals. Hell initially, tactically there wasnt even any difference: the mounted Miles were less cavalry and more mounted infantry.
However when the combined threat of Magyar, Muslim, and Norse raids threatened Frankish Hegemony, the ones with horses rose in prominence as they were able to ride out quickly and interdict multiple threats. In addition they quickly developed competence as dedicated cavalry as simply being merely mounted infantry to be able to stand toe to toe vs. Magyars and Muslims who had good cavalry.
And so the Knightly class was born and their importance rose socially, eclipsing their infantry fellows entirely until they swallowed them completely, with the infantry miles being pretty much tenants/employees of a cavalry miles who became Knights.
tl;dr a knight is not a specialist. He is ultimately trained to fight both on foot and on horseback in battle because his main job is to be a jack of all trades warrior. The only thing he's not trained on is archery, but even then some knights took the time.
Jose Sanchez
But surely using a horse is preferable to not
Ryder Rodriguez
>Wasn't fighting on horseback more effective though?
In the bogs and heath of England, no, they formed their own cavalry tradition of light raiding instead
Easton Wright
The Normans originally trained their cavalry in small close-knit groups of
Jaxson Thomas
Is England really that bad for cavalry?
Ayden Turner
It's not ideal, no, you want the tactical flexibility more than specialization in a charge
Connor Campbell
How did dismounted knights fair against mounted knights? Can you think of any examples?
Landon Brown
In certain contexts. For example: its not preferable when you're approaching stiff defenses.
Lord knows why HRE and Frenchfaggots did this in Legnano and Golden Spurs.
Camden Torres
A group of men on horse charging a group of men on foot is probably going to end very badly for the men on foot unless they have pikes and can form a square.
However, a group of men on horse who haven't built up speed for a charge are almost at the mercy of men on foot. The horses will die rather promptly, and then it'll be a man on foot against a man on foot who just fell off his horse.
Cavalry isn't very good in a stand-up fight, for obvious reasons; this is why, as notes, the earlier mounted forces of the Franks were less cavalry than they were mounted infantry. They rode to battle, got into position, and then fought on foot.
Cameron Richardson
>battle of golden spurs
Just looked it up. Damn, infantry really can fuck up cavalry.
Why did the French insist on using it well into the HYW then?
Aaron Watson
Rarely occurred, the entire point of dismounted knights is as a rapidly deployed heavy infantry, Crecy is a fine example and we all know how that turned out
Parker Jenkins
There are stories about Byzantine generals (successful ones, mind) ordering their troops to dismount and fight as infantry in the crush of battle. I think Belisarius ordered this at Dara, or maybe Narses at Taginae - maybe neither. I'm sure you'll find a few anecdotes somewhere. The point is that in certain circumstances it was considered advantageous by generals (or perhaps symbolic by historians) for cavalrymen to dismount even in the heat of a battle.
Anthony Harris
Were there any instances of French knights fighting dismounted?
Benjamin Hill
Because there's nothing as crushing as a successful heavy infantry charge. Literally wipes the enemy away and allows for maximum casualties during the route.
As for why it remained favorable in the HYW, that's because it was effective. And because nations like France didn't really have military doctrines. Once the role of heavy cavalry and the nobility became entwined, abandoning the heavy charge would be as socially acceptable as abandoning feudalism itself. There were a lot of people invested in that institution.
Of course, the downfall of the heavy charge, although it carried on for some time, was the invention of pike and shot during the Italian Wars with the Spaniards.
Colton Robinson
Not willingly
Grayson Gonzalez
I think Templars fought dismounted in quite a few battles
Nicholas Bennett
Agincourt
Heavily armored French knights charged on foot for a km in the mud
We all know how it turned out
Eli Carter
I thought it was the fact they used horses is why the French lost at Agincourt because their horses were heavy targets
Jaxon Moore
Also arrows raining down upon the knights scared the shit out of them. Some even believed it would go between the eye slits.
Tired, psychologically shaken and injured from horse falls.
Brody Thomas
Nah, the main charge was on foot, which is why they ended up exhausted and unable to fight upon reaching the enemy lines
Joseph Lewis
>Lord knows why HRE and Frenchfaggots did this in Legnano and Golden Spurs.
before kortrijk nobody knew how badass the simple goedendag could be
Noah Long
No that's Crecy, the cavalry attack at Agincourt was an opening move followed up by dismounted knights and men at arms
Leo Nguyen
Ive heard that the English used a cannon at Crecy
Anthony Powell
>The plate armour of the French men-at-arms allowed them to close the 1,000 yards or so to the English lines while being under what the French monk of Saint Denis described as "a terrifying hail of arrow shot".
>In any case, to protect themselves as much as possible from the arrows, the French had to lower their visors and bend their helmeted heads to avoid being shot in the face—the eye and air-holes in their helmets were among the weakest points in the armour. This head lowered position restricted both their breathing and their vision.
>Then they had to walk a few hundred yards through thick mud, a press of comrades and wearing armour weighing 50–60 pounds (23–27 kg), gathering sticky clay all the way. Increasingly they had to walk around or over fallen comrades.[50]
>The surviving French men-at-arms reached the front of the English line and pushed it back, with the longbowmen on the flanks continuing to shoot at point-blank range. When the archers ran out of arrows, they dropped their bows and using hatchets, swords and the mallets they had used to drive their stakes in, attacked the now disordered, fatigued and wounded French men-at-arms massed in front of them.
>The French could not cope with the thousands of lightly armoured longbowmen assailants (who were much less hindered by the mud and weight of their armour) combined with the English men-at-arms. The impact of thousands of arrows, combined with the slog in heavy armour through the mud, the heat and difficulty breathing in plate armour with the visor down[51], and the crush of their numbers meant the French men-at-arms could "scarcely lift their weapons" when they finally engaged the English line.[52]
Gabriel Russell
Good answer.
Luke Richardson
They did
Caleb Rivera
I wear a modern gambeson, gauntlets and and a fencing masks and those enough are tiring after moving around in them for few minutes. After a while it gets tough just to lift the sword. Glad I wore them though.
I wonder how getting shot by a warbow feels in plate armour.
Owen Watson
Damn, i kinda feel bad for the French
Kevin Thompson
Anglo-Saxons married back into Nobility. Post 1150, a knight in England could correctly be called an English knight. Lesser nobles like knights switched to speaking English by this point
Levi Murphy
Forgot to mention that in the 6th century professional soldiers in Byzantine armies were trained horse archers as well, so it wasn't as though they were incapable of fighting at distance, feigning a retreat, etc. - clearly dismounting could be tactically advantageous in a favourable situation, during a period where cavalry dominated the battlefield.
Thomas Miller
Dud High middle ages western European kingdoms ever practice horseback archery?
Cooper Thomas
No not really, they didn't have the tradition like the East did
Jayden Baker
I really adore how everyone, from internet shitposters to actual documentaries and history books, always completely overlooks the few thousand fully armored Englishmen with the longbowmen and solely focus on the archers, even when describing the melee.
In reality, there was no mass archer charge, it was a heavy infantry, fully armored English knightly onslaught against the sprawled French, with the archers merely acting in support, behind or close at hand to the anglotanks.
Liam Kelly
fucking this
this so much
also;
> Why did the French insist on using it well into the HYW then?
Because they would still achieve massive victories with the cav charge;
en.wikipedia.org
they weren't retarded.
Daniel Williams
Bump
Thomas Butler
>When OP's post is ignored in favor of talking about your own intrests instead of what HE asked on HIS thread
Henry Davis
they may have lost but damm they sure had balls of diamond
Adrian Russell
>The surviving French men-at-arms reached the front of the English line and pushed it back
thats pretty badass
Joshua Moore
>English Knights
Did such a thing even exist?
>horses in England
Are you kidding me?
Hudson Walker
Poitiers was also a French cavalry charge getting checked
Samuel James
When it comes to horse archery you lose alot of power and range than you would on foot, the more well of English yeomanry would ride horses then dismount at the battle as they would gain full useage from the bow
Nicholas Long
The French were badass at Agincourt
But they were also extremely retarded, which negated it
Ryan Hughes
They did seem to have that tendency to fight on foot.
It was probably related to their archery tactics. At meme battles like Agincourt where the majority of soldiers were bowmen, and the width of the battlefield was limited, not to mention that it was covered in obstacles, it simply makes sense to fight on foot in such situations.