Richard III discussion

I have been trying to get an idea of just how big a destrier was. One outlier source says that they could be 24+hh. Now that seems to me to be the height of a small elephant (96" or 8'). I do not believe an armoured man could mount so tall a beast without considerable help from his friends and servants. Other sources place the height at 14 hands which in modern measurements would make the animal a pony not a horse. Since I am not an equestrienne, I am at a disadvantage when trying to sift out what is reasonable or, indeed, likely. The North American Horse Encyclopedia says 14-16 hh, while being inclined toward the larger number. Any of you know more exact information?

Well I'm as ignorant about horseflesh as anyone but you might find this blog post interesting,

http://livingthehistoryelizabethchadw...

Thank you. I have found some information on the main Living History page. Also I have read that the Frisian is similar to the extinct destrier. It seems that strong hind-quarters were a must since the mount had to pivot easily and manoeuvre in close quarters during battle. Fifteen hands sounds good. I think in later centuries they were a little larger, maybe up to sixteen and a half hands.

This is a fascinating link; I truly appreciate it. ;)

I tell you, Misfit. I am trying to assure myself that the destrier was more than 14 hands high. The image of that giant Edward IV riding into battle on a fierce pony is simply too Monty Python to be borne.

As far as medieval authors go, Chadwick is a great favorite of mine, she can suck me into another century better than anyone. Her blog is good fun to follow, see if you can find a post from a few months ago called tall dark and handsome.

I'm not very well informed on equine matters, but suspect that the destrier got bigger over time. My reasoning? Well, the knights of William the Conquerer's time were armoured in mail, but by the 15th C the guys were in solid plate from head to foot. The latter was much heavier, and given that the whole point of heavy cavalry is to do shock charges at speed, it seems to me the horses must have been bred bigger and heavier so as to be sufficiently powerful. How big exactly is another question.

I think so too. But the destrier's back had to be close enough to the ground for a knight to mount without the Mark Twain conceived derrick. I am guessing somewhere between 14.5 hh and 15.5. That, together with a more solid body and heavier haunches should have been a decent mount for the battle technique of the time.

And nasty too right? Didn't they bite and kick and fight as well?

According to some of the sources I have read, some destriers were trained to trample people and chew away at anything they could reach, including arms, faces et alia. Their chief weakness was a lack of stamina; they could go at it fiercely but not for very long.

14.3, 14.4 = 15 hands. There's four inches to a hand. Early dexterers (Destriers) were most likely on the smaller end probably 14 - 14.3, later horses 15 and up. My husband can mount his horse (17h) in full armour from the ground. He prefers not to and uses a mounting block so he doesn't wrench Normandie's back.

http://www.wolfeargent.com/training-2...

Size of the horse doesn't necessarily equal carrying capacity. I know some ponies that can carry an tremendous load. Draft horses pull, they tend not to carry.

Plate harness is exceptionally light compared to some of the modern combat packs that modern military men carry. My husband's replica 15th century Italian export harness weighs in at a total 65 pounds. The weight is evenly distributed across his body. Jousting harness toward the end of the century (15th) was specialized and could weigh in excess of 100 pounds. Quite different from the utility of a field harness. German harness of the 15th century has fluting. This tends to be like a corrigated box. It makes the armour lighter and stronger.

It's hard to say what horses were really trained to do. Duarte (King of Portugal 1430s) does not cover training of the horse, only that of the rider and the different riding styles of la brida and gyneta (gineta) or shunken leg which is what most of us equate with modern English riding; hunting and the joust. The English work by Wyndken de Worde "Properties of Medicine for Horse" 1496-97, has some particularly brutal training methods.

I agree that horses started getting larger. However, you will find horses of different sizes throughout history. Usually if something was out of the ordinary, an observer would make a commentary: small, large, unusual color, etc...

The haute ecole started in the 16th century in Naples under Federigo Grisone, when you really start to see "aires above ground". This is where you start to see the high fighting kicks, etc... If it existed officially before that time, there are no extant records that have been found to support it. It's largely speculation.

Pignatelli one of Grisone's students, trained others who spread it into the great schools of France, Spain, and Germany. The Neapolitan school formed before the now famous Spanish Riding School.

Anecdote of one warhorse: After a particularly nasty battle, a horse was thought dead. He and his rider had been brutally assaulted by men with halberds (pole axes). On the battlefield the following day, they found the horse alive with severe injuries. He survived. In every battle after that, when the horse saw that type of weapon, he'd grab it and try to pull it out of the assailants hands.

There are a few books on the topic of Medieval Horses.

Clark's The Medieval Horse and its Equipment: 1150 - 1450 is a good survey. It doesn't really cover saddles, but has some aspects of the size of horse shoes, bits, and has some information on extant remains from burial pits near London. However, it doesn't reveal the types of horses that the remain might represent.

Charles Gladitz covers breeding, though like many of Ann Hylands books, it focuses more on the Eastern record.

I suspect that Edward IV being a tall man, would probably have had a suitably sized horse. Visually I go by horse's wither to man's shoulder.