[HN Gopher] Great Stirrup Controversy
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Great Stirrup Controversy
Author : raviparikh
Score : 31 points
Date : 2022-01-22 16:19 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
| [deleted]
| darkerside wrote:
| This is yet another example of humanity's silly tendency to
| demand a "reason" for things, as if history were a spherical core
| in a vacuum. History deals less in "because" than it does in "and
| then".
| inglor_cz wrote:
| The stirrup was a great innovation, though. It is hard to say
| that innovations such as gunpowder, ocean-going vessels, the
| printing press, antibiotics etc. didn't have a significant
| impact on history. And stirrups probably belong in that
| category; they made a certain type of warfare much more
| efficient and probably led to breeding of much heavier horses
| than before.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| The Wikipedia article mentions this is debatable as well -
| there are scholars claiming that in experiments stirrups
| don't make a major difference, and that there is evidence of
| armored cavalry before stirrups were invented.
| halpert wrote:
| And yet some things do have causes.
| WaxProlix wrote:
| I like to think of these sorts of things as enabling various
| courses of history, rather than as strictly causing one or
| another. Maybe the stirrup made these things possible; the
| choices of the Carolingians, and of everyone else at the time,
| might be more like 'causes'.
| darkerside wrote:
| IMO anthropomorphizing crowds is just as faulty as
| anthropomorphizing history
| ummonk wrote:
| I'm not familiar enough with early medieval military history to
| know the ins and outs of this debate, but theory seems obviously
| falsified by the fact that chariot technology in other time
| periods did not result in such a feudal system.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| If it were obviously falsified by evidence a random fact that
| reasonably well-educated but non-specialist knows off the top
| of their head, it wouldn't be a controversy and hardly of note.
|
| Scholars have written scores of papers and spilled gallons of
| ink on both sides of the topic. What do you know that they
| don't?
|
| I think the theory is wrong, or at least incomplete, but the
| evidence against isn't as clear as all that.
| DarylZero wrote:
| x
| sillyquiet wrote:
| Yeah, none of that is true. Chariots were the deciding factor
| in many battles from the point they were invented by the
| people of the Sintashta culture until the last few centuries
| BCE and spread everywhere from Egypt to India to China.
| Chariots did not need roads, but they were certainly less
| effective in broken terrain - but so is mounted cavalry.
|
| The reason they spread so quickly from the Eurasian steppes
| to throughout most of Europe and Asia was precisely because
| they were so dominant. As a matter of fact, not only did the
| chariot spread, but the horses the Sintashta culture and its
| immediate daughter cultures bred to best PULL the chariots
| spread with the chariot to the extent they are the ancestors
| of every single domestic horse in the world.
| ummonk wrote:
| Amazing. Every word of what you just said was wrong.
| [deleted]
| thrower123 wrote:
| The Stirrup Theory is the kind of nonsense I'd buy when I was 11
| and believed in Civilization 2's technology tree.
|
| There's a thousand years of highly effective heavy cavalry
| predating the purported introduction of stirrups to Europe, for
| one thing. For another, the supposed military revolution around
| mounted knights is far messier than the just-so story that is
| packaged. The chronological correlation between archeological
| finds of metal stirrups and the development of the feudal knight
| isn't even very strong.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Interestingly, the Anglo-Saxon fyrd and huscarls, a mounted
| infantry but infantry nonetheless, were crushed at Hastings
| (1066) by proper Norman cavalry, even though the same troops
| under the same commander Harold Godwinson had won a very
| significant battle (Stamford Bridge) against the (unhorsed)
| Vikings just a few weeks before that.
|
| They put up a great fight and the initial Norman attempts were
| unsuccessful, but at the end, the cavalry prevailed.
| appleflaxen wrote:
| What's the difference between mounted infantry and cavalry? I
| thought the mounting of soldiers on horses made it a cavalry
| automatically...
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| I've often wondered how much the journey to Hastings in such a
| rapid fashion wore out Godwinson's troops prior to that battle.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Oh, it definitely did, but worse problem was the
| undisciplined fyrd that was fresher but fell for the Normans'
| feint. (They pretended to be retreating and the fyrd broke
| their ranks in pursuit.)
| gumby wrote:
| We're they indeed crushed? I thought the Anglo-Saxons had the
| upper hand until Harold caught an arrow in his eye, which may
| have distracted and disheartened his soldiers.
|
| I'm also not sure there were many horses involved, though tbh
| it's been a couple of decades since I cared about this battle
| and my memory may be poor.
|
| Harold Godwinson was an extraordinary commander. To permanently
| throw the Vikings out of Britain and then march and almost
| repel the Normans (though basically also Vikings) shows
| terrific determination. And he chose his territory well: he had
| the upland position boxed in at the sides and with the Normans
| having only the sea at their back -- he should have won. His
| troops were incredibly tough guys.
|
| Had he carried the day I think he would have been a good
| leader. His case was stronger than subsequent propaganda has
| portrayed.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I admire Harold as well. Too bad that his brothers insisted
| on taking part in the battle and fell too. Either of them
| could have become a new king of England, continuing the
| hostilities against the Normans.
|
| IIRC the Norman cavalry played a decisive role in routing the
| fyrd at least, but it has been some years since I looked into
| that as well, so my memory may be faulty.
|
| Harold might or might not have caught an arrow in his eye.
| There is a great deal of symbolism in that narrative, because
| an arrow in an eye would be a divine punishment for
| oathbreakers, and William insisted that Harold previously
| took an oath on holy relics to be his liege.
|
| So it is not impossible that the detail about the arrow in
| eye is a latter embellishment to make the story more
| righteous from the Norman side.
| gumby wrote:
| Years ago the alarm code at my office was set to 1066 and
| for some reason I needed to tell my then 10 yo the code.
|
| He immediately said "arrow to the eye"! So for his sake at
| least I hope the story is true.
| philip1209 wrote:
| Cal Newport talked about this as an example of technological
| determinism in his book A World Without Email!
| dang wrote:
| Past related threads:
|
| _Great Stirrup Controversy_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19181137 - Feb 2019 (16
| comments)
|
| _The Great Stirrup Controversy_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13226572 - Dec 2016 (13
| comments)
| trhway wrote:
| How about climate change, the warming/drying in Europe which
| allowed for heavy cavalry to operate sussessfully starting not
| surprisingly at the driest place in Europe at the time - in the
| Spain with Reconquista. Not surprisingly heavy cavalry quickly
| sunsets starting around Agincourt, beginning of the wet Little
| Ice Age, when heavy French couldn't operate in the rain soaked
| fields. About the same time of the last Crusade when heavy
| European knights couldn't dominate lighter forces anymore.
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