what was the function of the Roman cavalry?

[RUBICON]

Ok, having not entered a jousting exercise, my knowledge is based upon years of riding. Years of different situations on the back of a horse and in different saddles from flat seat jumping saddles, to deep seat dressage saddles to our very own Australian stock saddles with huge knee GRIPS obviously designed for stockwork where horses are turning quickly much lik eteh American western saddle with similar knee stops and horn and very couch like!

the closest I can come to from a situation similar to the impact and sudden removal of forward motion is a horse suddenly stopping in front of a fence. Stirrups would help as most riders could with shortened stirrups braced their lower leg forward to stop the rider being thrown forward. Our current day saddles dont have large sections at the front and rear of the saddles like the old jousting saddles. As we now ride/jump with a shorter leg position we can utilise teh use of stirrups for one bracing, and carrying our weight OFF the horse's back over a fence and upon landing where teh stirrups take all the weight of the rider and not the horse's back. Going across or dwon hill, riders can put their legs forward to brace themselves as we dont have the front and rear supports.

Although medieval riders did, and i cannot see how that sudden forward motion would not cause severe thigh bruising if not removal of your crown jewels?

Going downhill or uphill they woudl have constant pressure on teh fornt and rear of tehir waist regions

Unfortunatley we are not comparing apples with apples. The old medieval riders with their couch like saddles rode with very long straight leg positions probably offering no support from stirrups (a common problem seen these days with riders with long stirrups, soon shows up their very poor sense of balance. Unfortunatley todays riders are NOT held in by such deep supportive saddles.

If medieval riders had ridden in shorter stirrups they could have used the stirrups to very much help themselves brace against impact.

This is proven very much by paintings and writings of the the old days where it was commonplace to have a very long stirrup. Riding positions have changed whereby riders nowadays are more effective via use of their legs.

So I agree, the saddle is very important, without those deep saddles the jouster would have been spat out backwards but the correct length and use of stirrups would have aided more support for bracing the forward motion of the rider.

I have no information whether saddles back then had adjustable stirrup lengths like today.

Once again, saddles were designed for the purpose at hand. poor riding skills (if no natural talent) meant the average rider needed a lot of support staying on a horse, ie the deep couch saddles...high canters .. horns etc I just think shorter leg lengths& stirrups would have been a huge step forward for the jouster.

Just because they didnt think of it doesnt mean it wasnt more beneficial. as I said, riding as a science developed much later!