[Kurt Scholz]

I concur, my point was that the Mamluk idea as a system still put prime emphasis on outstanding horsemenship and had these outstanding horsemen as the military and social elite to the detriment of an evolution of other components of arms. That was a tradition from the Middle Ages and Mamluk Egypt was among the last places it was swapped away.
Every outstanding soldier on the field has a lot of hard working people giving part of their earnings to put him there. What does he give in return?
Have fun reenacting.

[Mark Gates]

[Tibor Szebenyi]

Dear Bennison!

I am glad to hear (and see soon, I hope) about Mamluk reenactors.
Check out my website: http://mamluk.webnode.hu/
I try to portray a Mamluk horseman serving in the Ottoman army. I concentrate on actual skills on horseback, but it would be great to get know other "modern" Mamluks to talk about different topics.

For the armour: I would use lamellar armour (jawshan), the military treatises mention it. Even if they could use that chinese scale, it wouldn't have been a usual thing. And because there are really few Mamluk reenactors, we should portray usual equipment.

For the shield: as I have seen on many miniatures, the shield hangs on the left side (in case of a right handed person), not on the back. If You want to use it intensely in close combat, a steel shield would be better. In my opinion a wicker kalkan is good at stopping arrows, and light enough to wear it while using the bow. I make my own kalkan at the moment, I am very curious, what will it do against some 80-90# horn bows. I have to put it to the test, but now I feel that it won't stand swords and sabers.

For neck protection use a helmet with mail or lamellar aventail. You can see a mail-and-plate style solution for neck protection on my armour.


Best regards
Tibor

[Bennison N]

Thanks a lot you guys.

Very cool page, Tibor!

Mark, I meant to re-enact a Mamluk of the Caliphate, because from what I can tell they were supremely better equipped.

Baybars was great, and Qutuz as well... First Mamluk to lead a victory against the Mongols (Ain Julut). Qutuz was assassinated by Baybars, if I remember correctly...

[Bartek Strojek]

[William P]

well rattan shields at the very least were the standard fare of korean and chinese forces they seemed to think rattan / wicker shieklds were good enough and these men with either sabre or spear and hield were often the leading edge of the formation. so they must have worked and they were also to a lesser extent resistant to bullets.

also arnt most of those kalkan also faced with leather? leather would help resist arrows immensely especially if it was faced on both sides,

and if your going to be a 14th century mamluk id go with cane, metal shields im willing to bet are probably around alot later, at least the 15th century if not the 16th century onwards... id hazard a guess to say the metal kalkan was a later development to copy the wicker ones.

[Tibor Szebenyi]

[Lewis Ballard]

Gentlemen:

I don't think this thread has been inactive quite long enough for this to count as "resurrecting it from the dead," but if so, I guess I'm a necromancer!

Since there has been a fair amount of fairly in-depth discussion of the Mamluks, I was wondering if anyone could recommend reading material to serve as an introduction to the Mamluk era, and Baibars? All too frequently, when I search for information on remote places and peoples, I end up with less than I'm looking for.

As a side note, I once saw a Kazakhfilm production of the life of Baibars, but lost it when my hard drive crashed. (Their iteration of Baibars was very, very Kazakh, perhaps unsurprisingly.)

[Timo Nieminen]

The best modern history of mamluks and the Mamluks I have read is James Waterson, The Knights of Islam: The Wars of the Mamluks.

I'm reading ibn Mundiq, The Book of Contemplation. This is before the Mamluk state, but there are plenty of mamluks around, and frequent mention of them. This could be an interesting book for background detail on mamluks, and is also useful for an inside view of local 12th century politics.

For a more coherent look at local politics, including the crusader states as well as the others, Amin Maalouf, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes covers the period AD1100-1300. Not too much detail on the Mamluks, but great for the wider background. Lots of detail on wars between the various Moslem states that are largely ignored in Western-oriented histories of the Crusades. The book reads very much like a bunch of Arab sources turned into a single coherent narrative, and I think this is what the author did. It isn't a modern history; think of it as a modern rewrite of contemporary history. For a less re-written version, perhaps Arab Historians of the Crusades is good (I haven't read it, and don't know if it covers the Mamluks).

[Lewis Ballard]

Outstanding! Thanks so much, Timo.

[Jaroslav Kravcak]

[Tibor Szebenyi]

[Jaroslav Kravcak]

[Alexander Bastoky]

Mamluks and Islamic cavalry interest me very much. I am especially interested in the earlier Bahri period of their history. As far as reenacting them goes, these websites/facebook pages seem interesting and I haven't seen much else like them, "Faris Reenactment Bazaar" and "International Mamluk Yurt":
Interesting things to consider:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Faris-Reenactme...4360851648

http://www.facebook.com/InternationalMamlukYurt

[Bennison N]

Join the Yurt, Alexander! You're 100% welcome to do so!

It is one of my projects with a Muslim friend of mine, I'm one of the founding members. My friend is also the owner/operator of the Faris Reenactment Basar as well. As he is in Inodnesia, he has access to the world's most massive supply of fabrics, and can create any garment you want. He can also make excellent period footwear, and has a contracted armourer (with some pretty impressive abilities) and weapons-smith (who has good prices on blunted buhurts weapons). I won't say any more, because I don't want to break any rules...

Try also looking up "Saray al Mamluk". This is another of his pages.

We started the Yurt because we eventually want to create an International Mamluk HMB/Buhurts team, and have Mamluk reenactors participate in Skill-at-Arms horsemanship tournaments. So far we have three fighters. So a bit of a ways to go.

[Jaroslav Kravcak]

Sorry for another post, just to put up a question for anyone willing to ask. (Id be thankfull for any answer, especially from people, who do actual mounted combat reenactment and have come across playing with similar shows of horsemanship) :

If you watch the videos of bullfighting/russian horse combat reenactment and others few posts above, can there be paralel drawn between what is shown here and what you practice, or what treatises you use as your refence in training describe? (Regarding mamluk reenactment, but also others, if someone interested in different era pops in)
I only have access to some translations, but its quite short, so Im afraid its only excerp of it and doesnt cover more minute details, that are maybe exhaustibly described in mamluk training, on the other hand, many complete sources accesible through internet, mainly modern cavalry manuals are very vague and rather useless in what Im trying to gather information about right now: What were all the possibilies of a horseman, especially regarding his horsemanship and capabilities of his horse in a situation, where he was to confront resisting enemy, either infantry or cavalry. (To specify, Im looking for quite vivid and particular examples and descriptions, rather than vague generalizations, actual videos of more or less free sparring would be the best I could wish, though I havent seen many of these, if any at all.)

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Jaroslav Kravcak]

I wont quote whole post, but most is exactly what I think, like different standards for training raw recruits and training a unit of accomplished horsemen and fighters to act as a unit, or that horse control beats being good swordsman.

My questions are aimed at one on one situation, or generally any situation where horse has abundant space to maneuver, I dont want to touch the already beaten enough topic of unit of cavalry attacking densely packed infantry, or something similar. It really concerns only small engagements, or individual fighting capability of a horseman, preferably 15th-16th cent men at arms, mamluk, or similar kinds of warriors.

Also I didnt want to present it as if fighting from a stationary horse was nice and easy for a man on a horse, i just wanted to say my feeling is footman himself should also be aware of what a man even on a stationary horse is able to do and couldnt just jump in and kill him without problems without him ever having a chance to start to move away.

As to the russian video sure horse was safe but that goes both ways, I dont think a man on foot would survive unharmed too long if he tryed to cut a horse, maybe its just my feeling, but standing infront of a horse with a man cutting me from above, trying to injure a horse isnt such a bright concept, I might injure him, but Im open for an attack if I do it. Staying in front of horses head to hide behind might be the best position, or bending down, though it still doesnt seem like an allways win idea, I only had opportunity to asses it with quite calm horses, though if it was able to spin fast lie that rejoneo horse, or horses used in western riding, he could simply put me to the side he wishes in no time. Also, being hidden behind a horses head might make one much braver, than having to face opponents sword and unpredictable horse at the same time and judging which to tackle first. I was interested in this video because it shows a segment of combat rather than on technique with predefined outcome, like Ive seen before regarding foot vs horse. And horse actively kicking in front, maybe to prevent footman from getting to the offside of horsemans weapon and getting him out of the area where he couldnt be hit seemed interesting as well. Its breat job theyve done in training of that horse and this kind of sparring already seems to push limits of safety to the top level.

Once again maybe its only my bad idea about it, but people sometimes completely ommit the fact, that horse is fully capable of lateral movement and all in all, sure its bigger than a man, but still its very agile, I havent seen exactly such a horse with my own eyes, but looking at what that lusitano can do is enough for me. My view is steady footman can have great advantage against fully galloping horse, if he trained it enough to be able to perform some maneuver to dodge horse and riders weapon and injure a horse himself, as he is moving in very predictable manner, unless cavalryman has some further plan. On the other hand, steady cavalryman moving slowly into contact, speeding up and changing directions unpredictably might well be the equivalent of a man foot, just moving much faster. (Though I havent seen anything like this ever demonstrated, maybe pit a portuguese and spanish bullfighter against each other? )

Good you mentioned the fact, that on ultra short (and ultra long maybe?) distances a man can outrun a horse. Nevertheless was this ever tested in combat conditions? A man in trekking shoes and only light clothes on and being top class sprinter against average horse, which might not even be well motivated to run full speed from the start is different to someone with heavy armour and weapons in hands (at least for me holding anything in hands makes sprinting more difficult) with prospect of fighting for his life at the end of this sprint against a horse, that most propably was trained to boost his ability to accelerate from the spot better than an average one.
I was trying to dig some more information about it, yet the only situation Ive seen to account for it was trained and well equipped human sprinter against a horse, if you know of some tests shedding more light on how this would translate into fight Id be glad to see them.
But even if a man can truly catch a horse through first 10 metres, would it do any good for him? If they are both moving and some distance apart and he isnt able to catch a horseman completely unaware and stationary, would he run after him further? One more thing: I dont know if this has any validity, but man on a moving horse seems to be able to perform his attacks on much more stable platform, than someone trying to run against him and cut him at the same time. At least I cant hit anything properly with a sword and stay in balance at the same time, if Im running against my target, hitting it as I run by. (I mean cutting rather than thrusting) Once against, I dont want to say its a piece of cake to hit anything from a running horse, I rather try to say, that hitting things while moving at speed was the basic mode of attacking for a cavalryman, while on foot Id rather like to be more carefull with my footwork and so be by definion quite stationary.

All in all Im not trying to prove man on a horse had clear advantage, rather to disprove the opposite: that a man on foot would have the upper hand against well trained horse and well trained man. (Clearly superior to lets say average 19th century cavalryman, though even these seemed to be able to cut down infantrymen out of formation) And also to question the notion I accepted quite uncritically, before I started to dig into it, that once slowed down (bogged down in melee like its worded many times) horseman was dead meat, no matter how skilled, or trained specifically to fae such a situations. (It also sounds awfull to tell someone that if he gets surrounded by few men he is dead, even if it was true, giving him at least some technique to rely on is better than advice him to repent his sins already Id say )

[Bennison N]

Here is a very detailed, and lengthy description of the training of a Mamluk Cavalryman, particularly during the Bahri Period. See if you can read it right to the end...

[Alexander Bastoky]

Has anyone here ever read Dr. Shihab al-Sarraf's work? I've read his overview of Furusiyya literature published by the University of Chicago, but I have had trouble finding more of his work in English.