The White Council

 :   : I think the number of the references to Gondorian cavalry :   : confirms the overall impression that mounted warfare, whilst :   : not all pervading as in Rohan, was an important part of the :   : Gondorian armed forces. : 

 :   Which doesn't answer my question. : 

: Somewhere, somehow I gave Martin the impression I was arguing against a Gondorion cavalry. I did say early on something incorrect about the bulk of the Gondorian cavalry sent to Eriador having come from the Vales of Anduin. Tolkien doesn't say whether they made up a majority of the cavalry.

Yes I was under the impression that you were supporting some of the earlier assertions of Gondor's armies being almost exclusively heavy infantry. Which is why I was searching for any indications in the text which supported Gondor's use of native cavalry. I really believe that Gondor had a well balanced army including a core of heavy infantry supported by lighter infantry including archers, and also containing a neccessary proportion of mounted troops, largely of a more or less "Heavy" kind.

: So he constructed a very good argument for showing that Gondor really did raise its own cavalry, which it supplemented with mercenaries or immigrants from the Vales of Anduin. All well and good, but really beside the point (for me).

: The point is, were all of Imrahil's men mounted soldiers? Going strictly by the meaning of the term "man-at-arms", one would have to conclude they were. But Tolkien didn't always use archaic words and phrases in their strictest sense. He liked to expand their meanings and uses. So, who is to say that he did not do so with "men-at-arms"?

He also made use of many archaic words, or even used more common modern words but in an archaic sense.

: I'm not sure anyone is alive today who is qualified to answer the question, but I would certainly welcome more discussion of the subject. It would radically alter my view of Imrahil's contribution to the war against Mordor if I could be sure all his men were mounted.

I doubt if anyone, even myself, could be sure on this question. But there are a number of pointers. Given his knowledge of language (specifically Middle English) he would have been well aware of the original meaning of the term men-at-arms. In the context he used it for he could have used many other phrases, if he meant that these troops were infantry - spearmen (a favourite term of his), heavily armed footsoldiers etc. He did not use these terms, at the very least he intended the phrase he did use to indicate that these soldiers were elite troops of some kind; this is confirmed by his later description of them in the passage. Of course the most elite of troops in all pre-modern armies were the heavy-horse (for example the cuirassiers of Napoleon's cavalry)which tends to reinforce this interpretation.