Dimwitted Newbie Query: Humbly Ask Experts to Answer...

[Robert Murphy]

Sirs,

I understand that the myth of plate armor (correct away if I am wrong!!) being so heavy that a knight needed help to mount his horse is largely due to the 'popularity' of jousting, which neccessitated far heavier armor than would be worn in battle. Question in the late 13th and early 14th--i.e. the advent of full plate worn in battle--was the tactic of unhorsing a knight a common battle tactic? I have heard 13th century accounts of the Engleish order of battle as 3000 lances, supplemented by 4000 Welsh Yeomanry etc...

OK, long story short: How Was the lance used in battle?

No--not so easy , If it was insignifcant, then why practice so hard? (I.E. , Joust?)

Cheers,

Robert

[Will Adamson]

I may be wrong, but my understanding is that there were really two types of lances on a battlefield. The heavy cavalry carried a lance more like what is seen on the jousting field, although not blunted, and was used in line charges to punch holes in lines in order to break the will of the enemy and make them run.

Once they were on the run the other, more plentiful, lance bearing cavalry was used. These were called prickers. They were much more lightly armored than their heavy counterparts. A classic account of prickers is seen at the Battle of Towton where the rout was where the heaviest casualties occured. The breaking of lines at Towton was achieved with infantry though.

[Brad Johnson]

Sirs,

I understand that the myth of plate armor (correct away if I am wrong!!) being so heavy that a knight needed help to mount his horse is largely due to the 'popularity' of jousting, which neccessitated far heavier armor than would be worn in battle.

Robert

You are right this is a common myth. Although there are accounts of individuals, such as King Henry VII, having special suits made for tourney, the common knight would use their "regular" suit. Suits were expensive, and to have 1 full suit was an accomplishment. At most they may have a piece or 2 made slightly thicker on the impact side, going from 18ga on the rightside of the helm to 14ga on the leftside. Most period pieces I have held were about 18ga to 22ga steel. Very light, but also very strong due to the tempering and geometry put into them by the armourers. Most tourneys used blunted lances, to prevent injury to the knights, after all knights were expensive. There however was 1 tourney in Germany during the age where "anything goes." Sharpened lances were used and knights would have an especially heavey suit made for this tourney, and this is where the myth comes in. As usual 1 little fact is taken and turned into the norm. Hope this helps.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

As a matter of fact, I believe the lance of whatever variety had its greatest value in battle as a psychological weapon. Imagine the sight of a line of horses rushing at great speed towards you, tipped by a line of gleaming lance-heads; such a sight was certainly enough to frighten the less confident elements of a battle line to run away before contact was even made, and when the lances themselves made contact with the enemies' bodies then it was already a pursuit rather than a fight. It was far from being insignificant, since the skill to charge in a densely-packed mass of men and horses while consistently presenting the lance's point towards the enemy was not a very easy thing to acquire. At the very least the men had to be trained so that they would not break formation and race out on their own towards the enemy until they were sure that the enemy had been routed.

Sometimes contact did happen. Unfortunately the primary accounts of medieval battles do not always make it clear whether this contact was a matter of the two formations riding up to each other, halting, and then trying to "fence" and stab each other with their lances or opening up lanes so that files of men could pass by each other while trying to strike and defend against passing enemies.

Of course, the battle was not the only place for the lance. The tournament joust itself was not always a method of practicing for battle--quite often it was an end in itself, and its practitioners were the equivalent of modern sport celebrities. Certainly the cooperative demands of battle did not always coincide with the honing of individual skill needed for the joust.

Will's post is not wrong either. That seems to have been the way the English cavalry was sometimes employed in the Wars of the Roses.

BTW, try checking out this article on the tactical employment of medieval cavalry:

http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/a ... hrach3.htm

and this one on horse training and tournaments:

http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/pdfs/gillmor2.pdf

[LafayetteCCurtis]

Although there are accounts of individuals, such as King Henry VII, having special suits made for tourney, the common knight would use their "regular" suit. Suits were expensive, and to have 1 full suit was an accomplishment.

There was also a shortcut commonly used for turning a regular suit of armor into tournament armor--the addition of extra partial plates.

[Robert Murphy]

Hey, thanks for some very illuminating replies fellows!

And thanks for the links Lafayette--I'm about halfway through the first article...

Cheers,

Robert

[JeremyDillon]

From what I understand, the weapon involved in a cavalry's initial charge was a far less effective weapon than the horse itself. I can't imagine a lance killing more than one or (maybe) 2 people when initial impact was made, but imagine the kind of physical damage a mass of charging warhorses could do with just the sheer force of thier impact. This, I think, lends credence to Lafayette's idea of the lance as a psychological weapon. This is not to say that a lance would not be an incredibly deadly weapon. All the weight of a rider and his charging horse put into one small, sharpened point would, of course, be incredibly effective.

[Rodolfo Martínez]

From what I understand, the weapon involved in a cavalry's initial charge was a far less effective weapon than the horse itself. I can't imagine a lance killing more than one or (maybe) 2 people when initial impact was made, but imagine the kind of physical damage a mass of charging warhorses could do with just the sheer force of thier impact. This, I think, lends credence to Lafayette's idea of the lance as a psychological weapon. This is not to say that a lance would not be an incredibly deadly weapon. All the weight of a rider and his charging horse put into one small, sharpened point would, of course, be incredibly effective.

Yes, the strenght of the horse was also concentrating in the tip of the lance, so even protected by a full armor, you can get seriously injured if not dead. Take a read to this paragraph traslated from an spanish web site, about the battles of Janos Hunyadi and his unusual cavalry tactics:

¨The first Turkish warlord to receive Hunyadi's "calling card" of war was Beg Iszhak, commander of the Turkish garrison occupying Szendr. As punishment for past raids, Hunyadi caught up with Beg Iszhak's troops and forced them to make a stand. It was a regular battle with "irregular" tactics on Hunyadi's part. Iszhak assumed that, as usual, the Magyars would attack the main body of the Turks with cavalry. Hunyadi, however, had planned otherwise. Instead of sending his cavalry against the Turkish infantry, he sent his own elite foot soldiersto meet the central Turkish force in hand-to-hand combat. At the same time, the Hungarian cavalry attacked the enemy flanks which, unprepared for mounted assault, were soon dispersed. With this part of the job done, the cavalry turned its attention to the central Turkish troops, who were already flagging from fighting the Magyar infantry.

The battle was an unmitigated disaster for Beg Iszhak and put an end to his marauding on Hungarian soil.¨