Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of ancient warfare answers.

I'm Murray Daam, the assistant editor of the magazine and with me is Jasper Otage, the editor of

ancient warfare. Today's question is how did shock cavalry tactics work without stirrups?

So Yasper is going to take us through exactly how they possibly well i think they did they

did work clearly um this is a this is an idea that's pretty old i think um i think jk anderson

first sort of drew that conclusion.

There were no stirrups.

The stirrups appear sometime in the late ancient world,

sort of probably from Central Asia,

and they come into Europe where they used.

And then we think of medieval nights,

couch lands, charging in crash.

And it's hard to think how you would do that without a stirrup because that's what we're

used to because ever since cavalry of horse people, that's nicely phrased.

Cavalry men have used a stare-up to facilitate their riding.

And they have the sense that it makes them more secure in the saddle.

The thing is, it's difficult to explain this if you don't ride yourself, and I certainly

don't.

I think the last time I wrote a horse was probably at a fair, fun fair.

Maybe it wasn't even a horse, but a pony.

So perhaps we should talk to somebody who really knows a lot about horses about this question.

And I've said that way, but it's clear from, for instance, from Xenophon and later writers as well,

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