
The Great Stirrup Controversy - apsec112
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stirrup_Controversy
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trhway
> White believed that the stirrup enabled heavy cavalry and shock combat

or one can say that warming climate (which resulted in Roman Empire fall and
led to the rise of the Franko/German territories to the north of it) allowed
for heavy cavalry which would otherwise wouldn't get through the swampy
forests which were there before. If you look at dry regions at other
places/times you'd see pretty heavy cavalry there too.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataphract](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataphract)

"While they varied in design and appearance, cataphracts were universally the
heavy assault force of most nations that deployed them, acting as "shock
troops" to deliver the bulk of an offensive manoeuvre, ... While their roles
in military history often seem to overlap with lancers or generic heavy
cavalry, they should not be considered analogous to these forms of cavalry,
and instead represent the separate evolution of a very distinct class of heavy
cavalry in the Near East that had certain connotations of prestige, nobility,
and esprit de corps attached to them. In many armies, this reflected upon
social stratification or a caste system, as only the wealthiest men of noble
birth could afford the panoply of the cataphract, not to mention the costs of
supporting several war horses and ample amounts of weaponry and armor."

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berntb
Informative about the Eastern heavy cavalry, thanks!

But it was 500+ years between the fall of the Roman empire and heavy cavalry
owning the battle field in Western Europe?

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trhway
that warming up took the whole first millennium, and the degree of the warming
up that severely impacted grain production in Mediterranean (while at the same
time enabling better agriculture and thus resulting in population growth north
of Danube) wasn't necessary the same that made the German forests dry enough
to make heavy cavalry use feasible. Before heavy cavalry, it made it dry just
enough for the Goths/"barbarians" (and don't forget the Huns) tribes to move
efficiently through starting in the 3rd-4th century. In many cases they had
cavalry and since then it was down the hill toward the 7th-8th century
emergence of the knights.

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tbingmann
Interesting. I have a theory that most historic shifts are mainly due to some
technological advancement or invention, and not mainly due to politics. For
example, Nazi Germany may have been the result of the invention or mass
distribution of the radio as a method of influencing a nation. It is known
that the Romans conquered Europe due to military strategy and superior iron
weapons. The list goes on and on, however, history books tend to focus only on
the sociological or political story.

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Lasokki
Do note that this idea of technological determinism[0] is referenced directly
in the parent article.

As for me, I'd like to think that a bit more nuanced approach is better. Yes,
stirrups might enable men to use horses in new ways and to brace themselves on
horseback. But this sort of expensive heavily armoured cavalry cannot exists
in a vacuum. It needs a class of wealthy people who can buy armour and horses.
The wealthy need some sort of motivation to train themselves as warriors and
so on. If you are interested in the subject, The Making of Europe: Conquest,
Colonization and Cultural Change, 950-1350 by Robert Bartlett [1] is an
excellent book on the subject.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_determinism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_determinism)

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Making-Europe-Conquest-
Colonization-C...](https://www.amazon.com/Making-Europe-Conquest-Colonization-
Cultural/dp/0691037809)

~~~
usrusr
> It needs a class of wealthy people who can buy armour and horses.

A chicken/egg cycle, initialized by temporary imbalances that created a stable
system: an increased advantage of cavalry over infantry drives up the price
for "protection", which in turn feeds the horses. With less advantage of
cavalry over infantry, the class system would have been much less pronounced.

In the spirit of "strange women lying in ponds distributing swords": a fluent
socio-economic power structure was converted into an intransparent class
system self-stabilized by the barrier of entry imposed by the inherent cost of
heavy cavalry.

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vacri
This reminds me of being handed some Lyndon LaRouche documentation[1] that
claimed that World War 2 was due directly to English machinations around the
pound sterling in the 1920s. As in, something that may have had some minor
peripheral add-on effect is being claimed by a fanatic to be the One True
Cause.

[1] I hesitate to call it 'literature'...

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nl
Oh wow - I read about this theory about 20 years ago and I've never been able
to find anything about it since.

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cooper12
Were academics calling it "Great" ironically (as a form of hyperbole) and the
name stuck?

