[Preview] Imperium Romanum

[Darios]

You hit on a lot of interesting points. I was always under the impression that the idea of the heavily armored lancer first appeared in western Europe due to Sarmatian auxiliaries in the Late Roman Army. Maybe I am mistaken but it seems like a plausible impetus for the expansion of the role of cavalry in western Europe during the Dark Ages.

Regarding Spain, Al-Andalus definitely played a very important role in shaping Medieval and eventually, Renaissance society.

[ArmoredCore]

No doubt there were multiple forms of influence and definitely by the 13th century onwards things had developed and were moving forward at a considerable pace. I am just saying that the overall historical narrative of Western Europe has been flawed. The east was dying its last gasp with the Byzantines and the Persians fighting themselves to exhaustion, which allowed the Arabians to come in with Islam, which then had its golden age from the remains of the old empires of Egypt, Persia, Rome, Palmyra and Babylon. Then they were in turn influenced by and eventually usurped by waves of hordes from the Steppes. So by the time of the crusades most of the Levant was one big mess of ruined city states while the West, not ironically enough, was relatively unscathed due to the vacuum created by the fall of Western Rome (the so called dark ages). And into that vacuum came the ideas and technologies of the East, where they would be built on and maximized and where you had the environment and natural resources to make full use of them. I actually look at the crusades as a search for loot from the East, with the holy grail only being a symbol, which took the form of money, technology, trade and ideas. Of course that is not how the history books describe it. The Normans are a good example of this whole juxtaposition. They tried to carve out territories in the East as Byzantine auxiliaries, but the area was too contested and the Byzantines weren't having it. They then moved back West which was relatively quiet and found easy pickings in little old England and the rest of course is history. And of course along the way they went through Southern Italy and Spain picking up even more influence from the Muslims there and earning their bones as skilled mercenaries and soldiers.

[ArmoredCore]

Anyway here are the pages from Spanish forum discussing early Catalan soldiers from old illuminated gospels and manuscripts. Many of these are just before or contemporary to the period of the Bayeux tapestry and show similar styles of dress.

http://www.elgrancapitan.org/foro/vi...c.php?p=658383

[HobGremlin]

I was always under the impression that the idea of the heavily armored lancer first appeared in western Europe due to Sarmatian auxiliaries in the Late Roman Army. Maybe I am mistaken but it seems like a plausible impetus for the expansion of the role of cavalry in western Europe during the Dark Ages.

I believe the major impetus for the development of the heavy western lancer, the "knight in shining armour," was the development of the stirrup, which was invented in South or East Asia several centuries prior to this period, at least, before being introduced to the West by peoples such as the Avars some few centuries after the fall of the West Roman world. Before the stirrup, cavalry were essentially just sitting on their horses, and could not take the amount of force exerted by the later developed couched lance, as it would throw them backwards off their horse. Most cavalry up to that time were often more heavily armoured than their infantry counterparts, mostly because a horse can carry more weight than a man, but were still essentially light cavalry in function, as the amount of damage they could inflict was limited. With the advent of the stirrup, men could 'set' themselves into their stirrups upon their horse, in a way standing above, yet attached to, their horses, allowing them to hold their weapons more sturdily to inflict much greater damage. Of course, it took a few centuries for the technology to really catch on, and it may be that such auxiliaries were the ones to introduce the idea of using the stirrup and lance together to such effect. I know for example that the Mongols, contrarily, used their stirrups to stabilise them as they rode, to increase their accuracy in horse-archery.

[ArmoredCore]

I am curious about what folks think about the images of kite shields in the old Spanish illuminations.

As for the influences in Western Cavalry, the main broker of Eastern technology and culture with the West was the Byzantine empire. They were the key players in the cultural bridge between East and West, quite literally since they were in the Anatolia the traditional dividing line between East and West. Unfortunately since most of this area was under Ottoman control until the end of WWI, there is a lot of scholarship that is just now catching up on what was going on. But still too there is a lot of bias, which is glaring if you really take time to research on your own. As in the many images of western knights wearing fancy brocaded surcoats or caftans with chain mail while Muslims are shown as nomads in simple garb. Quite literally backwards.

As for the development of the cavalry lancer and the influences from the Steppes, the Russians seem to have the best scholarship on the subject.

Arms and Armor as indicators of Cultural Transfer
http://hessamoddin.files.wordpress.c...07/sogdian.pdf

Sogdian tactics as mirrored in Penjikent Murals:
http://hessamoddin.files.wordpress.c...iantactics.pdf

[AnthoniusII]

Thank you my friend for sharing these with us...

[NikeBG]

Before the stirrup, cavalry were essentially just sitting on their horses, and could not take the amount of force exerted by the later developed couched lance, as it would throw them backwards off their horse.

Not quite so, as this article demonstrates. Stirrups can hardly help you from being thrown off your horse - a high saddle is what you need for such cases. What the stirrups are really useful for is A) horse-archery (they were a major breakthrough in that area) and B) using a sabre.

[Diglytron]

So how is this mod going?

[Marvzilla]

I know, late comment, but could anyone give me some clues on the bibliography used for Eastern Francia ? I already have an eye on Warfare in Tent-Century Germany and would like to know if there were any other second (or first) hand sources used ?

Thanks in advance.

[AnthoniusII]

Preview pictures restored.

[BarnicleBill1]

They look wonderful, I had almost forgotten how awesome they are.

[achilles-91]

they are indeed wonderful

[LinusLinothorax]

Flieger, whats the source for face-covering coifs? As far as I am aware they appeared first only during the late 12th century.

[+Marius+]

Flieger, whats the source for face-covering coifs? As far as I am aware they appeared first only during the late 12th century.

They appear in the late 11th century at least;

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4538/11279/

[LinusLinothorax]

They appear in the late 11th century at least;

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4538/11279/

I dont think they wear coifs. See the horizontal lines beside the low ends of the nose guards? Those are the mouths.

[+Marius+]

Then what are the lines around the eyes for then?


How about this then;




Plate at the Church of San Domingo de Silos, around 1080-1110 AD.

[AnthoniusII]

Its unreasonable to claim that central/west europe's warriors did not use chain coifs.
1st: they uses face protector that its basis was nailed on their chest.
That is why we see that square extra of chain mail on kights chest!
Also how German warriors could not use chain coifs since they could coppy Roman ones or steppe ones from their enemies?

[Marvzilla]

I dont think its about mailcoifs but them covering partially the face. Though I agree that it is reasonable to assume that they were in use from the 10th century, late 10th century at the latest. I would like to know if Loricati also use oval shields, as often depicted in period art ?

[AnthoniusII]

FliegerAD sent us material of his article about the Germans.
We saw that German "knights" used mostly round and later kite shields.
So we desided (Absinthia) that the oval shields should be given to Franki

Domini ac Defensores are actually Loricati too ...We desided to brake Loricati to local nobles and proffesional soldiers.


That happened for gameplay issues.
You can see all pictures in the 1st post of this preview.

[Marvzilla]

I asked because they are present in the Leiden Maccabees, for example. They seemed to be pretty popular in most of what the Eastern Frankish Kingdom/Imperium Romanum constituted in the 10th century.