Weak cavalry?

[Ringeck]

Often people think that those 800kgs of horse are a speeding bullet, heading straight ahead with no thought of its own safety. This is, to put it mildly, not always the case. At very few points in medieval history did heavy cavalry charge an ordered line of infantry unless they had softened it up (or thought they had) with infantry or missile attack first - the more publicized infantry vs cavalry victories always seem to miss some details in the telling: at Courtrai/Kortrijk the cavalry assault failed because the infantry had not disordered the flemish foot enough, and at Bannockburn the english infantry and archers were unable to give support to the heavy cavalry due to the english army not having properly deployed. At Falkirk, 16 years before, the scottish spear formations were subjected to heavy missile fire before the english sent in their heavy cavalry when the Scots were disordered enough to ensure the full effectiveness of the cavalry.

At the Hastings reenactment this year (see http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=65591) we saw some interesting horse psychology. When the norman cavalry faced the shieldwall, with spears protruding from every second man, they had no problems making their horses shie away from the infantry - they did it almost naturally. However, after a staged charge into the center that "broke through" the horses almost became truly dangerous as they followeded one another into the infantry - even those that were not supposed to "break through". Let me tell you, horsemen running around in a weakened and split infantry formation are a scary sight and experience - even if the horsemen are only trying not to step on you!