An article on the harrying of the north - post 1066 and all that......

[Erpingham]

John of Worcester's description of the English fighting mounted on the battlefield under Earl Ralph, was that   'he is said to have ordered the  English to fight on horseback 'contrary to their custom'.  Strange that this point should be made if the Anglo Danes regularly fought as cavalry??

Wasn't this a force from the fyrd rather than the housecarles, though?  Harold and his enourage seem to have had no problem fighting on horseback on their forced stay in Normandy.   As I said previously, I think infantry fighting was their preference but mounted fighting was probably in their armoury somewhere.  Tactically, though, I'd expect them to be more like the Welsh than hard-charging Normans if they had to fight on horseback.

[aligern]

The huscarls, of course they must be the Saxons missing cavalry? Just why should a troop of chaps , many hired from Denmark, who are expected to use two handed axe and spear and shield become squadrons of cavalry? Why when they betake themselves to Byzantium after the loss of England do they join the imperial foot guards?
So Harold went to the continent, maybe to convey Edward's offer of the throne to Willam, maybe to negotiate the release of his hostage relatives, Wulfnoth and Hakon....whatever, he was a prisoner, he rode with William to Brittany, he rescued some Frenchmen from  a quicksand, he was present at a siege, he fought no battles. It is not evdence for Anglo-Saxon cavalry.

it is a seductive answer to have the Anglo Danes as cavalry of an inferior sort. I buy the idea that its not much of a leap from pursuit and killing from horseback to amateurish cavalry action, but it is far below charges, hard retreats, breaking and reforming, performing simultaneous turns, throwing javelins from horseback, using the trained horse as a weapon, breaking into infantry formations and all the other detailed tactical things that real cavalry do and, without some real evidence we should be careful of creep where they must be able to take part in limited cavalry action.

Roy

[Erpingham]

I'm not arguing for the Huscarles being primarily cavalry - the evidence points to the fact they are primarily very good infantry.  But how much had continental influence been felt through Norman contacts?  Andreas pointed out the Danes evolved cavalry in the 12th century through contact with the Germans and the Rus developed cavalry despite a Viking ancestry.  Were Anglo-Danish housecarles completely cut off from this thinking?

But, if they could fight mounted, I'd still be counting them as inferior on horseback and unlikely to fight mounted in normal circumstances.  After all, even German cavalry fought dismounted at Civitate because they felt the tactical situation warranted it.

[aligern]

Anthony , of course we all know that you are not arguing for huscarls being 'primarily' cavalry ;-). However I do take heart from your pointing out that Danish cavalry appear in the twelfth century....a lot later. It is a bit of a leap to describe these Danish and Anglo Danish  warriors as 'the ' Huscarles', as though they have some corporate existence and are looking  at military techniques . Huscarls, who are basically the armed household men of the earls and major landowners are from a Society in which the warrior rides to battle and fights on foot. The warriors they will meet do the same and any that do not..mounted Welsh or Scots do not  pose any threat to formed spearmen, thus why should they pay any attention to cavalry developments in countries with which they do not expect to be at war.

I too have written army lists that have a unit of A/S cavalry in them on the premise that there is armed and aggressive pursuit after Brunanburh , that the warriors rode and could have acted as poor cavalry......but I struggle to find where they actually did , except for the men of Hereford and I dread to think what their fighting value or morale might be!
Roy

[Erpingham]

I doubt if we really differ much in thinking.  But, looping back to Patrick's alternative reality, it does partly come down to how insular the Anglo-Danish elite were, especially when it cae to continental influences.

[aligern]

Its also a matter of how military change occurred. Alfred made huge changes, but all had antecedents.
Burhs...well there were already fortified places, he just built more.
The navy..he combined Viking and Freisian ship designs, he copied mechanisms for raising a fleet from those for raising an army.
Rotating garrisons and field armies... that appears new, but may rely upon an older system.
Later Huscarls are really only the kings stipendiary warriors and household but with a Danish twist that may involve a corporate body and laws.
The Normans in N France copy the mounted tactics of the Franks, they intermarry and follow their relatives way of war.  I inagine not fighting on horseback would have been social suicide for status hungry Scandinavians?
As Andreas says the Danes follow the precedent of German knights who move there, possibly in the same way that Normans move to Scotland.
Had the English resistance to them jot been so strong under the Godwins and had Ralf of Hereford been a more impressive warrior, maybe the English would have morphed into cavalry. Had the Scots taken in Normans and become formidable maybe that would have provided a model, however, the Satandard does not show a case whereby traditional English foot tactics were in any way inadequate for dealing with the king of Scotland.
Change tends to occur through two methods, borrowing and extending and with cavalry either could have got them there, but neither was a certainty because the existential crusis that stimulates major changes in military practicise was not there. 

[Darklinger]

In the spirit of cheerful contrariety, chaps, I present a marvellous image !

I don't believe the Anglo-Saxons had a standing cavalry arm, or that they massed archers in some prescience of Crecy and Agincourt - plainly to make those kind of claims would be absurd.

But I do think that they were varied and possibly flexible in their use of mounts, and used archery as a serious arm to influence conflicts in their favour.

Another marvellous thing that has encouraged my outbursts is the great tome published on the 950th anniversary of Hastings, 'William the Conqueror' by David Bates, Yale Uni Press 2016. His thoughts about the Anglo-Saxons and their army are too bound up with the narrative to prise out the telling quote, but it is a wonderful read. (Having said that, 'The Archers' bit is on page 238.)

[aligern]

Great mage of a chap lghting a fire by using one of those friction bows. We can see the pile of twigs beneath it ;-))

[Darklinger]

Ha ! That's the 'True Vine', - the Vine of Truth, appropriately enough, that you're talking about! Revealed with the image of  - an Anglo-Saxon archer!

[Patrick Waterson]

Patrick, re you point of the bow falling out of favour, this was explained. The Plantagenets plumped for crissbows, had. them in droves and bolts by the barrel load as the Welsh found out when they were use in conjunction with pinning cavalry at Orewin Bridge.  As someone here said, that might have had an impact on looking to make bows more powerful and standardised?

And then a certain Plantagenet decided that crossbows were not so great after all, and suddenly longbows were in the majority.

The basic point here as I see it is not that the Anglo-Saxons may or may not have fielded less archers than the Anglo-Normans, but that our hypothetical Anglo-Godwinsonians would have been as toxonomically adaptable as the Plantagenets once they felt that mailed infantry with big choppers were not the answer to everything, and they might if anything have been inclined to give the 'foreign' crossbow a miss in favour of home-grown 'proper' bows.  Best guess: the longbow becomes part and parcel of the system alongside the huscarles at around the same time Edwards I-III historically put it to good use.

Harold and his enourage seem to have had no problem fighting on horseback on their forced stay in Normandy.   As I said previously, I think infantry fighting was their preference but mounted fighting was probably in their armoury somewhere.  Tactically, though, I'd expect them to be more like the Welsh than hard-charging Normans if they had to fight on horseback.

Interesting observation about Harold's entourage, which suggests that some huscarles at least were not far from being effective cavalry.  Cavalry has two aspects: horsemanship and training, and the widespread use of mounts among Anglo-Saxons suggests that basic horsemanship was already there.  Charlemagne turned his foot-fighting Franks into effective cavalry within a generation, and the Norsemen who settled in Normandy developed the art relatively rapidly, so it is quite likely that the Anglo-Godwinssons could have fielded effective cavalry in a fairly short time had they felt the need.

Its main tactical role would probably have been much as Anthony surmises: a mix of scouting and pursuit, with a likely secondary role of countering enemy cavalry manoeuvres, perhaps by remaining in reserve and then unleashing a charge as mounted attackers fell back from an unsuccessful assault on the infantry.

As I think we generally agree, the arm is unlikely to have developed spontaneously in a vacuum; its adoption and adaptation would depend upon the kind of opponents faced.  As with archery, the basic elements seem to have been there and just needed to be brought together and hammered into definite form by a strong royal initiative.

[Erpingham]

Ha ! That's the 'True Vine', - the Vine of Truth, appropriately enough, that you're talking about! Revealed with the image of  - an Anglo-Saxon archer!

A man hunting with a shortbow in a vinyard?

[Darklinger]

A man hunting with a shortbow in a vinyard?

Ye unbelievers - the Truth revealed to ye by thy Darklinger!

Well, it's a piece of Christian symbolism, really. Christ was seen as The True Vine, the giver of the Fruits of Truth. The archer seems to be a metaphor for God and his true aim, spreading His word. It's a large fragment of a cross, 8th century, A.S.

It stands a few feet away from the Frank's Casket (that's after the chappy who found it, not the peoples who gave their name to France).

From 'The Crooked Stick  - A History Of The Longbow' by Hugh D.H.Soar:

" The upper face of a whalebone casket, circa 750 ad, depicting a Saxon householder succesfully defending his property with bow and arrows. Notice the circular shields and the arrows descending from above."

The casket astonishingly combines pagan Germanic, pagan Roman, Christian, Jewish and an unknown foundational myth for the respective peoples. (The Roman one is Romulus and Remus.) The Germanic archer is named Egil, and the story shown is also unknown, but we do know that Egil was the brother of Wayland  (as inthe Wayland's Smithy in Wiltshire). This gives something of the sense of how deep in the Saxon consciousness these things were.

[Andreas Johansson]

These things.

http://www.houzz.com/photos/380252/Dala-Horse-by-Mid-Mod-Mom-traditional-decorative-accents

I thought they were skane, seems its all sweden.

Ah. Actually, they're strongly associated with Dalecarlia; the Swedish name is even dalahäst "horse from Dalecarlia". The oldest surviving example is from ca 1560.

They're definitely nothing to do with noble cavalry, since Dalecarlia famously didn't have a nobility. Its peasantry had a reputation for making good soldiers (and for rebelling at the drop of a hat), but fought as infantry.

[Imperial Dave]

I agree with Patrick re the cavalry aspect of the Anglo-Saxons post our alternate future William loses Hastings scenario. In britain before the Normans arrived (with their fancy ways and silly haircuts) warfare was not confined to these fair isles exclusively but as an island entity mostly so. In isolation (much as evolution in animals and plants), warfare here becomes 'set' in a certain way. There is no urgent/majo reason to change as such or its a slow progression (much like shield design). the Normans changed all that and brought a well developed cavalry arm in vast numbers (an important point) to these shores the likes of which hadnt been seen for nearly 700 years. Change drives change.

If the Anglo-Saxons (sans Normans) had been left in isolation on this island, progress with cavalry would have been slow but probably continue. If the Anglo-Saxons had decided to go 'on tour' to the continental mainland for whatever reason (booty/marriage alliances/boredom etc) they would have had to develop a cavalry arm a lot quicker bearing in mind what was happening in France etc

I think the cavalry question is a moot one...Anglo-Saxons would have developed one, I just believe its more a case of how quickly this process would have been

[aligern]

Perhaps you lads need to be more systematic in your versioning of history.

The likelihood  is that maritime interventions that involve the A/S would be providing a fleet, harrying coasts and besieging and holding coastal castles. Its not impossible that they foray further inland and it would very likely be in conjunction with allies as the A/S had no bridgehead in Europe. An ally would be expected to provide cavalry cover to any expedition. That might, of course bring foward the 'infantry revolution'  from the fourteenth to the twelft century :-))

What you are both ignoring is the Crusades. It is likely that England would send a contingent and there they would be involved in a transformational experience........especially fighting Saracens without effective cavalry or much in the way of missiles. But again providing good infantry might be the contribution the team needs .
The Crusades are important because we have to assume that the rest of history marches on. Oh and don't assume that A/S England moves on without coming to an accommodation with the Pope. That would be a really difficult position for any kingdom connected into the Western European mainstream for any length of time.
Roy