The image of the armoured knight mounted on his charging warhorse is one of the most evocative of the Middle Ages. As distinctive symbols of social status, horses were central to the medieval aristocratic image and closely bound up with concepts of knighthood and chivalry, while as weapons of war bred for size, strength and stamina, they changed the face of battle.
Drawing upon new interdisciplinary research, this volume presents a fresh perspective on warhorses, and medieval horses generally, in Britain, understood within its wider European context. It adopts an integrated approach that covers the full array of evidence for medieval horses, from their physical remains (bones, teeth and DNA), equipment and armour, through to visual sources such as sculpture and wall paintings, and documentary and landscape evidence for the environments in which they were bred and trained. Analyses of these sources of information are first presented individually, and then integrated and cross-compared with the historical record to present a new chronology of horse stature, conformation and appearance and to generate new understandings of the changing place of the horse in the medieval world.
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: The Military Uses of Horses: An Historical Chronology
Oliver Creighton and G.P. Baker
Chapter 3: All the King's Horses: Equine Networks
G.P. Baker and Robert Liddiard
Chapter 4: Equine Infrastructure: Stables, Studs and Tiltyards
G.P. Baker, Robert Liddiard and Oliver Creighton
Chapter 5: Visual Culture: Sculpture, Art and Objects
Oliver Creighton
Chapter 6: Horse Equipment: Bits and Pieces
Robert Webley
Chapter 7: Exoskeleton: Armour and Horseshoes
Oliver Creighton, Alan Outram and Robert Webley, with contributions by Tess
Townend
Chapter 8: Skeleton: Zooarchaeology
Katherine Kanne, with contributions by Carly Ameen, Alan Outram, Marine
Durocher, Allowen Evin, Alex Pryor and Ludovic Orlando
Chapter 9: The Changing Horse: Equine Stature
Alan Outram and Oliver Creighton, with contributions by Carly Ameen, G.P.
Baker, Helene Benkert, Isabel Díaz López, Katherine Kanne, Robert Liddiard,
Karina Rapp and Tess Townend
Chapter 10: Horses and Medieval Society
Oliver Creighton, Robert Liddiard and Camille Vo Van Qui
Chapter 11: Conclusions
Oliver H. Creighton is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Exeter. Robert Liddiard is Professor of History at University of East Anglia. Alan K. Outram is Professor of Archaeological Science at University of Exeter. Carly Ameen is Lecturer in Bioarchaeology, University of Exeter. Kate Kanne is Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University College Dublin.
