Horseback riding style

[Ocin]

Since I was recently trying to figure out how to correctly depict a knight on horseback, I had a look at some illustrations of medieval riders. They often seem to hold their legs almost straight and kind of point them forward. Here is a paper which depicts the evolution of the position on horsbeack over the centuries (p. 4):

Remarks on the Construction, Evolution and Use of the War Saddle in Late...

Also this site refers to a book which states that at least warhorses were ridden in a special fashion.

http://medievalreader.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/on-horses-the-correct-way-to-ride-them/

I noticed that in the footage of the game we have seen so far the riding style seems rather modern. For example the stirrups are rather short:

Actually I don’t think this is a problem even if it is not 100% correct. I guess it won’t break immersion and the quality of the animations is more imporant. Nevertheless I think it is an interesting topic. Maybe someone with a more solid knowledge of the topic (I can’t even ride a horse) can provide some explanations. Was this style of riding only for warhorses during battles or was this also used when travelling?

[Dushin]

Perhaps some influence from the steppe people?

I know knights rode with the legs “on the pedals” fully stretching and pointing them forward. Relatively long stirrups and a high ridged saddle.

I do believe Light cavalry in Spain and the Balkans rode more like in the picture so maybe both styles will be in the game.

[Snowmane]

Just thinking logically, I would guess it has something to do with the weight of the rider and the possibility of hurting the horse. Short stirrups allow the rider to stand in a hunched position with bent knees and his butt out of the saddle. This is easier on the rider and horse, because the rider can use his legs to absorb the impact of each stride. This allows the rider to keep his butt from banging painfully in the saddle and prevents impact to the animal’s back from the weight of the rider. It also results in bent knees when sitting in the saddle for normal travel.

As riders get heavier (from armor and weapons), using your legs to stand and absorb shocks becomes impractical. This means you need to sit in the saddle while riding. At gallop, you are going to start bouncing up and down from the horse’s motion. Taking into account the combination of your weight, your equipment and the momentum built up from the previous stride, you are going to come down pretty hard on the animals back. By moving the stirrups such that your legs are straight out and putting a ridge on the back of the saddle, you can hold your legs stiff and keep yourself in place to minimize the effect of momentum on the impact between rider and horse with each stride.

[Ocin]

Thank you for your replies. The assumption that the different positions result from different requirements makes sense.

@Dushin : I think you are right: the mongols seem to have used the ‘bent knee style’ as can be seen in this picture from wikipedia. I’ve read that this allowed them to turn in the saddle while shooting their bows and enabled them to compensate the up and down motion of the horse.

@Snowmane : What you write about the weight of the armour and its influence on the riding position makes sense to me. I’ve also read that the long stirrups style is related to the fighting technique. I guess it would have been impractical to stand in the stirrups while hitting the enemy with a lance or being hit by some blow. The saddle evolution graphic in the paper also shows that while the stirrups become longer the saddle encloses the rider. This might prevent him from being pushed from horseback but probably also made it difficult to turn in the saddle.

I guess including both styles depending on the situation (battle or travel) and the training of the rider would increase the authenticity. Nevertheless it might be hard to figure out how a rider with straight legs actually moved because nobody seems to use that style anymore. (I can’t remember seeing this in Hollywood films, perhaps for this reason or because they thought it would confuse the audience…) So if it is too hard to implement correctly a more modern style would be ok for me as well.

[Dushin]

Actually plenty of people ride like that.

*Try not the read the video description or the comment section.

Jousting Hard Hits replays from the Jousting Tournament

http://worksofchivalry.com/en/a-la-brida-and-a-la-gineta-different-riding-techniques-in-the-late-middle-ages-
and-the-renaissance/

A la Brida is the heavy cavalry style.

[Ocin]

Ok, you are right. They seem to keep the legs almost straight and point them forward even though it’s a bit hard to make out at that angle and looks not as extreme as in the paper. Obviously I was a bit hasty with my judgement

The article you mentioned is quite interesting and answers some of my questions. So both techniques existed and were used in different situations although the a la gineta style (bent knees) seems to have been not that common in northern Europe.

[Dushin]

No for the most part of the middle ages Light Cavalry tactics were limited to the Iberian peninsula, Balkan and eastern Europe that came in contact with nomadic horse people. They were however employed as mercenaries by many European nations of the day.

[RumSponge]

I’m not quite sure what your getting at here Dushin, I was under the impression that light cav had been used extensively in northern Europe since the late Romano period, as both a screening and recce force, one example that springs to mind right away is the Hobelar and possibly the Stradiot??

[Dushin]

Those were the mercenaries I was talking about. The “native” cavalry of northern Eurioe areas was almost always heavy cavalry in the form of noblemen or rich commoners. Later we see mounted archers being used but those dismounted to fight so basically were mounted infantry. They did use light cavalry but those were almost always hired mercenaries such as stadiots from the Balkan.

[RumSponge]

I stand corrected, cav ops are not something I know much about. I shall have too do some reading over the weekend, cheers.

[thor84no]

At gallop, you are going to start bouncing up and down from the horse’s motion.

I don’t know about the straight legs style of riding, but certainly with modern riding styles it’s trotting that sends you bouncing (almost no matter what you do, even at slow speeds), while gallop is actually a pretty smooth motion that is far less jarring or bouncy. From my experience of riding I’m reasonably confident that an armored person would not be bouncing in the saddle at all during gallop (assuming they’re a reasonable rider).

Personally I think the straight legs would help to provide a counter-weight in the case of being pushed backwards by a sword or lance, as well as providing you with a better grip on the horse, further decreasing the chance of someone unhorsing you.

[loksley]

If I look at the ingame-picture from the first posting, I don’t think that is what Dom Duarte means with “a la gineta”.

The most important thing about riding is balance. “A la gineta” is approximately the predecessor of the riding style that we use in the classic - riding and dressage riding today. In the classical riding the leg is in some cases even longer. The difference is about the image that the stirrup is far below the center of gravity of the rider . Head , back and stirrup form a line . What I think I see on the picture is what we call a chair sitting in Germany . It is like sitting on a chair . This is relatively easy if you are traveling leisurely through the landscape, but you can not use the so called “lower aids” , the lower leg, and the pelvis is blocked. In short: You can not precisely control the horse.
To explain this briefly : A horse is about how a vehicle in which can be controlled all four wheels / legs individually. With the reins controlling the forelegs , with the pelvis and thighs , the hind legs of the horse .
Riding with the long leg ( kept short ) : The center of gravity of the rider is deeper, you can keep better balance, and you can control the horse with the pelvis and thighs. When gallop you can either sit- out the movement or you can stand up in the stirrups and lean forward to the cantle of the saddle . This is a very stable style of riding fast. etc …

[loksley]

To much weight on the legs or the stirrups in full arms is really no problem.
For your interest (maybe), this is my riding stuff.

[chabuhi]

I think the desire to go for hardcore authenticity has to be tempered with an acceptance that perhaps (and maybe only perhaps) a good number of the target audience might find authentic riding styles of the period to look rather “fake” since their frame of reference is almost entirely the modern (I certainly fall into that category).

Imagine if the English version of the game was to use authentically spoken period English. I think most modern English speaking people might find it perplexing to understand.

I’m all for games that try to evoke a sense of a period in time, but I do think there’s a risk in making things too authentic.

[loksley]

Do you really think that it looks “fake”? I can not tell, because I feel the other riding style as very strange looking. A knight with a short leg riding is for me like North American Indians riding with modern English-saddles.

But I think I understand what you mean.
In my wild days long ago, I worked for a time in the game-industry. We have designed such little funny Vikings,. of course with horns on their helmets. And Arabs with a large turban. and Romans looked like in Asterix comics. Because the player would simply expect these figures look like this. A viking without horns on his helmet is not a real viking. Of course we knew the vikings have never looked like this.

But I feel this game is something else … the goal was to show very realistic medieval life. No fantasy but the real thing. So I ask where reality begins and where it stops with “authenticity too much” …

Is there such a thing? Too much authenticity? Can a river or a forest made too much realistic? I think the limit has to be drawn where the costs outweigh the benefit. But I’ll bet that it is more expensive to make a river realistic, than give the riders a long leg and so on. So it only remains as argument that more players recognize the error in a river, than the errors when riding.
You know that a good look is achieved among other things by interesting details. Why then invent some new and not take the historically correct ones? I personally feel of course, the historic look results in a much more coherent greater picture. Even if only a few will recognize it, the whole thing will be recognized as more “real”.
And maybe it’s also quite good not to show what the player normally expects, and thus gets a unique-new-look.

Here again a link to some pictures of riding knights, i think you will see easily the difference.
----> riding knights

[Dushin]

To be honest I see no problem in Knights riding A la Brida like they actually did. That said we might expect some horse archers in this game from nearby horse nomads who might ride different.

[chabuhi]

Very good points, Loksley. I think perhaps the horse riding question is a poor argument to hang my hat on with regards to too much authenticity. And I (personally, and it wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong … just the second ) think there is a difference between authenticity and realism. I think authenticity seeks the achieve or recreate reality in an exact way, whereas realism seeks to evoke reality. Or maybe I’m hung up on semantics. Anyway, the better example I should probably rely on is the case of 1:1 time or travel vs. time/travel compression. It’s one thing to have a game that captures the feeling of a very large area and another that actually makes you travel a day and half in real time to get somewhere.

Do I have a point? I’m no longer sure … I’m halfway into my second Scotch at present.

[loksley]

Hi Dushin!
Please read my first posting here in this topic, 4 postings over yours.
IMHO it is not “a la brida” what they are riding, because that would be riding with a long leg, putting the weight on the stirrups, and its even not “a la gineta”, too (i talk of the first picture in this topic)!

And if you are interested in this topic, please look at my picture-link just over your posting and tell me if you can see them riding like on the picture.

[loksley]

I did it again. I can’t kept myself from doing lot work that most probably nobody is interested in.
I add some funny arrows and completed the old picture with the last two figures:
The more green ones works, the red ones do not so good. The last figure shows modern riding with short leg, the second last is what i called the “Kingdom Come chair-seat” First and last are mostly comperable to the so called “a la gineta”, second is “a la brida”, fourth one is somewhat standing in the stirrups (medieval version is with leaning at the front cantle of the saddle) today called “hunting-seat”. Maybe someone will find it useful.

[Dushin]

I am not sure if the legs can get any more outstretched than this.

or maybe I am mistaken.