Sub-Roman Britain (Cavalry etc)

[John Conyard]

I read this thread with a mixture of mystification, puzzlement and horror. I certainly do not want to get in the way of any potential novels or films. But …….

After a generation in northern Italy our version of the Taifali are into Italian chic, red wine and fine food. Our wagons aren’t for living in, but carrying unlimited supplies of lambrusco. More importantly our belt fittings are fashionable and very Roman.
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Raised for Honorius as a Roman cavalry unit, equipped as Roman horsemen by Roman factories, we’ll be back with the Gaulic field army by the early 5th century like many other units from Britain. I’ll be writing to you from my Dad’s place in Brittany trying French wine and fine food. Rather more cosmopolitan than Lincolnshire cuisine.

Cavalryman can throw most things from horseback, including very 3rd century javelins with square cross section heads. I don’t like using them much since they don’t seem very 4th century, but the penetrate the target well and our public shows are competitive. The public likes to see javelins punch through the target and they give one “an edge”.

Lacking Roman factories, with old helmets ripped up for bullion value, post Roman cavalry would sport perhaps some form of armour, shields and cheap simple weapons like javelins. Perhaps the occasional high status sword.
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Certainly none of the short seax knives that are late to arrive in the UK. They don’t need a kontos to engage infantry or other cavalry, and lack the capacity to repair any old asymmetrical recurve bows left behind by the Romans. Saddles could even be rare and examples with high cantles limited to high status warriors.
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Such cavalry would perhaps mirror the so-called Anglo-Saxon nobles fighting as cavalry on the “other side”, and as occasional allies. It could even be had to tell them apart. History is rarely simple. Lucky reconstruction is far more straightforward.