[Rodolfo Martínez]

Hello Gentlemen.
I like reading about knights and their battle tactics but i´m not sure when the knight as a combat unit dissapeared. i was told that it was during the XVI century, but i still see battle armours in that century. I was told too that knight is only a title, but I don´t really know wich is the difference between a knight and a nobleman with an armour?
Websites not always help readers.

Thanks.

FMS

[Sean Belair]

The fully armored man on horse was not necessarily a knight or nobleman. Overtime the knightly class was replaced by highly trained commoners or Men-at-arms. Heavy cavalry charges remained a vital tactic up until the modern era, many units made up of the nations wealthy sons. Armor gradually disappeared; by the Napoleonic era heavy cavalry often wore just a breast plate and helm.
Hopefully someone more qualified can jump in and correct me.

[Lafayette C Curtis]

Whether you choose to define "knight" as a specific type of medieval warrior or a social class, there is simply no simple, clear-cut, universal boundary.

If you're talking about the disappearance of armored cavalry, it only disappeared in the early 20th century when modern firearms and artillery (and later, even more heavily-armored tanks and armored cars) rendered them obsolete. Until then--or at least until the middle of the 19th century when rifled artillery began to make an appearance on the battlefield, armored cavalry retained a real and effective role on the European battlefields. They were the first choice for frontal encounters against opposing cavalry, and their armor also made them braver when attacking foot formations.

The term "knight" as a social class have never been entirely synonymous with "heavy cavalry" anyway. In the earliest times, a "knight" was actually a professional cavalryman and his social status was rather low, at least compared to nobles--who would have shuddered at the idea of being called a mere caballarius (horseman). Later on, when knighthood gained in prestige and nobles were no longer reluctant to be knighted, the ranks of the heavy cavalry also began to include some men from even "lower" social classes, like some of the richest serjeants. These serjeants often had exactly the same feudal duties as knights with the only difference that they were not counted as part of the privileged gentry. The heavy cavalry formations also often included the knights' squires, too, and these men, while of knightly rank, were not yet technically "knights" as such.

That's already quite a brazen generalization. To make an even more daring generalization, I'd say that the proportion of actual knights in European heavy cavalry formation continued to decline with time, although this was partly counteracted by the knighting or ennoblement of some of the men who made their way into such formations. By the late 15th century, the French and Burgundian ordinances no longer listed separate pay grades for knights banneret, knights bachelors, and squires, but lumped them together with all men who were abl eto afford the heaviest class of equipment into the single category of hommes d'armes or gens d'armes (men-at-arms).

BTW, "men-at-arms" is actually the correct term to use to refer to knights and the sundry heavy cavalrymen brigaded together with them. The term did not seem to have been used to the general body of the soldiery, only these elites. Of course, you'll see many mentions of dismounted men-at-arms in military history, but they were dismounted elites (meaning that they had horses, only they were not riding them) and not ordinary foot.

The difference between a knight and a nobleman in armor? You'll have to specify when and where because there is no single all-encompassing answer for this. I was about to try to make a few examples, but there are simply too many to be dealt with in the space of a single post.

[Rodolfo Martínez]

[Richard Fay]

Hello all!

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Jared Smith]

Lafayette,

I am curious if you known what became of the tradition of distinguishing the formally knighted class by performing such rites as the girding with belt and sword, presenting guilded spurs (presummably distinctions were made between nobility at one time based on gold versus silver spurs), etc. Did these traditions still hold during the 16th century?

[Lafayette C Curtis]

I'm not sure, but I think at least some of those ceremonies must have survived because knighthood itself still survives as a social distinction down to this day in several places. Perhaps, if you're curious about that subject, you could try looking for some memoirs from the Elizabethan era or the article on Sir George Clifford in the Features section of this site.

[Rodolfo Martínez]

It´s true that these XVI century heavy cavalry ¨knights¨ or gendarmes used to perform their cavalry charge and their other tactics, and then this full armored duys dismount to became heavy infantry with longswords,two handers or other weapons in especial formations to give more protection to the rest of the infantry?

[Gordon Frye]

[Rodolfo Martínez]

I visited a site that said that during XVI century heavy cavalry´s armour started to became lightier becouse of halberds and firearms, but, you can still see very beautiful ands strong battle full suits of arour, during 1500.

What happened with heavy cavalry´s ¨proof armours¨, where truly effective against firearms?

[Gordon Frye]

The Spanish Tercio's were always Infantry, and were constituted by the King of Spain with specific requirements for arms and armour to fulfill the various roles. Since the earliest of the Tercio's were formed in 1534, they didn't go through a period of being shiftless mercenaries (even though the individuals who were enlisted may have done so), but were always a "regular army" as it were. Check out this website for much more information: http://www.geocities.com/es1617/TercioEs.html

The Condottieri had their beginings in the feudal cavalry of Italy, becoming professional Heavy Cavaly open to being hired by the city-states at some point in the 14th Century. There were also plenty of foreign mercenaries in their midsts such as Sir John Hawkwood though. But it's a pretty major study in and of itself, and like the subject of Tercio's, far to difficult to explain in a few paragraphs.

Cheers,

Gordon

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Jared Smith]

In terms of describing the armour of various medieval ages and styles as "heavy" or "light", my opinion is that it would be largely a function of coverage, allowing for some exceptions that don't seem to be the norm. I will explain why below.

I studied the armour collection at Higgins noting weights that were given for the majority of suits on display. With the exception of a couple of suits specifically intended for jousts (weighing close to 87 lbs in the case of one of them), 45 lbs tended to be pretty average with partial (approximately 1/2 to 3/4) coverage armour. The suits that really were full coverage, but not known as specifically for joust were closer to 55-65 lbs. This seemed to be a general tendency (not an absolute, but true of most suits) regardless of ages which were estimated from the early 1400's on.

Proof testing and differential thickness/ hardening techniques were applied to optimize crush strength and penetration resistance of later breast plates, and were done on helms and other pieces. However, the practical aspect of how much weight an opponent could bear to utilize and still be competitive seems like something that would end up similar to swords, much of them falling within a relatively consistent range unless function was specialized or dealing with an individual of unusual strength or size.

All of this is presented only as opinion, as I do not have any good books on armour and have only casually observed this by looking at one collection. I would appreciate others assessments on the differences in weight and coverage of "heavy versus light."

[Gordon Frye]

Jared;

I think you have a pretty good handle on it, from my understanding at least.

Both Francois de la Noue and Sir Roger Williams expound on the unsuitability of wearing armour that is proof, but so heavy as to make it impractical to wear for any time. La Noue makes mention of the fact that earlier in the 16th Century, even older veterans could wear their full suits of plate for 24 hours straight, while "in these times" (meaning the 1580's) such a suit made of proof armour would cripple a man in his 30's to wear all day, and most men wouldn't do it. Sir Roger suggests (in 1590) that a "Launtier" (in French parlance a chevaux lèger, most Englishmen would call it Demi-Lancer) wear a breastplate, fauld, first plates of the pauldron, and helmet of pistol proof, the rest of the armour "as light as can be made". He said that such an armour would be, along with pistol, sword and lance, more than enough weight for the horse and rider to bear for 10 hours. Both men complained of the "wearing of stythes (i.e. anvils) in the attempt to make one's armour proof, and dismissed such attempts as foolish.

What is interesting is that much of the move towards much lighter versions of Heavy Cavalry is that it really didn't start to come about until the 17th Century, and really until the 30-Years War was well under way. During the French Wars of Religion, the Royalists in fact tended to increase the weight of their "light cavalry" companies (chevaux lègers, which was fairly Heavy Horse already) and upgrade them to compagnies d'ordonnance. They didn't lighten them, other than the bardings of the horses, until the 17th Century, Sir Roger and M. de la Noue to the contrary.

As I believe Daniel Staberg has mentioned, it was mostly due to the poverty of the Swedes that they were forced to equip the vast majority of their Horse as Harquebusiers in a pistol proof breastplate, light helmet and buff-coat, likewise the English on both sides of their Civil War. The Imperialists continued to utilize Cuirassiers (i.e. Pistoliers in 3/4 plate) until after the Peace of Westphalia, and such Kurassieren were usually armed at least in pistol-proof breast plates and helmets, with lighter but still fairly complete arm and leg armour.

At any rate, until the middle of the 17th Century, most Heavy Cavalry kept up the same basic weight of armour worn by the horseman, though there was a definite shift in where that weight was concentrated. And though the English and Swedish experience (which tends to colour most English reader's visions of such things) was to lighten up Horse at a much earlier stage, most Continental Heavy Horse kept most of their armour until the middle of the 17th Century at the least.

Cheers!

Gordon

[Rodolfo Martínez]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Rodolfo Martínez]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

I believe we are missing each other's points--or in other words, we're both making a disagreement where there is none. My original quote:

[Rodolfo Martínez]

Yes, Cavalry formations don´t define battles, but against swiss formations these knights are more effective when dismounted, i´ll bring some examples in next post. But, as infantry defines battle, which is the purpouse of, or the advantage of being fully armoured while you can became a pretty temptating prey for gun fire?