just to be clear, it seems rather clear from the sources that this level of riding was just presumed in the period for the heavy cavalry, which is a large part why the entirety of society was structured around feodalism, in order to allow the personal acquisition of horses and defensive residences so that people could prepare over a very long time to be 'elite soldiers' as we would say now... 'High school' dressage was common, with terre-à-terre a necessity for combat, Even Ridinger in 1760, hundreds of years later, still talks about how all cavalrymen are taught 'traversieren' and that all cavalrymen should be able to 'turn on the small plate' ie a smaller canter pirouette than 90% of all the canter pirouettes shown in Grand prix today.
From the video description: “At the same time we base our riding style on the writings of the Old Masters, who describe the way in which a warhorse is trained and ridden, with a very high emphasis on 'collection', where the horse is deeply crouching with the hindlegs and lift into a proud crest in front, making them brave, maneuverable, controllable and able to deliver strong acceleration.” Any sources on these writings? I’d love to learn more.
The 'Old Masters' are a long lineage of literature which are considered congruent and a lasting tradition. older writings should probably start with Rufus, though his writings on training are limited but clearly show a connection with 16th century (more detailed) descriptions of horse training in the same area. then there is Don Duarte, Bem Cavalgar 1430s There are josuting treatises like Ponc de la Managuera, and others like Tiptoft and so forth. we do use a lot of 16th century sources as they are just more information: grisone, fiaschi, etc. or into the 17th cenutry, like Löheneysen. Awareness of the works of Newcastle, Guérinière, Baron von Eysenberg, etc has been usefull for understanding and interpreting those that came before. anyway, we also use literary descriptions (both novels and anecdotal narratives) to show the connection with these later works with the medieval riding practices, like descriptions in Novels and other literary devices on what was expected of Knights, like in (13th c) Parzival describing the 5 ways to attack with a lance, which are congruent with Fighting manuals form the 15th and 16th century. Fencing manuals describing mounted combat mostly give use datapoints of what movements in detail were expected of the horses, more than the actual descriptions on how these animals were trained for that. So the expectation of average capability is not often clear from manuals anyway, they show the road, not how far along the road people were expected to get. These other sources give is much more insight in that 'all cavalrymen should be able to turn on the small plate' we also have equipment, like bits form bitbooks of the period (13th, 14th 15th and later centuries) and bits form archeological contexts and extant museum examples. These shed light on the similarities in techniques and emphasis on collection, for instance. then there is iconography, where 1000s of datapoints can be gathered, like the plethora of High School movements shown in art in a martial context. These depictions and descriptions match very precisely movements named and described in the 16th century riding manuals. (terre-à-terre, corvetti, etc) we also have Old Masters explicitly looking back on the past and conveighing where things are changing, like Wallhausen, but also Löhneysen, even drawing older equipment in detail and their experiences in using it. so we look at all of this to get a good picture of what was the general level of ability of horse and rider. Only looking at the manuals in isolation would not answer all the questions we would have.
started on that twice already, these videos are particularly complicated to make new camera equipment on the way, so hopefully better sound and better videos
Very nice Arne. Thank you! Bringing manuscripts to life.
Wow, very cool! I'm not a rider myself so that part of the manual will probably always be out of my grasp. Great stuff!
*casually does a pirrouette with one hand while peforming a technique*
I learned to do canter pirouettes one handed, i find it easier that way, to be honest
just to be clear, it seems rather clear from the sources that this level of riding was just presumed in the period for the heavy cavalry, which is a large part why the entirety of society was structured around feodalism, in order to allow the personal acquisition of horses and defensive residences so that people could prepare over a very long time to be 'elite soldiers' as we would say now...
'High school' dressage was common, with terre-à-terre a necessity for combat,
Even Ridinger in 1760, hundreds of years later, still talks about how all cavalrymen are taught 'traversieren' and that all cavalrymen should be able to 'turn on the small plate' ie a smaller canter pirouette than 90% of all the canter pirouettes shown in Grand prix today.
Thank you for your answers, it's very clear! Love your videos! ^^
From the video description:
“At the same time we base our riding style on the writings of the Old Masters, who describe the way in which a warhorse is trained and ridden, with a very high emphasis on 'collection', where the horse is deeply crouching with the hindlegs and lift into a proud crest in front, making them brave, maneuverable, controllable and able to deliver strong acceleration.”
Any sources on these writings? I’d love to learn more.
The 'Old Masters' are a long lineage of literature which are considered congruent and a lasting tradition.
older writings should probably start with Rufus, though his writings on training are limited but clearly show a connection with 16th century (more detailed) descriptions of horse training in the same area.
then there is Don Duarte, Bem Cavalgar 1430s
There are josuting treatises like Ponc de la Managuera, and others like Tiptoft and so forth.
we do use a lot of 16th century sources as they are just more information: grisone, fiaschi, etc. or into the 17th cenutry, like Löheneysen.
Awareness of the works of Newcastle, Guérinière, Baron von Eysenberg, etc has been usefull for understanding and interpreting those that came before.
anyway, we also use literary descriptions (both novels and anecdotal narratives) to show the connection with these later works with the medieval riding practices, like descriptions in Novels and other literary devices on what was expected of Knights, like in (13th c) Parzival describing the 5 ways to attack with a lance, which are congruent with Fighting manuals form the 15th and 16th century.
Fencing manuals describing mounted combat mostly give use datapoints of what movements in detail were expected of the horses, more than the actual descriptions on how these animals were trained for that.
So the expectation of average capability is not often clear from manuals anyway, they show the road, not how far along the road people were expected to get.
These other sources give is much more insight in that 'all cavalrymen should be able to turn on the small plate'
we also have equipment, like bits form bitbooks of the period (13th, 14th 15th and later centuries) and bits form archeological contexts and extant museum examples. These shed light on the similarities in techniques and emphasis on collection, for instance.
then there is iconography, where 1000s of datapoints can be gathered, like the plethora of High School movements shown in art in a martial context. These depictions and descriptions match very precisely movements named and described in the 16th century riding manuals.
(terre-à-terre, corvetti, etc)
we also have Old Masters explicitly looking back on the past and conveighing where things are changing, like Wallhausen, but also Löhneysen, even drawing older equipment in detail and their experiences in using it.
so we look at all of this to get a good picture of what was the general level of ability of horse and rider. Only looking at the manuals in isolation would not answer all the questions we would have.
Very nice, thank you.
thank you very much
Part 2?
started on that twice already, these videos are particularly complicated to make
new camera equipment on the way, so hopefully better sound and better videos
@@airnt Well the sound and video were fine but if they can be better why not right? Good luck.
Was that Isak Krogh the mailmaker?
yes on the Dunnalino stallion