I know of one ilness at least who can be deadly to horses - it give them a SEVER flu like thing, with disgusting secretions; the horses have to be tracheotomised(?) at times...
"Footmen" based 'Knights' and 'Knighthood'?
- Thread starter The Ubbergeek
- Start date
Given the state of hippiatry during the middle-ages, i think that tracheotomy would be ever more devastating than the most severe epidemy
Given the state of hippiatry during the middle-ages, i think that tracheotomy would be ever more devastating than the most severe epidemy
So yeah, if this illness began to REALLY spread a round, the poor things are screwed... if they endure and don'y reach the severe, breathing paths obstructing level, it's ok, if not.. screwed on eitheir way.
Could create MASSIVE lost in horse cheptels.Horses are surprisingly fragile creatures, so a suitably contagious disease that was fast acting could kill off the majority of horses in Europe fairly quickly, with the danger of becoming a global epidemic.
The Hendra Virus might be a good starting point to thinking up a fictional disease: http://www.csiro.au/science/Hendra-Virus.html
The Hendra Virus might be a good starting point to thinking up a fictional disease: http://www.csiro.au/science/Hendra-Virus.html
The illness I think of is eitheir what is called in french 'Gourme' or 'Morve', it seems..
But as you said yeah, there is a lot of illnesses indeed...
But as you said yeah, there is a lot of illnesses indeed...
There is a simple solution: Let the knights adapt to the new military tactics used by the Swiss. A heavy cavalry is useless against a very disciplined infantry with polearms or archers. So the knights become heavy infantry.
Another solution would be a bourgeois variant of knighthood. These warriors are not trained in horse combat but in combat on foot. They use armour that is heavier than the normal armour of footmen but lighter than the armour of knights. It has to be light enough for a fight on foot. They use they same weapons (one-handed weapon and shield) a dismounted knight would use, but two-handed weapons are also common. In a battle they are used as commanders of infantry units. (This is based on one of the classes from the German RPG "Das Schwarze Auge".)
Another solution would be a bourgeois variant of knighthood. These warriors are not trained in horse combat but in combat on foot. They use armour that is heavier than the normal armour of footmen but lighter than the armour of knights. It has to be light enough for a fight on foot. They use they same weapons (one-handed weapon and shield) a dismounted knight would use, but two-handed weapons are also common. In a battle they are used as commanders of infantry units. (This is based on one of the classes from the German RPG "Das Schwarze Auge".)
What was the cheapest heavier armor in middle age, BTW? I know its a D&D term, but 'chainmail' was it? Could you field a 'legion' in it for reasonable price and time?
Barbarossa Rotbart, I like those ideas!
Barbarossa Rotbart, I like those ideas!
Depends on the period. Probably the cheapest was the padded/quilted stuff. By the later period, it was easier to get plate armor since mail always had the labor costs of doing the rings. They were roughly comparable (cost) but it was faster to get plates which were usually better.
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Plate mail has the problem that it emcumbers its wearer much more than chainmail or scale mail.
Polearms always existed, and spears remained the popular, litteraly, weapon from Neolithic to Renaissance.
Even more, the half of polearms that RPG describe (and that were really used in Middle-Ages) are dervied from paesent's tools.
You'll say me that a levy isn't very disciplined and i would concurr. But having a disciplined and trained non-noble army require money. A lot of.
So, we're back to the problem i mentioned, you need both an economical conjoncture were both men can't find enough job and a monetarization of feudal fiscality.
Or, if we're talking about free-men based system, i'm afraid that the Frankish army was based on a strong infantry with polearms and that didn't advert the brith of a noble cavalry.
I see a problem here. As the bourgeoisie really rise as a class after the stabilization of medieval nobilty, it's the bourgeoisie that is attracted by noble knighthood (as the changes in the XII shows) and not the nobles attracted by the bourgeois model : the militia.
Clibanarius
Banned
Well, OTL 'Knights' fought as often on foot as they fought on horseback, that's why they were the dominant arm. They had trained since childhood and they could fight as either heavy cavalry or heavy infantry or they lighten their gear and function as light troops.
Of course knight could fight on foot. But horsebacked fight was better considered and the mounted knights searched first the fight with other mounted knights.
Why? Because the oen who can afford a knight, is able to pay a ramson. We've record of battles where knights wounded footmen for reaching faster the other guys.
In a more general sense, cavalery became definitly the "queen of battles", the infantery being here mostly for lower tasks. It doesn't mean that a knight would always refuse to be on foot, but it was clearly unwilling to.
Hell, we've plenty of cases were kights have preferred to pay a compensation to their suzerain for not having to do that.
However, if you can manage to have a noble cavalery, but to keep the primitive non-noble knighthood by making the Church much more suspicious about it, you'll have basic knight infantry.
if the cavaliers caste could be discredited..
Also, an historical fact - peasants often have actually skills with some weapons, are often allowed arms depending on the culture and rule and to army training. Pesants and such are levied into armies, and there was possibly veterans in common vilages..
Also, an historical fact - peasants often have actually skills with some weapons, are often allowed arms depending on the culture and rule and to army training. Pesants and such are levied into armies, and there was possibly veterans in common vilages..
Clibanarius
Banned
Actually no, Plate's more flexible than Mail and re-enactors in authentic suits are still able to do hand-stands and cart-wheels and RL Knights were expected to vault into the saddle
They did, it was called the Cannon and it wasn't the Pikes alone, in earlier battles the Swiss did manage to hold off the Burgundian Men-at-arms but were unable to capitolize on their success until they got Men-at-arms of their own. And Heavy Horse punched through the lines of pike squares on more than one occassion.
And 'Knights' (although Men-at-arms would be a more appropriate term) fought on foot plenty of times, at Courtrai for instance there several hundred dismounted Men-at-arms who were stiffening the ranks of the peasants. And at Agincourt and Poitiers. There were several battles during the crusades where they fought on foot and on more than one occasion when they ran into a Heavy Infantry formation that they were having trouble breaking they simply dismounted and then tore the Infantry apart on foot.
Besides, Cavalry don't generally attack the front of an enemy formation, they have superior mobility and maneuverability so the preferred tactic was to sweep the other guy's cavalry from the field and then hit his vulnerable infantry in the flanks or the rear.
whitecrow
Banned
It would require earlier trans-Atlantic contact. Difficult? Yes. ASB? I think not.
I do not know when Aztec warfare appeared. Do you have any links that could enlighten me?
In any case, when I referred to earlier trans-Atlantic contact, I did not mean contact during the Dark Ages. I was thinking more along the lines of contact in 1000-1300 A.D.
Is 1000-1300 A.D. High Middle Ages?
Point.
I do not understand what you are trying to say here.
Can’t you have Aztecs (or some of their contemporaries) over time adopting parts of European culture (maybe even becoming Christian) and turning their elite units into knight orders?
The Aztecs as a nation appeared in the 1300's. Though the Eagle and Jaguar Warriors, among the other warrior societies, were more similar to knights than LSCatilina is giving them credit for. They were elite orders with specific rules for joining and pretty much considered nobility, though any peasant who made a enough of a name for himself in battle could theoretically become one. But that's just because Mesoamerican society was not as strict or classist as European society, mobility between ranks or classes was always possible.
^I thought his point was that if there's enough contact to cause the Aztecs to see their warrior groups as Knight Orders in the European sense, there will be enough contacts to make them adopt horses as a preferred mode of combat for the warrior elite and you are back where you started. Though perhaps you could get a situation where the elite ride horses to the battle then dismount?
From what I know, the plains Indians took about a century to go from no horses, to a horse-based culture.
From what I know, the plains Indians took about a century to go from no horses, to a horse-based culture.
I don't know any european navy (not even talking pre-columbian) able to make the travel and able to have enough continual exchanges to have a true contact. The viking navigation and short settlement was very impressive for this era, difficult to reproduce and impossible to continue because of distance.
As the Aztec civilisation appear around 1250/1300, from memory, i think we can say that Aztec warfare existed since this date.
In this case, any transatlantic contact wouldn't modify knighthood at all.
Even if a transatlantic contact was made after 1300 (the date where it began to be possible with a great deal of chance, and, in my opinion, only by muslims navigators), knighthood was already formed in 900's, with the PoD bracket being between 600 and 800. A transatlantic contact that would modify deeply knighthood would have to took place in these times.
That i'm saying is jaguar or eagle warriors aren't really comparable to knighthood, and have their own standarts codes and rules. It's not because knighthood is an elite formation that echanges would be relativly easy and doables with other elite formations as jaguar warrior, samurai, janissaries, etc.
Two very different cultures can't just merge because of their similarities. Basically, the old forms are more often crushed than modified even with their prestige or efficiency. Again : janissaries, samurai, etc.
Why not, but i would more likely see Chuch blessing local form of elite formations, by calling them "knights" even if it would be only a name.
Of course, it would necessit several modifications, but in the case of Christian mesoamerica, the changes would be made locally with more traditionnal modifications.
Did i say that the aztec, or any elite formations in the world, didn't have codes, rules or even a mystic? The similarities are not the problem, it is in the disparities of mentalities, of incomprehension.
The time that the cultural bareer falls, knighthood would have the time to vanish as a warfare.
Besides, you make a common mistake here : knighthoot wasn't a 100% noble formation. Not only it appeared as a commoner self-defense warfare (i'm simplifing here, but you get the idea), but if nobility adopted it, it was because Church made it fucking prestigious in regard of a more criticed "miles" system. Being knight didn't made you noble (but it allowed you to hope so for your family later).
Even after the relative decline of knighthood in the XIII, the bourgeoisie joined this formation for his prestige, forcing the nobles knights to create order of chivalry (with all the christian, armour courtois, etc. mystique) to distinguish themselves to the newcomers.
Not so; mail is the more flexible of the two. Plate was adopted because it offered better protection (no holes, and it's angled to deflect blows away from the wearer, which mail cannot). And tales of men vaulting into the saddle wearing full plate are nonsense; it's much too heavy for that. They could mount normally, though; tales of them having to be lifted into the saddle are true of only a small minority. A properly made suit of plate does not restrict the wearer's movements; it does restrict his vision and hearing, though.
Plate is more expensive, in that it requires more metal to make, and heavier. On horseback that does not matter so much, because the difference is minimal to the horse, but on foot wearers of plate armor will be slower and tire more rapidly than less well protected troops.
Plate is also less labor intensive than mail, but the armorer has to be more skilled to make plate than mail. And if the armor is damaged plate is much more difficult to repair than mail, which only requires the replacement of the rings to fix.