"cavalry armed with both lance and crossbow" Topic

Hello, I'm looking for references to cavalry armed with both lance and crossbow (I'm assembling the Perry plastic light cavalry, which has both options, great kit by the way). There are many pictures of heavily armed knights or light cavalry shooting crossbows, but I can't find a single one with both weapons at the same time. Italian lords of the period had bodyguards of mounted crossbowmen, and I find it strange that, as bodyguards and picked troops, they didn't carry lances too. One possible solution which occurs to me is that their pages actually carried the weapons, so that they only wielded one at a time, in action.

In the Osprey WotR book there is a period German woodcut showing a mercenary light cavalry unit where some men are lance-armed and others are carrying crossbows, but no man is showing carrying both.

Thanks, I know that. There's also a German treatise with two knights fighting each other one with lance the other with crossbow, and they're obviously two knights. What I'm not able to find is some reference, not necessarily a picture, to mounted soldiers carrying both weapons at the same time. These guys exist in wargames: for instance, Eureka miniatures produced French "archers" like that, but I'm unable to find pictures on the web. A set of rules whose name I've forgotten describes stradiotti sometimes equipped like that.

From top of my head, I cannot think of any references of western European cavalry with both crossbow and light lance – usually it is one or the other.

A bit to the east in the Balkans it was quite usual to see cavalry equipped with both a bow and light lance, but in those areas crossbow was not a common cavalry weapon.

Griefbringer you are perfeclty right: plenty of references to Arab and Turkish horsemen armed with bow and lance (also the Byzantines before, even before modern stirrups, who copied that from the steppe peoples). That is what makes it so puzzling. You see knights in full armour Flanders or Milanese style, the equivalent of a Ferrari car in modern terms, and they only carry a relatively cheap crossbow (plus sword, of course) as a weapon. Couldn't they afford a lance too? That doesn't make any sense. Unless the illuminators were lazy, or the pages and squires actually carried the weapons, so that they would use only one at a time in action.

Also, though you are perfectly right that in the east crossbow (the "Frankish bow") was an exotic weapon, Grenadine horsemen used it a lot and were appreciated mercenaries in the West (source: Wargames Research Group, Armies of the Middle Ages 1300-1487, volume 1). If they were used to fight with lance and bow, why not with lance and crossbow? Unfortunately, I can't find a decent image on the web of the fresco the Wargames Research Group base their reconstruction on.

I did a bit more digging of the sources at hand, but they seem to rather consistently state either crossbow or lance was expected as armament, not both – this seems to apply equally to Italians, Germans, Swiss and Polish, who were common users of mounted crossbowmen. Did not check for the Moors of Grenada, of which I do not know too much (thinking of buying some material about the late 15th century reconquista, though).

Italian lords of the period had bodyguards of mounted crossbowmen, and I find it strange that, as bodyguards and picked troops, they didn't carry lances too.

Perhaps the idea was that the guards would stand at the lord's side, instead of going charging around with lances? If the enemy attacked, they would draw out swords to use at close quarters. If the enemy stayed at distance and looked threatening, they could load the crank the crossbows ready for use.

Also further north (France, Burgundy, England etc.) rulers tended to often have a small contingent of archers as part of their personal guard.

I suspect that the lance and crossbow are simply alternatives, possibly based on personal choice, and that the crossbow is being used as a melee weapon.
From earlier periods there is plenty of evidence that cavalry use a lance or a missile weapon as alternatives n combat. Maurice in his Strategikon for instance recommends that cavalry should be allowed a lance or a bow, whichever they are happiest with. In later periods cavalry may be armed with either a lance or a pistol.
The missile weapon is used in the first phase of combat, when the cavalry are separated from the enemy by two horses heads distance, as they get more stuck in they discard it and use a sword or mace. If they have a lance they will do the same, use the lance initially, then discard it and use a hand weapon.
Since the lance or crossbow are being used to solve the same problem, they only carry one or the other.

Knew I'd seen it somewhere – talking about late Medieval / early Renaissance French cavalry

They originally comprised 15 Compagnies each of 100 'lances'; a lance contained, beside a Gendarme, two archers, (really heavy cavalrymen, later referred to as Chevaux-legers, with at least half-armour, mail sleeves, light lance, and unarmoured horse, they may still have had a bow for dismounted use in the 1490s, later carried a pistol)

Emphasis is mine. Doesn't give a source as far as I can see.
link

This is the fresco with mounted Granadine crossbowmen, El Partal
Alhambra, 14th Century upon which the 'Armies of the Middle Ages, volume 1' Granadine mounted crossbowmen is based.

Druzhina
Spanish Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers