Heavy cavalry (i.e., Cataphracts and lancers) have long been a part of warfare in the Near East. Yet it wasn’t until the middle ages that this part of the world seems to be aware of the very basic technology of a stirrup.
This is so bizarre to me. I notice that when I am sitting down in a chair or bed that my legs automatically reach for bracing when I try to pull or push something. I also notice that if I am sitting on sheets, they will work quite well for this purpose. Likewise, when on a horse and bracing myself my legs will automatically try to find purchase on the horse’s flanks.
We have evidence of stirrups going back to 800BC. The Mongols had them for probably a millenia before they invaded the West. Assorted Indian empires made use of them. The Chinese had been using them en masse since 400AD, at least.
It’s such a simple device to improve balance, control and bracing. At it’s simplest it’s just a rope tied to the saddle. Even the more advanced stirrup is nothing much, just a piece of metal connected to leather with a cross-bracing on the saddle to help with the weight distribution on the horse’s back. It’s insanely useful for doing full-force charges with a lance, for not flying out of your saddle when you’re swinging a mace, for bracing a bow pull and (the glory of glories) being able to stand up as a horse archer and use a full-length recurved compound bow (something the Japanese use to great effect).
Why does the ancient Western world seem to be so retarded about stirrups? Riding horses and heavy cavalry seem to both come out of Iran, and are adopted by most of the Near East and mediterranean Europe. I just don’t get what’s so hard about it!
I have no care for technologies that increase the level of suffering and crulety perpetuated by blind dogma and nationalism.
Cool story, bro, but that has nothing to do with my question.
Also, not all of us take libertarianism to be a religion that forces us to take a Manichean view of art and history. Large scale battles and campaigns of conquest are cool, even if you think the people engaged in them should probably be shot.
Simple answer: because they just couldn’t see it. The wheel was not adopted by certain peoples; the windmill and eye-glasses eluded the ancients, even though they had water mills (and Nero was said to look through emerald to improve his vision).
Misesian answer: due to the top-down bureaucratic nature of (ancient) militaries, innovation was stifled.
Also, horse-riding did not come from Iran, and neither did the horse-riding Iranians themselves for that matter. But I suppose you mean as an influence on Europe? Horse-riding in its most basic sense was widespread no later than the establishment of the IE languages. In warfare the Scythians (who were Iranians in the original sense of the word) were likely a great influence.
By Iran I mean the greater Iranian peoples of central Asia, not the narrower Persian territories.
Most war horses seem to have been bred in or bred with Iranian horses. The Chinese especially liked them. Most other horses were rather small for warfare.
Necessity is the mother of invention, right? I think we can reasonably conclude that it just wasn’t necessary for the type of light warfare that prevailed until relatively modern times. The Native Americans are famously depicted in movies for their extraordinary horseback skills that included riding on one knee in order to spring from the horse into the fray and begin killing hand to hand with the advantage of flying down on your opponent from out of the sky at 20 mph. Saddles, let alone stirrups, are unnecessary for this sort of fighting.
The stirrups matter when you’ve got heavy cavalry versus heavy cavalry. I’m no expert on ancient warfare but my guess is that you just generally didn’t have this kind of situation arise very often because it was just too damned expensive. If King Asana has cavalry why waste yours fighting him when you could go conquer King Ondala on the other frontier who just has foot soldiers and can’t stand against your cavalry.
Clayton -
I think we can reasonably conclude that it just wasn’t necessary for the type of light warfare that prevailed until relatively modern times.
Light warfare? There were more men one battle between Alexander and Darius than in most of the Principalities of Germany. Babylonians had bloody seiges involving twenty-thousand combatants. The army of Xerxes along numbered 360,000 men. And that doesn’t count peasant levies and mercenaries.
Heavy cavalry date to at least 500BC, the Kataphrakoi of the Seleucid empire were clothed head to foot in iron scale mail and their horse was simillarly garbed. The aforementioned Xerxes kept about 20,000 heavy cavalry in a standing force.
The phalanx needed heavy cavalry to compensate for its inflexibility. To cover its flanks and protect its soft behind. The legion had no such shortcomings.
The Romans did sometimes experiment with war elephants, though. They helped scare away the Seleucid cataphracts at Magnesia.
I wondered about this particular question myself. It just seems nobody came up with the idea until then. For one, being heavy cavalry was an upper class activity, that shrinks your pool of potential inventors by a lot. And medieval European nobles didn’t feel like they were in the business of making petty engineering work. They had their asses too far up in elitist pretensions to bother about adapting technology. Worrying about horses was something slaves did. Also, the assumption of progress wasn’t taken for granted in the same way it is today. It was just not their paradigm to ask themselves “how can this thingie I’m using right now be improved”. But most importantly, some technologies are just overlooked even if they’re obvious. If this goes to show anything, it is that progress and improvement has never been inevitable or automatic.
In the West, at least, the short answer is that it just wasn’t necessary. Most horses and asses were used as pack animals, not for riding. The Greeks and Romans used infantry as the backbone of their armies, with usually little if any cavalry. Cavalry were usually used after the battle while the enemy were retreating in order to run them down. Infantry were extremely well-armored and difficult to kill, compared to a cavalryman, who was easily taken down by a spear or pilum.
Though not trained in military matters, Titus Livy makes many astute observations concerning Roman military tactics. One of these is that during the battle of Lake Regillus, the first Roman Dictator to see battle orders his mounted troops to dismount and fight as an infantry unit. They would have been cut to pieces had they charged into a mass of bronze and iron on horseback. For the rest of the Roman Republic’s history, a requirement for the election of a Dictator (yes, in Rome, it was an elected office), was that he be physically capable of marching with the infantry.
The style of warfare changed in the West only when the stirrup was imported from barbarian invaders, and even then change was slow to come, since purely infantry-based warfare worked so well for so long.
The stirrup is of little value in bracing since you get lifted out of the stirrup during a lancing. For that you want a cantle on your saddle and proper positioning. Even that isn’t necessary (stirrupless, saddleless shock cavalry certainly existed). My understanding is that it isn’t of great value for fighting on a horse at all, unless you need to shoot a bow. I’m pretty sure most of these ideas about stirrups came from people who have never been on more than a guided trail horse.
It is mostly useful for long-distance riding. I don’t really know anything about private or recreational use of horses in Western cultures pre middle-ages (vs Steppe cultures who seem to have practically lived on their horses), but maybe they didn’t use them long distance.
The development of the stirrup relied heavily on the development of specific types of saddles, otherwise stirrups weren’t really practical.
The stirrup is of little value in bracing since you get lifted out of the stirrup during a lancing. For that you want a cantle on your saddle and proper positioning. Even that isn’t necessary (stirrupless, saddleless shock cavalry certainly existed).
Oh, sure, a cantle and a high pommel are hugely useful for your lancer, probably more so than the stirrup; though a stirrup can save him a lot of energy if it has a spur to let him brace his lance on instead of having him awkwardly sling it across his horse or try to hold it upright. Obviously there were Kataphrakoi and other heavy cavalry, in fact the ‘knight’ model of the Middle Ages probably comes from the Gothic adoption of Mediterranean heavy cavalry.
My understanding is that it isn’t of great value for fighting on a horse at all, unless you need to shoot a bow. I’m pretty sure most of these ideas about stirrups came from people who have never been on more than a guided trail horse.
The bow advantage is the big one, but as there were horse archers in most ancient armies it still would make a lot of sense. Ironically, the West adopts stirrups about the same time it apparently forgets how to use and field horse archers; even after the Mongols attack from Central Asia we still don’t seem to get it.
It is mostly useful for long-distance riding. I don’t really know anything about private or recreational use of horses in Western cultures pre middle-ages (vs Steppe cultures who seem to have practically lived on their horses), but maybe they didn’t use them long distance.
It depended on saddle availability and wealth. The horse is very expensive and uncomfortable to ride without a saddle, a donkey is the preferred riding animal in the Levant for much of classical history.