hi all
i want to know all i can on these soldiers and what they look like. i have tried to reseach this but come up with vague accounts and a big lack of any visual accounts of these troops they were around for a good while but there is a lack of information on them probably due to preference of dealing with knights can anyone help me with this?

Hey Nathan, you might want to check out http://www.geocities.com/na_degadmedieval_ire...pment.html hope this helps.

Nathan,

Sorry for the delay in reply here but I have not been around much anywhere lately.

The Hobelar (and a hundred other spellings) is somewhat debated as to what he really was and did. From the English Royal accounts we get a view of someone around the same level as the mounted archer except who'd fight in the melee. Some recent scholar's have supposed they later or at times are merged with the mounted archers numbers and that they did not really disappear but I do not follow this really for the most part.

We have very specific records telling their equipment. From many I have seen I think they may indeed have been primarily using horses for transport and fought on foot but I am convinced that they were used on horseback as well. Think of them as a lightly armoured horseman.... not like the idea of modern or early modern light horse but guys who are less well armoured than the average man-at-arms. In the mid 14th they were to have a bascinet with aventail, aketon, gaunts, pairs of plates, and at least a spear and dagger.

Most of this info is from the 14th century English sources but Hobelars pop up all the way into Henry V or Henry VI's reign.... maybe longer but I cannot recall any further examples from off the top of my head.

Hope that helps!

RPM

The Anglo-Scottish Border horsemen were used in this role and called "Prickers", they filled a similar role to the hobilar, mostly scouting and harassing enemy forces, raiding and foraging, and pursuit of routed enemy forces. They were used in static or pitched battles but were ideally suited to the roles mentioned above.