Sub-Roman Britain (Cavalry etc)

[bachmat66]

Salvete

the smaller size of military mounts then (Roman times) and until mid-19th century

--ignoring, for this discussion, the draft horse-sized monstrosities ridden during the middle and late Medieval period.

well , actually there is no physical evidence (eg 'Medieval horse and its equipment ' by John Clark et al, 2004) of these 'draft horse-sized monstrosities ' - the surviving late 15th and 16th centuries horse armour would not fit any horse bigger than 15,2-5 hands - Royal Armouries at Leeds tried and eg Ann Hyland quotes their results in her book on the warhorse 1200-1600 AD (otherwise a pretty boring and of very little value book)

different from 'English' saddle and riding or US 'Western' riding?

.

I just mean John's stirrup-less Roman saddle experience while holding and wielding weapons etc versus his Western or 'English' saddle riding (as these two are very much differ on leg, calf, heel etc placement, rein usage, bit usage, saddle seat etc...), perhpas a word or two about new or different ways of inducing horse to move,pick up speed or slow down etc...

by the way nice late Roman Scholae infantryman from Russian ParaBellum magazine http://www.vzmakh.ru/parabellum/n29_s3.shtml he is wearing full iron cuirass, sort of as Sassanian asavaran advocated by Patryk Skupniewicz in his Sassanian cavalry article for Ancient Warfare.and here is a glimpse into an article by Perevalov on Late Ancient cavalry, with an image of a late Roman Kataphract and Bosphoran rider http://www.vzmakh.ru/parabellum/n26_s3.shtml