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I read The Art of War in the Middle Ages by Charles Oman a week ago and in the Chapter "The Early Middle Ages" Oman ends the chapter with this statement (directly taken from the book itself):

Charles Oman said:
Politically retrogressive as was that system, it had yet its day of success: the Magyar was crushed at Merseberg and the Lechfeld, and driven back across the Leith, soon to become Christianised and grow into an orderly member of the European commonwealth. The Viking was checked in his plundering forays, expelled from his strongholds at the river-mouths, and restricted to the single possession of Normandy, where he — like the Magyar — was assimilated to the rest of feudal society. The force which had won these victories, and saved Europe from a relapse into the savagery and Paganism of the North and East, was that of the mail-clad horseman. What wonder then if his contemporaries and successors glorified him into the normal type of warriorhood, and believed that no other form of military efficiency was worth cultivating ? The perpetuation of feudal chivalry for four hundred years was the reward of its triumphs in the end of the Dark Ages.

The entire chapter revolves with Oman claiming that the "Horse Warriors" defeated the Vikings, Magyar, and other enemies and thus was came the Honor of being legendary chivalrous "Knights in Shining Armor" for saving Christianity from being lost". In addition the same chapter also stated that it was the Horse Warriors expelled various foreigners that were bent on conquering Europe during the Middle Ages including the Turks,Arabs,Mongols and many others.

So practically Oman implies the reason the Knights became the stuff of Legends is because it was Warriors on Horseback who saved Christianity from being lost as Pagans waged wars on the Catholic Church and it was they who preserved Europe and saved the continent from Foreign invasions.
Can anyone here put their own input? How accurate is Oman's concluding statement to the chapter?
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