Carolingian Cavalryman AD 768-987: 096 (Warrior)

This is a good Osprey title that makes all the important points about "Carolingian cavalrymen", as David Nicolle is very careful to call them. Largely bases on David Bachrach's works on the subject (but also on quite a few other authors listed in the bibliography), he shows that this cavalryman remained mostly a mounted heavy infantryman, but capable of fighting on horseback if necessary, and only started to turn into the medieval "knight" during the 10th century. Among many other points, this title shows rather well two main evolutions.The first one may have started to occur in the late seventh century and certainty did happen during the eighth century. This was a shift from the Franks' previous military organisation, with a majority of troops made up of infantry and cavalry made up of the nobles and their retainers to forces made up of mounted infantry. The former forces, those of Clovis and his successors, were of mix of Frankish levies, Frankish and Gallo-Roman nobles and their retinues (think of Buccelarii), urban militias from old Roman cities, remnants of Roman military units including federates and Laetes.The new organisation was one where all warriors answering the call to arms were mounted and probably mostly armoured also with mail or at least leather. The main reason for the shift, which is at least alluded (and a bit more than that in fact) has to do with the expansion of the Frankish Regnum. It became so vast that the armies of the Mayors of the Palace, even when they were several, needed to be mounted in order to be able to reach the various hotspots, put down rebellions and restore order. It is about these forces, which were those of Charles Martel, Pepin, his son, and Charlemagne, that this book is largely about. It was thanks to this mounted infantry that they were able to cover vast distances and wage a campaign a years, and sometimes even two per year.As David Nicolle also shows, the next step, during the tenth century, was the development of real cavalry that were to become knights but which were still as capable as fighting on foot. Contrary to what had been alleged, the use of stirrups only spread slowly and was not the "technological revolution" that it has been portrayed to be. This evolution was a response to the Magyars in Germany, and to the Viking threat in the western part of the Carolingian world. In both cases, what we would nowadays call "rapid response forces" were needed, and defence became more and more localised.One weakness of this little title, perhaps, is that it is silent on the vast economic reorganisation that the development of mounted and more heavily equipped soldiers would have implied. A somewhat surprising statement from Nicolle was to mention at one point that horse raising does not seem to have been an overwhelming imperial priority. Another missing element is that the role of the church was not limited to religious morale boosting aspects. It also played a significant role in providing large numbers of mounted troops and considerable amounts of provisions from the vast lands that belonged to it.With respect to the other contents, the book does a fairly good job in presenting the origins, training, everyday life and equipment of the Carolingian cavalrymen. The plates are good, even if not as superb as those of the late Angus McBride, and they support the main text rather well. Those on the death of Rollo, the Markgraf of Brittany killed at Ronsceveaux, and of clashes against Viking marauders and raiding Magyars, stand out as particularly good, in my view. The bibliography for further reading is also quite good, although it does include the latest publications (those of Bachrach, in particular) on the Carolingians since the title was first published in 2005 and has obviously not been updated since.There are however about half a dozen "glitches". I have chosen this term because, at least for some of them, I could not make up my mind whether they were typos reflecting poor editing (for instance "Vegatius" instead of Vegetius for the Roman author of a well-known treaty on the Late Roman Army which was rather popular during the Dark and Early Middle Ages) of whether they were real mistake. Another "typo" was to attribute to Charlemagne the conquest of Aquitaine in AD 768 in the chronology. It was in fact Pepin, his father, who completed it that year, the last of his reign, after a long and hard war that had started six years before. Yet another one is to mention "jambieres" and translate this in English as "arm protections" (in fact the term means "leg protections" in French).An example of the mistakes is the "bunching" together of the Byzantines with the Avars and the Magyars and presenting the horse archers that the three were supposed to have as the reason for the Carolingian tactic of cavalry charges to close with the enemy as fast as possible to minimise the volleys of arrows. This was certainly true for the two later groups. However, and by the time of Charlemagne accession to the throne, at least, if not earlier, the Byzantine do not seem to have been using horse archers anymore.So, apart from these few elements, this is a rather good primer and introduction to the Carolingian cavalry, if perhaps not to Carolingian warfare. Accordingly, I believe it is well worth four stars.

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