wrote:
>> > >Changes that did take place include (as David Salo pointed out) the
>> > >use of couched lances by cavalry
>
>A tidbit:
>
>Theoden, just before dawn at Helm's Deep (the "old badger in a trap"
>passage) says (roughly, IDHMBWM) "If I could put my spear in rest then I
>could at least take some of the slimeballs with me." He definitely uses
>the words "put my spear in rest." What else could this refer to but a
>couched lance?What book did you get THAT from?
Okay, I'm too tired to quote the actual passage. Theoden does speak of
resting a spear but not in the context you recall. What follows is mostly
cut-and-pasted.
Here is something clipped from an interesting Web site:
http://www.chronique.com/Library/Glossaries/glossary-AA/arms_b.htm#breastplate
The Web site's main URL, for those who are curious, is:
http://www.chronique.com/Library/Glossaries/glossary-KCT/glssindx.htm
The site is titled:
KNIGHTHOOD, CHIVALRY & TOURNAMENT: GLOSSARY OF TERMS
It appears to be pretty well researched.
Breastplate: Originally evolving out of the cote of plates as the size on
each individual plate increased and the front plate was increasingly
globular, the breastplate was fully formed by 1360 or so but was not in wide
use until the 1380s. This globular design provided an effective glancing
surface that deflected both hand and missile weapons. During the 1360-1400
period it was seen both in the covered and open form, often worn over a
gambeson, though it was sometimes worn under as well. There are
illustrations that show the breastplate worn both over and under of an outer
houpelande, but by 1400 the usual practice was to attach the breastplate to
the backplate and provide faulds for the defense of the hip, the solution
widely implemented during the whole of the 15th century. In the middle of
the 14th century a "stop rib" was often added to the area just below the
neck to keep lances and sword points from skipping up into the throat.
During the same period, a lance rest was added to enable the knight to more
easily couch the lance for a longer period of time. The edge around the neck
and arm openings was rolled outward, sometimes over a wire, to guard against
chafing and to help deflect a weapon from these vulnerable areas.
http://www.chronique.com/Library/Glossaries/glossary-AA/arms_l.htm#lance
Lance (weapon used in the joust): The long shaft of ash tipped with a sharp
iron or steel tip, varying in length from 9 to 14 feet in length. A vamplate
was developed near the end of the 15th century to protect the hand and arm,
and lance rests were built into breastplates from the late 14th century
onwards to help steady the lance as the horse galloped towards the target.
Okay. Couched lances don't necessarily go with breastplates -- the
significant point in the above is that the lance rest was "added to enable the
knight to more easily couch the lance for a longer period of time."
Note that the Rohirrim don't wear breastplates, and they don't joust, so the
issue of couched lances is not nearly as significant as some would prefer it
to be.
As I've pointed out in previous discussions, the Roman clibinarii (heavily
armored cavalry) of the 3rd and 4th centuries used lances in a similar
fashion, although they did not use stirrups or breastplates.
Another Web site which discusses Roman military units briefly is:
http://www.unipissing.ca/department/history/orb/lra.htm
The title is:
ORB ONLINE ENCYCLOPEDIA, LATE ANTIQUITY IN THE MEDITERRANEAN: THE LATE ROMAN
ARMY
Another interesting site which discusses Sassanian techniques is located at:
http://gumby.spa.umn.edu/cscdir/dbm/sasslst0.html
The title of the site is:
KILLER DBM ARMY LIST FOR SASSANIAN PERSIANS
The site is an article published in gaming magazine or journal. The second
paragraph discusses the Sassanian lancers that I've also referred to in past
discussions.
2.1 - Regular and knight generals
Facial hair notwithstanding, the Sassanian Persians were not barbarians.
From the earliest part of this dynasty, opponents stressed the discipline
wielded by the leaders within the army. As part of an ancient highly
structured society, the military had a top-down organization. Within this
hierarchy, the greatest nobles and their retainers fought the gradually
increased power of the shahanshah. Yet they proved unable to stop the growth
of the bureaucracy at court in Ctesiphon. The extent of this aggrandizement
is a matter of debate. Here I have taken the view that increased
command-and-control capabilities will be reflected in a greater number of
regular generals after the accession of Khusro I in 531 AD.
The rating of Kn (X) for generals in the early empire is overdue. Depictions
of the shahanshah as an armored lancer riding an armored horse are found in
rock carvings from the 3rd and 4th centuries. These horses are charging,
their riders are impaling opponents on long kontos, and the scenes call
forth the art of medieval Europe. Modern analyses indicate that sometime
after the Hunnic invasions of the late 4th and 5th centuries Iranian heavy
cavalry stressed the bow over the lance. Arab sources claim 421 AD as the
pivotal date, and so for convenience I have used 428.
A related article is located at:
http://gumby.spa.umn.edu/cscdir/dbm/dbm.sassart0.html
Another interesting site is located at:
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/~nantiq/arma/welc/beginner/faq1.htm
This is THE BEGINNERS' GUIDE TO ROMAN MILITARY EQUIPMENT. Among other things,
it says:
Clothing
Q: Did Roman soldiers wear a uniform?
A: Not in the modern sense. All soldiers had to have a sword, helmet,
armour, and a shield, but there was no requirement for them to be
identical. No convincing evidence survives to indicate that any
particular elements or group of elements of equipment were specific
to particular units, although there is at least one hint that particular
types of helmet crest may have indicated certain units.
I noticed this while looking at another entry and recalled that someone was
concerned about the different styles of dress of Gondor's soldiers.
Naturally, J.R.R. Tolkien probably did not have access to this FAQ.
I found the following on a site which cites DON QUIXOTE:
Saying this and commending himself most devoutly to his lady Dulcenia whom
he begged to help him in his peril, he covered himself with his buckler,
couched his lance, charged at them with Rosenantes in a full gallop and
rammed the first mill in his way. He ran his lance into the sail but the
wind twisted it with such violence that it shivered the lance in pieces
and dragged both rider and horse after it rolling them over and over on the
ground sorely damaged.
Now, Tolkien is by no means required to write similarly to a translation of
Cervantes, but it would not have harmed Tolkien's narrative to use the word
"couched" on occasion. It never occurs in the text of THE LORD OF THE RINGS.
Here is a more precise description of couching a lance from another Web site
(that looks to me like it lifted the essay from Encarta):
http://www.smsd.k12.ks.us/belinder/bebooks/agearmor.htm
In the 11th century it became acceptable battle technique to charge with
the lance couched, that is, held under the right armpit. The left, or
shield, side of the knight was always turned to the enemy. The former
oval-shaped shield was therefore modified to an elongated form with a
sharp lower point, to protect the horse man from head to knee, but this
protection locked the fighter in too rigid a position. After a
face-covering visor was developed and added to the helmet, the upper part
of the shield was cut straight; and after solid knee protectors and greaves
of plate had been developed, the lower point of the shield was shortened.
Since the visor made the knight's face unrecognizable, identifying marks
had to be placed on the shield, the most convenient surface. This was
the origin of heraldry. Crusaders wore a sleeveless surcoat over
their mail as protection against the hot sun; these surcoats too became
emblazoned with heraldic emblems and were known as coats of arms.
A historian named John Sloan posted a lengthy discussion of cavalry technology
to a medieval studies discussion list and it has been cited on a Web site
(with permission) at the following URL. It's titled "The Stirrup Controversy"
and Professor Sloan makes some interesting points.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/sloan.html
Wise, Terence, "Medieval Warfare", Osprey, London, 1976. The subject is a
later period, but Wise points out that it was the cantle and pommel of
the saddle in which the knight was strapped, that enabled him to deliver
the powerful blow with couched lance. He sees the full use of lance as a
development of a later period.
Tolkien does not say or suggest that the Rohirrim strapped themselves into
their saddles.
Dupuy, Trevor, "The Harper Encyclopedia of Military History," Harper
Collins, New York, 1993. He as this to say, "The great impetus to the
employment of cavalry, particularly for shock action, came through Asian
developments. First, the invention of the saddle, with stirrups, gave to
the horse soldier a firm base from which a stout lance could brutally apply
the force resulting from the speed of the horse multiplied by the weight
of horse and rider. Second, in Persia and on the steppes of Central Asia
new breeds of heavy horses appeared, particularly suitable for such shock
action. These were soon adopted by the Romans, who - like the Persians -
covered man and horse with coats of chain mail to make them relatively
invulnerable to small missiles and light hard weapons."
Heath, Ian, "Armies of the Dark Ages 600-1066", Wargames Research Group,
Sussex, 1980. A comprehensive reference to all the armies of the period,
their organization, tactics, and armament, and the battles. Contains an
extensive bibliography. Heath shows that the introduction of the "kite
shaped" shield in Germany was later than the time given by White, and it
was used initially by infantry rather than cavalry and came from Byzantium,
not the other way around. He writes that the Carolingian cavalry threw or
used their lance overarm more often than in a couched position. He notes
that stirrups were introduced after the Merovingian dynasty, during
Carolingian times.
Nicolle, David, "The Armies of Islam 7th-11th Centuries," Osprey, London,
1982. The author is an expert in his field. He indicates that the Arabs
developed armored cavalry armed with lances as shock troops very early
and copied Byzantine tactics. He notes, "The Umayyad era was also a
transitional one as far as stirrups were concerned. Those of the
leather-loop variety were already known, though they were generally
despised as signs of weakness. Arabs met iron stirrups in Khurasan,
where the Muslim governor is recorded as having obliged his troops to
adopt them at the close of the 7th century." Further he notes, "It is
even possible that the kite-shaped so-called Norman shield was of
Byzantine origin, ultimately being a development of an Iranian infantry
shield."
Finally (the essay is QUITE lengthy), he says this in response to certain
issues:
Leaving aside the social-political questions related to "feudalism", the
stirrup itself poses a difficult task for White. He has to show how the
stirrup could be associated so uniquely with the Carolingians as well as
with cavalry in general. For many years it was popular wisdom to associate
the end of infantry predominance and rise of the cavalry arm with the
Gothic victory over the Roman legions at Adrianople in 378 AD. And this
was presumed to be due in part to the Gothic cavalry using stirrups. The
falsity of this view was rather well known by the time White wrote and he
correctly points this out. The victory was not especially due to cavalry,
nor did the Goths have stirrups. But he still assumes that cavalry
replaced infantry for technical military rather than for other reasons.
And he attempts to discount any groups other than the Franks initiating
this shift. White does not explain why the introduction of the stirrup
was necessary to get the Franks to "see the light" and become cavalrymen
or why the Goths had been so successful as cavalry for centuries prior
without stirrups.
Nevertheless, it is clear that in both the Byzantine professional army
and those of most of their opponents cavalry did supplant infantry over
the immediately following centuries. White's response is rather lame, "The
use of cavalry in the early Christian centuries demands much more careful
investigation than it has received."
He does mention the introduction of the saddle with high pommel and cantle.
In my opinion this is more necessary for the effective lancer than are
stirrups. White goes into great detail to show that the stirrup was not in
general use before the 8th and even 9th centuries. And he may be correct
in his dating of its adoption in Western Europe. What he fails to address
are the following: 1. the effective use of heavily armored cavalry without
using stirrups outside France long before 700AD. and 2. the continued use
of armored cavalry with stirrups outside France after 700AD but without
"feudalism". He completely ignores the question of why cavalry supplanted
infantry in the first place, not only in France, but in many places. He
focuses on the technological question without considering the more
fundamental issue of the relationship of military institutions (army
structures) to the social-political institutions of the societies that
create them.
What is perhaps most telling about all this is that Tolkien fans are by no
means unique in wrangling with different views over cavalry techniques. What
is clear is that innovation began in the east and spread westward, probably through the
eastern empire rather than around it. But the innovations attributed to the
Medieval period were all enhancements to techniques used previously and were
not directly revolutionary. Also, the repeated references to Roman heavy
cavalry makes it clear that these guys were not obscure.
If the Rohirrim couched their spears they were not practicing a technique
peculiar to the Medieval period, and in fact could not have been implementing
the techniques of the 14th century which saw developments in plate armor that
benefitted couched lancing in particular.
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