Heavy cavalry
During the time of Achaemenid Persia cavalry was the elite arm of service (as was the case in most civilizations), and many Persian horsemen such as the bodyguard unit of Cyrus the Younger were rather heavily armoured by the standards of the era.
Ammianus Marcellinus, a Roman general and historian who served in the army of Constantius II in Gaul and Persia, fought against the Persians under Julian the Apostate and took part in the retreat of his successor, Jovian.
He describes the Persian cataphract as: All their companies clad in iron, and all parts of their bodies were covered with thick plates, so fitted that the stiff joints conformed with those of their limbs; and forms of the human faces were so skillfully fitted to their heads, that since their entire bodies were covered with metal, arrows that fell upon them could lodge only where they could see a little through tiny openings opposite the pupil of the eye, or where through the tips of their noses they were able to get a little breath.
The Persians opposed us serried bands of mail-clad horsemen in such close order that the gleam of moving bodies covered with closely fitting plates of iron dazzled the eyes of those who looked upon them, while the whole throng of horses was protected by coverings of leather.The Celts of western and central Europe are among the first peoples in the region known to have made use of heavy cavalry.
It is generally accepted that the Celts were the originators of mail armour, the earliest find being from a Celtic burial in Ciumesti in modern-day Romania.
Mail and occasionally bronze armour were restricted generally to the nobility and chieftains of Celtic society, and the additional cost of maintaining a horse trained for the din and chaos of battle ensured that those men who could afford a full panoply of mail and a good quality warhorse were highly motivated, not merely by their status but by the emphasis that Celtic society placed on personal success and courage.
For close combat the main weapon was the spear, around 7 feet (2.1 m) in length with a leaf-bladed head, and a heavy wooden shield with an iron spindle-type boss.
They may have carried the "soliferrum", the all-iron javelin unique to Iberia, in addition to a spear and shield and a Celtic-style longsword or an Iberian falcata.
While cavalry played an increasingly greater part in Greek warfare, its roles were generally restricted to scouting, skirmishing and pursuit.
In the aftermath of the Macedonian Empire, the Diadochi, successor states created by Alexander the Great's generals, continued the usage of heavy cavalry in their own forces.
The Seleucids in particular introduced the use of cataphracts into Western warfare, having learned the practice of completely armouring both man and horse from Iranian tribes encountered during the wars of Alexander the Great.
As a tool allowing expanded use of horses in warfare, the stirrup is often called the third revolutionary step in equipment, after the chariot and the saddle.
Among other advantages, stirrups provided greater balance and support to the rider, which allowed the knight to use a sword more efficiently without falling, especially against infantry adversaries.
[7][8] By the 8th century the stirrup was in widespread European use,[4][9] and is later thought to have helped stimulate the creation of early knightly classes in the Carolingian empire.
An experimental type of cataphract was brought to the fore in the 10th and 11th centuries known as the klibanaphoros, "bearer of klibanion"—named after the clibanarius and a throwback to the very heavily armoured cavalry of earlier days.
However, the traditional view is that after the loss of prestige, men and material and the horse-rearing plains of Anatolia after they lost the decisive Battle of Manzikert to lighter Turk cavalry, they slowly dropped out of use.
A squire was made a knight by his superior lord or king through a ceremony known as "dubbing", swearing allegiance to his feudal masters, charity, and protection of other Christians, as well as to respect the law of the land.
Muslim military advances in Sub-Saharan Africa relied heavily on armoured cavalry, playing a similar role to that in medieval Europe.
Another Goguryeo-era mural shows an armoured cavalryman wielding his lance using both hands, unlike the couched-lance used by medieval European knights.
Armoured cavalry, in the form of the gendarme, was at its highest as a proportion of the total number of combatants in many Renaissance armies, especially in France.
Central saw the emergence of winged hussars that proved a decisive factor in the territorial gains of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and in its wars with Sweden, Muscovy, and the Ottoman Turks.
Later, the cuirassier was the main form of heavy cavalry, beginning in 1484 with the 100-man strong regiments of Austrian kyrissers for the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian.
They would have worn very distinctive plate armour, which typically featured very long and wide tassets, articulated leg protectors which would extend all the way from the breastplate down to the knees.
This rounded helmet, frequently featuring a stylized or grotesque face mask, was nicknamed "Totenkopf" or "Death's Head" by the German soldiers who encountered cuirassiers so equipped.
The Imperial German and Russian cuirassiers subsequently discarded this armour for all but parade purposes, but the twelve regiments of French heavy cavalry still in existence in 1914 wore their cuirasses on active service during the opening stages of World War I.
