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It's entirely possible to handle a large group of tacked horses. Ever seen single a polo groom exercising the string of 12?

Brenna

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Three things pop to mind.

Firstly, I don't know a lot about mounted crossbowmen, but I'm going to stick my neck out and assume they are operating pretty much the way mounted english archers are operating.

Most english archers are mounted by the Hundred Year's War, but they are operating as true mounted infantry, rather than as dragoons, using horses purely for transport to the battlefeild rather than for mobility on it. They therefore aren't using horse holders in the same way as (say) cavalry in the ACW are doing.

For big set-piece battles such Crecy or Agincourt, the archers' horses - and most of the knights, for that matter - are kept with the baggage train, and looked after by members of the baggage train rather than detached archers.

For skirmishes, the pattern isn't clear, but I think - and I'm really sorry, but I can't remember my source for this - that the normal plan is to tether the horses, with a perhaps a couple of men to look after them, rather than using horse holders. There are almost certainly times when this wasn't the way things worked out, though!

Second, I don't think archers are likely to be riding Palfreys. A Palfrey is normally - and there is always the possibility of confusion when using medieval technical terminology - a riding horse of some considerable quality, potentially costing as a cheap warhorse such as a rouncy.

Archers are much more likely to be riding cheaper riding horses such as a Hakenai or a hobby, costing less than £1, compared to £3-10 pounds for a Palfrey and £5-10 for a Rouncey. Prices above are very approximate, obviously; if you want more detail, check in Davis or Ayton.

Regarding tack, I think - and this is off the top of my head - that the illustrations I've seen of mounted archers have them riding on what are pretty much medieval civilian saddles - nothing like as built up or reinforced as a war saddle, but still quite deep by modern english standards. If you're really interested, I can dig up the sources and give you some references.

Bridles don't seem to differ for warhorses and other horses. There are several styles, but the illustrations show most of these being used more-or-less interchangeably on most types of horses.

Hope that helps

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Second, I don't think archers are likely to be riding Palfreys. A Palfrey is normally - and there is always the possibility of confusion when using medieval technical terminology - a riding horse of some considerable quality, potentially costing as a cheap warhorse such as a rouncy.

Archers are much more likely to be riding cheaper riding horses such as a Hakenai or a hobby, costing less than £1, compared to £3-10 pounds for a Palfrey and £5-10 for a Rouncey. Prices above are very approximate, obviously; if you want more detail, check in Davis or Ayton.

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Good point there. Palfreys seems to be a common term used to refer to an easy gaited or ambling riding horse. Think medieval equivalents of a modern gaited horse. Icelandics still retain the ability to tolte, a much sought after smooth quick gait.

Palfreys seem to be a more exclusive mount, a well heeled knight sometimes had a palfrey for travel and a destrier(s) for war or tourney. Rouncies were often the mount for a squire or man at arms. From what I have interpreted out of RHC Davis' book, rouncey didn't mean a "light" warhorse but was usually a "sturdy, reliable" mount of reasonable cost/quality that could be pressed into service for mounted combat and frequently was used for such by squires or men at arms. Davis seemed (to me) to indicate that a fine palfrey was considered more expensive and valuable than a rouncey. Of course, a horse's value changes depending on need, usage and ability and I don't have the book here at work, I'm going from memory.

If an archer used a horse primarily for transport,
chances are nobody spent a lot on the animal. A hobby would have probably been the more cost effective mount for them.

Brenna

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Ayton actually has some figures for the costs of Archer's mounts - they definitely aren't considered worth covering for the Resturo Equorum payments under Edward III, for example, and generally seem to be fairly cheap - many are around 10-15 shillings.

That said, medieval agricultural horses (affers, stotts etc) seem to be going for ridiculously cheap prices relative to warhorses (around 7 shillings in the 1340s, if I recall) so even if you're spending less than a £1, you're probably getting a perfectly acceptable riding horse.

I'd interpret the rouncey slightly differently, as a genuine intended-for-battle warhorse, but of lesser quality than a destrier or courser.

They are selling for too much of a premium over normal riding horses to be simply something pressed into service as an expedient if you've nothing better - I think we're looking at the same sort of horse as a destrier, but not as good.

The "light" warhorse is more the Courser, which costs as much as many of the destriers, but emphasises speed and agility more than strength.

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The "light" warhorse is more the Courser, which costs as much as many of the destriers, but emphasises speed and agility more than strength.

I think - and this is something I'm trying to get evidence for and against at present - that there is a trend in the c14th for the courser to increasingly replace the Destrier on campaign, while the Destrier itself becomes more purely a specialist horse for jousting.

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Makes a great deal of sense from the standpoint since "Coursers" that due to their speed and agility were also frequently used for messengers. (Note the Latin background for the word: "cursus : a race, a running, race course, race track, course.") I'm sure a case could be made to connect the term courier to courser as well. There is also some evidence put forth by Thoroughbred fanciers that the English fascination with fast horses began with coursers and that coursers were the English portion of the breed foundation. Of course, the first real English Thoroughbreds come from the 17th century, so that's a little hard to extrapolate (But I must say thank you to Charles II for his propensity for fast women, fast boats and fast horses as it gave a truly amazing breed)

"Fast and agile" horses usually have a higher percentage of fast twitch muscles which allow them to get into and remain in good physical condition, maintain higher levels of endurance and recover more quickly from sustained speed work. Heavily built horses have a higher percentage of slow twitch muscles which makes them harder to physically condition, lowers endurance somewhat (especially for sustained speed work) and slows their recovery. If there was a push to create a heavier specialised horse simply for the tournament it would also make sense to develop a lighter animal with better endurance for campaign.

Oh, no, I'm applying common sense here again I better back off!
Brenna

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Seriously, I think the courser (keeping in mind that it's a type, not a breed) becomes more prevalent in the later middle ages, and ultimately developes into the sort of medium warhorse than Grisone and Corte are asuming you're using in the mid-sixteenth century.

That, in turn, provides a major chunk of the ancestral stock you breed TBs out of in the seventeenth century.

I'm not sure about using a pure courser for messengers etc though - it may be fast and agile for a warhorse, but that's a little like saying an M1 Abrahms is a fast tank. It is indeed, being able to do a whole 50 mph.

A courser is a very specialised and horribly expensive animal, costing perhaps £20-30. That's two or three times what the college of heralds says is the minimum annual income for a gentleman. Unless my courier is going to need to figt his way through, I'm more likely to be giving him a good riding horse than something trained and bred for battle.

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". There is therefore the possibility that the courser acquired its name as a hunting horse rather than what we'd understand as a racehorse.

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Well, considering that a fast agile horse is also the ideal hunting mount, I think we could still hark back to the original Latin root a bit. Also, the idea behind coursing a greyhound iwas often not so much in using them as a hunting dog to bring down prey but to rate their worth by seing which hounds turned the hare the most swiftly, took the least mis-steps, etc.

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I'm not sure about using a pure courser for messengers etc though - it may be fast and agile for a warhorse,

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Seriously, I think the courser (keeping in mind that it's a type, not a breed)

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Exactly my thought, so it actually makes it hard to be certain how exactly the term was applied over the admitedlly wide time span of the medieval period. "Types" of animals and word usage can change tremendously in the span of 50 years. Certainly something to look into more closely.

Brenna

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Admin

To flip back to the original topic - horses for mounted crossbowmen - I did a little digging in my pile of source material, and came up with an ordinance of Charles the Bold of Burgundy.

There are basically three of these orinances which set up the Burgundian "standing army", dating from 1471 - 1473. The one in question is the Ordinance of St maximin de Treyes, 1473, which lays out minimum prices for horses of non-noble cavalry.

A Page must ride a horse worth at least 30 Ecus

A Coustillier (light cavalryman, lance and some armour but definitely NOT fully armoured) must ride a horse worth at least 20 Ecus

A mounted crossbowman must ride a horse worth at least 10 ecus

A mounted archer must ride a horse worth at least 6 francs.

Unfortunately, I don't have an exchange rate between Burgundian Ecus and English money, which is what most of my data for warhorses uses, but it's a useful relative scale.

The same ordinance also describes training for mounted archers,albeit in a rather limited way - it says what they should be trained to do, rather than how they should do it - but doesn't really cover horse holders etc.

I do not think that there is any real rhyme or reason to the number of horses per attendent other than what that person can realistically handle then and now. Also I think that if one were a combatant, I do not think that you would be holding a horse for anyone as your obvious talents would be required on the field.

In our various "snapshots" of history we do not normally have the membership to represent the scale nor the size and true grandeur of the households that would follow a great lord about. As a result, we lack the civilian tail that follows the army/household. People who would normally be present are not. I think that one would have a series of grooms or valets that would hold the horses while the archers and armoured men* dismounted and fought.