Mechanical advantage
Dr. Lynn White Jr. in his book Medieval Technology and Social Change, explicitly states that there is a direct causal relationship between the adoption of the stirrup for cavalry and the introduction and development of feudalism in Carolingian France. His belief is that the stirrup was necessary for “shock troop” capability and that without it, the mounted knight could not have evolved. His hypothesis started a fire storm among historians, since it attributed a major social system, the feudal system, to a simple mechanical device. Scholars with vested interests in the social causes of societal change were profoundly offended and a battle was joined that continues today.
From a technical point of view, White proposes that the energy transfer from animal to human to lance is enabled primarily by the coupling of the stirrup. It connects the horse’s 1000 pounds and forty-mile-per-hour speed to the end of the couched (under arm) lance via the knight. This massive momentum was used much like a tank to take down massed foot troops or mounted warriors. It gives competitive advantage to the user primarily in striking force, overpowering lightly armored horsemen such as our friend Barth.
White’s thesis set off this debate, because he credited the stirrup in changing the European world. His supporters and detractors generally agreed that there are good points in the counter arguments; a lance can be couched without the stirrup, that feudalism had other drivers and that other innovations made their own differences. However, no one disagreed that the stirrup was damned handy in mounted warfare.
Changing the world
The advantages of the stirrup, White believes, launched sweeping changes in warfare and society that lasted for nearly two thousand years. It shifted the balance of power in Europe. The maintenance of horses was expensive, and cavalry training was a long process. To support this, nobility granted land to mounted warriors for their service. The land provided the income to support the knight and this system of land holding was a key part of feudalism. Eventually, knighthood became a mark of social distinction, and the opportunity to become a knight was usually limited to men of noble birth. This web of political and military relationships among nobility, Professor White believes, caused the creation not only of the feudal system, but also of city states themselves.
White does not mince words. He writes,
Few inventions have been so simple as the stirrup, but few have had so catalytic an influence on history. The requirements of the new mode of warfare which it made possible found expression in a new form of western European society dominated by an aristocracy of warriors endowed with land so that they might fight in a new and highly specialized way…. The Man on Horseback, as we have known him during the past millennium, was made possible by the stirrup….
These mounted warriors were not just individual horsemen, they were part of an integrated fighting system. That fighting system was destined to finally shut down the mounted warriors from the steppes. It allowed the Europeans, for better or worse, to mount excursions into the lands of Arabia on the Crusades and to battle with each other for hundreds of years. And the system of government it spawned was to influence the west for hundreds of years. While the debate over the feudal system continues, there is no doubt that the stirrup enabled new forms of warfare for several millennia. Success in those forms of warfare changed who ruled and who perished. The languages we speak, the food on our table, the system of government we use and even our genetic makeup were affected. All from a few bits of metal and leather weighing around 600 grams. It changed our world.
Afterword
Only the adoption of another amazingly simple innovation would bring the mounted warrior down. Sometime in the thirteenth century, the English adopted “Five and a half feet of European Yew wood … about two pounds,” better known as the English longbow. Allowing striking distances several orders of magnitude beyond the mounted knight’s lance, it also countered his heavy armor with its penetrating power. Adopted from the Welsh, the English longbow would reverse the success of the tradition-bound French ground and mounted troops. In early battles, kill ratios (enemy soldiers vs. archers) of 1000 to 1 were not uncommon. With a range of nearly an eighth of a mile, the English longbow became the most feared weapon on earth. By any comparison, it was cheap to build and cheap to man. Overnight, it would dominate warfare and its users would dominate their lands. But that, as they say, is another story.
Copyright 2001 by The Derby Consulting Group, LLC
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Trained as a designer, Dan Derby has designed hi-tech gear, fixed dysfunctional organizations and for a decade taught university courses. Now he’s dug-in on a hill in rural New Hampshire. It’s warm and snowy there and the people are strong and true. He writes about the impact of technology on society.
References and Further Reading
Alvarez, R. P. “Saddle, Lance and Stirrup An Examination of the Mechanics of Shock Combat and the Development of Shock Tactics.”
Dien, Albert. “The Stirrup and Its Effect on Chinese Military History.”
Eade, Anthony. “A Short History of the English Longbow.”
Fjellman, Lynda. “Overview of Tack Western European Tack from 900-1600 c.e.”
Furnival, Mark. “The Avars Origins of the Avar Empire.”
Goetz, Hans-Werner, Albert Wimmer, trans., and Steven Rowan. Life in the Middle Ages : From the Seventh to the Thirteenth Century.
Hood, John. “Significance of the Stirrup in Medieval Warfare.”
“The Horse in History”.
Institute for Ancient Equestrian Studies.
Jones, Jim. “The Stirrup Study: aids for lecture on the impact of the stirrup.”
Liang, Qiao and Wang Xiangsui. “Unrestricted Warefare.”
Lienhard, John H. “Stirrups.”
Silkroad Foundation Home Page.
Sloan, John. “The Stirrup Controversy.”
White, Lynn Townsend. Medieval Technology and Social Change.
On the Wall
By Jo Walton, illustration by Colleen Doran
9/3/01
Trees. Tall trees and short trees, trees in autumn colours and trees winter-stark, branches bared against the sky. Trees with needles, trees with leaves golden, brown, and every possible shade of green. Trees in sunlight. Trees weighed down with snow. Trees that covered this land from the mountains to the sea with only a few clearings cut in them where men huddle. At first I could see nothing but trees. Nothing else stayed still for long enough.
I suppose there were years before I learned to understand, years in which I passively reflected what was set before me, but the first thing I remember is the trees. It was the trees that first made me think, long ago, when I was without words. What I thought was this, though more formless: trees change, but are the same. And I thought: there are trees before me, but I have seen other trees. And on that thought the other trees rippled on my surface, and the old man cried out in joy. I was not aware of that, of course. He told me later. At that point he was barely a shadow to me. He had never stood still for long enough for me to see him, as I could see a tree. I do not know how long it was before I learned to reflect people. People move so fast, and must always be doing.
The old man and his wife were great sorcerers both, and they had fled from some castle in some clearing, the better to have freedom to practice their arts. This was all they ever told me, though sometimes they set me to see that castle, a grey stone keep rising from trees, with a few tilled fields around it before the trees began again. The man had made me, he said, and they had both set spells upon me, and so I was as I was. They taught me from the time I was made, they said. They talked to me constantly, and at last with much repetition I learned not merely to reflect them but to see them and to understand their words and commands. They told me to show them other parts of the woods, or places in clearings, and I would do so, although at first anything I had not seen before would just pass over my face like a ripple in a pond. What I liked best was hour upon hour of contemplation, truly taking in and understanding something. When they left me alone I would always turn my thoughts to trees.
Their purpose in making me was to have a great scrying glass capable of seeing the future. In this sense I am a failure—I can see only what is, not what has been or will be. They still had hope I would learn, and tried to make me show them Spring in Autumn and Winter in Summer. I could not, I never could, nor could I see beyond the bounds of this kingdom. I have seen the sea lapping on the shore, the little strip of beach before the edge of the forest, and I have seen the snowy peaks of the mountains high up out of reach, but I have never seen further. These are my limits. Nevertheless I was a great and powerful work—they told me so—and there was much they found they could do with me. I did not mind. In time I came to enjoy seeing new things, and watching people.