{"id":10216,"date":"2013-07-28T18:49:54","date_gmt":"2013-07-28T22:49:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thegreathorse.com\/?p=10216"},"modified":"2017-06-02T17:12:37","modified_gmt":"2017-06-02T21:12:37","slug":"the-revolutionary-stirrup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thegreathorse.com\/book-blog\/2013\/07\/the-revolutionary-stirrup\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bright Side of the Dark Ages: Stirrups!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width:440px;\"><em>&#8220;It is surprising that horsemen took 1,500 years to think up something so simple. One is reluctantly driven to the distasteful conclusion that we are not really a very bright set of people.&#8221;<\/em>&#8211;Charles Chenevix-Trench (1914-2003), A History of Horsemanship<\/div>\n<p>____________<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegreathorse.com\/book-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/0579_haniwa-horse_c550AD_225px.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thegreathorse.com\/book-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/0579_haniwa-horse_c550AD_225px.jpg\" alt=\"0579_haniwa-horse_c550AD_225px\" width=\"225\" height=\"250\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-10244\" \/><\/a>One positive thing about the Dark Ages was that horseback &#8216;barbarians&#8217; invaded, pillaged, and burned using a new development that today we call <em>stirrups<\/em>&#8211;an innovation that revolutionized cavalry and greatly eased saddle-soreness.<\/p>\n<p>Stirrups increased cavalry&#8217;s effectiveness against infantry and allowed for the creation of new heavy cavalry with lances. Horses could be ridden faster and for longer distances: the gallop is easier for the animal if its rider stands in stirrups, and stirrups make trotting <em>much <\/em>more pleasant.<\/p>\n<p>People had ridden in saddles for over a thousand years without stirrups, and the intellectual tone of the era makes it likely people would have gone another thousand without the bracing illustration of an arrow-spewing nomad bearing down at a fast gallop. The device was quickly copied and by 600 AD were spreading throughout Europe. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;It is surprising that horsemen took 1,500 years to think up something so simple. One is reluctantly driven to the distasteful conclusion that we are not really a very bright set of people.&#8221;&#8211;Charles Chenevix-Trench (1914-2003), A History of Horsemanship ____________ One positive thing about the Dark Ages was that horseback &#8216;barbarians&#8217; invaded, pillaged, and burned &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thegreathorse.com\/book-blog\/2013\/07\/the-revolutionary-stirrup\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Bright Side of the Dark Ages: Stirrups!&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":249,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[226,174,154],"tags":[366,383],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegreathorse.com\/book-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10216"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegreathorse.com\/book-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegreathorse.com\/book-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegreathorse.com\/book-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/249"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegreathorse.com\/book-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10216"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thegreathorse.com\/book-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15203,"href":"https:\/\/thegreathorse.com\/book-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10216\/revisions\/15203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegreathorse.com\/book-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegreathorse.com\/book-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegreathorse.com\/book-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}