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+--- Thread: Sub-Roman Britain (Cavalry etc) (/showthread.php?tid=6780)
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Robert Vermaat - 07-01-2009
Quote: they could be pannonians as well.I have read in Ellen Swift's books about civilian burial goods from Pannonia in Britain.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - marka - 07-02-2009
Quote:marka:2gkaqrdm Wrote:they could be pannonians as well.I have read in Ellen Swift's books about civilian burial goods from Pannonia in Britain.
yes i thought them more likely to be pannonian civilians (or their relatives) in the service of the roman authorities.
basing even a single troop of sarmatians at winchester seems wasteful.
unless of course they were roman officials (and their relatives) of sarmatian and transdanubian descent.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Medicus matt - 07-02-2009
Quote:basing even a single troop of sarmatians at winchester seems wasteful.
Oooh I don't know. Venta Belgarum? A vital city for anyone wanting to control the south coast and interior between Durnovaria and Noviomagus. Sits on a major intersection of the road system so ideally suited to the rapid deployment of a cavarly force to defend anywhere between Londinium and Corinium?
Perhaps they were there to defend the Procurator of the State controlled weaving house?
:wink:
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Robert Vermaat - 07-02-2009
Quote:Perhaps they were there to defend the Procurator of the State controlled weaving house?Probably!
Venta is a backwater. Calleva would have been much more strategically positioned. :mrgreen:
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Medicus matt - 07-03-2009
Quote:Venta is a backwater. Calleva would have been much more strategically positioned. :mrgreen:
Which will be why it continued to expand and flourish in the post-roman period, growing into the most important city in early medieval england instead of being abandoned and sinking under the soil.....Oh, hand on a minute! :wink:
:lol:
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - marka - 07-03-2009
Quote:Medicus matt:2f2kcf9m Wrote:Perhaps they were there to defend the Procurator of the State controlled weaving house?Probably!
Venta is a backwater. Calleva would have been much more strategically positioned. :mrgreen:
i agree on calleva far better road network but what about noviomagus or even portus
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - marka - 07-03-2009
Quote:if you mean venta it flourished because of the 'saxon' kings .Vortigern Studies:2wefjg1b Wrote:Venta is a backwater. Calleva would have been much more strategically positioned. :mrgreen:
Which will be why it continued to expand and flourish in the post-roman period, growing into the most important city in early medieval england instead of being abandoned and sinking under the soil.....Oh, hand on a minute! :wink:
:lol:
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Medicus matt - 07-06-2009
Quote:Medicus matt:1ctzwuwy Wrote:if you mean venta it flourished because of the 'saxon' kings .Vortigern Studies:1ctzwuwy Wrote:Venta is a backwater. Calleva would have been much more strategically positioned. :mrgreen:
Which will be why it continued to expand and flourish in the post-roman period, growing into the most important city in early medieval england instead of being abandoned and sinking under the soil.....Oh, hand on a minute! :wink:
:lol:
Shlurp, shlurp..... :wink:
But only because it continued operating as a town, unlike Calleva, ergo there must have been something that made Venta the superior settlement in some way. It wasn't the first capital of Wessex either, but was chosen over Dorchester (the Oxfordshire one, not the Dorset one) in the late 7th C, again presumably because it had advantages over the former capital.
But I think we're straying quite a long way off-topic now....
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Robert Vermaat - 07-06-2009
Quote:But only because it continued operating as a town, unlike Calleva, ergo there must have been something that made Venta the superior settlement in some way. It wasn't the first capital of Wessex either, but was chosen over Dorchester (the Oxfordshire one, not the Dorset one) in the late 7th C, again presumably because it had advantages over the former capital.
But I think we're straying quite a long way off-topic now....
Yes, OT, I know..
Calleva seems to to have been a frontier-town, and in the end the inhabitants seems to have been removed. Otherwise who knows?
Dorchester-on-Thames was the first capital and bishopric of the Gewissae, but it seems to have been to close to an advancing Mercia in the later 6th and early 7th century.
When Winchester became the capital of Wessex, it was looking more to the south than to the Midlands. This was also the time when the heritage of Kent (and the Yutes) was incorporated in the heritage of Wessex, which seems to have had something different originally.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Alanus - 07-20-2009
Whatever happened to "the sub-Roman Cavalry in Britain?" :wink:
Quote:I'm not suggesting for a moment that the Sarmatian force remained at full strength and culturally undiluted for 200+ years (I'm sure that the bulk if not all of any surviving effective heavy cavalry force would have been taken into Europe by MM)....my names not Melcor you know? :wink:
The idea that Iazyges rode around as "heavy cavalry" seems unlikely. They used bows (Groser makes a reproduction example) and short swords. On the Hungarian Plain they were buried in flat graves. At the end of the 2nd century, additional and newer-styled graves show up-- tumuli, by the Roxolani. In the newer Roxolani graves, we finally see long swords (as described by Tacitus)... but not in the Iazyge burials.
One of these typical short swords, with its ring pommel, is in the British Museum and was found with coins of Commodus (who was named after a bathroom fixture 8) ), exactly the correct date. It looks similar to a Roman gladius.
A cavalry using compound bows and short swords hardly seems capable of being "heavy." This is one of the many shortcomings of Littleton & Malcor's book. They never followed up on most of their prognostications, and they gave us too many "reachers." :roll:
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - marka - 07-20-2009
only the elite and their immediate retainers are likely to have been heavy cavalry.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Conal - 07-20-2009
Quote:only the elite and their immediate retainers are likely to have been heavy cavalry.
Why?
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - marka - 07-20-2009
because the majority were too poor,took little part in fighting.Why would they buy a mail shirt they would rarely if ever use-they would buy horses&cattle instead.A composite bow would be useful for hunting but a contus,no.
the nobility needed a 'warrior' reputation....cattle and loot were a nice bonus.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Conal - 07-20-2009
Quote:because the majority were too poor,took little part in fighting.Why would they buy a mail shirt they would rarely if ever use-they would buy horses&cattle instead.A composite bow would be useful for hunting but a contus,no.
the nobility needed a 'warrior' reputation....cattle and loot were a nice bonus.
If you propose that there was a warrior elite in charge then we are not dealing with a set of individuals making decissions based on their own position. The decissions as to who spends what would not be dictated by the needs of those in charge. They were initiating a force to fight to keep their position, so it would be in their interests to get as many fully kitted out cavalry as possible. Provided there was an appropriate manufacturing base, raw materials & craftsmen then I think there would be enough wealth around to allow mail outside the immediate retainers.
Not all the populace would fight but they would certainly be expected to contribute, like the later Select Fyrd where a certain standard of equipment was expected.
Quote:It it possible to assess the actual cost of keeping an armoured (mail jerkin) cavalryman?
I have done some musing using http://www.keesn.nl/price/en2_sources.htm to give a very rough idea based on price by cow :|
Sword & Scabbard 7
Helmet 6
Mail Coat 12
Shield & lance 2
Horse 3
30 cows would get you the full kit and 18 all but a mail shirt. No saddlery is mentioned????
The population of GB at AD400 was approx 3 million ... at say one cow per 10 persons will buy you 10,000 fully armed nutters on horseback.
I don't know what the iron age ratio of cattle per person was but the Zulus manged to accrue 12,000 hide shields at the time of Rourkes Drift. If the ratio was more cattle than people then Riothamus may well have been able to arm 12,000 men with at least shield spear and sword and take them on holiday to Gaul to fight the Goths :roll:
So given a few decades I don't see why the armies of Arthurian Briton (made up of a few hundred at a time?) would not be fully kitted out as mail/scale armed cavalry. If this was not the case then I would suggest that cost was not the major factor.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Alanus - 07-21-2009
When I made the statement on the previous page of this thread, I said that I doubted there was a heavy cavalry in post-Roman Britain. This was based on the triads and the St. Cadoc records which describe "sword, spear (lancea), and shield"-- no contus. Medicus Matt had referred to "heavy cavalry;" and to me, "heavy cavalry" means a cataphract armored not only with chainmail or scale, but also total limb protection... and often with a drapus and caprison covering his horse to the knees.
Certainly chainmail was prevelent, as were helmets. And I think there may have been a substantial "Arthurian" cavalry, even assigned to commanders who had replaced the original Roman positions of Count of Britain, dux at the Wall, and Count of the Saxon Shore. The bardic songs (particularly Chair of the Sovereign) mention "steel alas" and may record a total of three, each with 300 horsemen. "Nine hundred would listen to him."
The song was recorded in the medieval period, so it may contain scribal pollution; but it implies that a standing British army may have existed in the form of three "gosgords" (legions), each with a 300-man "ala." Is there any historical foundation to the song? That's anyone's guess, but I think the possibility is worth investigating. For the romantics, such as myself, it explains the only accurate section about "Arthur" in Nennis (or Mark). He was a "dux bellorum," a continuation of the Count of Britain and leading a light cavalry of 300.
But the probability that heavily armored cataphracts-- heavy horse, heavy cavalry-- were riding around in Britain is best left the assertions of David Day and Littleton & Malcor... unless someone can present a decent case for Skene's assertion that the Equite Catafractarii were stationed at "Morbium." :roll: