"Lance and Bow Armed Cavalry" Topic

Many years ago Lombards were cool and hippy..

Gods Chosen People played WRG 7th Edition..

Deviants and wrong thinking people played WRG 6th Edition…

And all was right in the world…

My favourite troop type was lance and bow armed cavalry, either heavy or extra heavy, it didn't really matter.

Now, at the time I never really thought about it, but nowadays, it keeps nagging at me…what do they do with the lance when they are firing the bow??

Do they have a strap on the lance and a cup on their stirrup, do they just shove it into the ground and lean it against the horse?

I know that most of the time they would probably stop, fire and move off, so they could lean the lance on the horse, but it is nagging at me and I would really like to know.

Or, is it despite what we think we know about all these armies, rarely did anyone actually carry both…?

Cheers,

Tim

Maurice's Strategikon recommends a thong on the lance in Avar style, so you can loop it over your shoulder. There are a couple of Ilkhanids in the Edinburgh MS of Rashid al-Din that show something similar; and IIRC one of them has a loop at the butt of the lance as well, to go over the toe. It's not so clear what people before the Avars did, but the shoulder-strap may not in fact have been new with them. Heliodoros' Aithiopica mentions Persian cataphracts with the lance tied to the saddle, which might be a misunderstanding of a stowage system for when the bow was being used.

Maurice's Strategikon recommends an attached loop for carrying it across the back.
however, the ranks of the formation soon specialized with some being armed with bow and no lance and others with lance and no bow.

Regards,
Bill

Hold the bow […] with your left hand. If you are on horseback and are also armed with a lance, push the lance beneath the right thigh.

(Murda al-Tarsusi, Book of Military Equipment and Tactics, quoted from David Nicolle, Saracen Faris 1050-1250 AD)

So, basically you can clamp the lance between your leg and the horse.

Also, contrary to what Hollywood would have you believe, you cannot "fire" bows. Firing is for firearms only.

It's a long time since I read the Strategikon GurKhan/William. Funnily enough I plucked it out of the bookcase this morning, never thought to look for anything about lance/bow cavalry in it!

Oops! Yes Nick, I usually complain about that in films too. Being English I would 'loose' rather than fire.

I like the idea of clamping with the thigh against the horse. That sounds practical.

Thanks All!

It's a long time since I read the Strategikon GurKhan/William. Funnily enough I plucked it out of the bookcase this morning, never thought to look for anything about lance/bow cavalry in it!

Oops! Yes Nick, I usually complain about that in films too. Being English I would 'loose' rather than fire.

I like the idea of clamping with the thigh against the horse. That sounds practical.

Thanks All!

It's funny that no figure sculptors have reflected this. When spear and bow armed figures (such as ghilmen) are depicted shooting, the spear has normally disappeared.

Having a bow doesn't make one an archer.
Having a lance doesn't make one a lancer.
Soldiers tend to be practical people. They will disgard weapons, armor, and other equipment they don't find practical or useful.

If you are a Sassanid warrior of the 6th century, and if you are primarily a mounted archer, a good long sword makes a very good practical melee weapon. Carrying a lance would be an encumbrance not worth the trouble.

If the "empire" said you will carry both weapons, you carried both.

I've always understood the loop in the middle of the lance to be a given. But the holding under the thigh would work too, either/or. However, if equipped with "Turkish" saddle and stirrups, then the lance under the thigh would not be practical when rising to stand in the short stirrups and twist about to do the "Parthian shot", etc. Only a stationary form of shooting would allow the lance to be stowed between thigh and horse….

You can fire a flaming arrow, right Nick? :)

They also may have just stuck it in the ground next to them, or couched it in their armpit. Hans Gruber, soldiers also like multiple weapons for different jobs. Because he has an M4 doesn't mean he's going to discard grenades he's been issued. I mean, other than pulling the pin and lobbing at the enemy! :)