Horse equipment

A strong, well-trained and reliable horse was the key to success in tournaments. It took special training to teach these horses to keep absolutely straight in the lists - any deviation could cause the rider to miss his target. At the court of the Emperor Maximilian I, the tourney horses were separately stabled.

War horses, like their riders, were from earliest times protected by some form of armour. Horse armour conformed to the development of the knight's. When the knight wore chain mail, the horse wore a similiar bars ("bard"), made of plaited rings. During the 15th century, when the rider wore full armour, horses too came to be encased in a shell of metal. The horse's head was protected by a shaffron, its neck by a crinet.

To complete the armour there were the peytral and the crupper, joined below the saddle by flanchards. A painting of Maximilian's armourer Albrecht May on horseback shows an original attempt to provide metal covering for the legs as well - original, but uncomfortable for the horse. Leg guards of this kind cannot have been a practical proposition but are to be seen more as a display of the armourer's technical skill and ingenuity.

Horse armour was used in real combat and in the kinds of tournament where combat was imitated. A complete bard was heavy, weighing on average 40-50 kilos. The decorative bards worn for ceremonial purposes were lighter. The Royal Armoury's Lochner armour garniture is a fine example of the highly artistic parade armour produced by famous 16th century armourers as complete sets for horse and rider.

In most kinds of tournament, though, the horses were not armoured. Contemporary tournament books and pictures show horses clad in fluttering, brilliantly coloured caparisons, often decorated with Latin sentences and emblematic or heraldic devices. Under its caparison the horse might be protected by a leather bard or a U-shaped sack stuffed with hay to shield its chest and shoulder, as well as the rider's legs.

In the tournament book of King René, describing an intended tournament in Aix in 1440, an hourt of this kind is depicted, and in Vienna an actual speciment, dating from the end of the 15th century, is still extant. What it looked like on the horse we can see clearly from a woodcut in "Weisskunig", showing the Emperor Maximilian playing with model knights.

Usually, however, the horses' heads were protected by steel in the form of a shaffron fitten on top of the horse housing. Often the horses eyes were covered completely, in which case they ran the course totally blindfolded. This way feasible in the type of tournament where they had to keep to a straight line, but not in group tournaments - mêlées - with horses and riders moving freely and engaging at close quarters. To complete the horse's accoutrements, a band set with crotals could be put round its neck.

Sweden has a unique collection of horse cloths and tournament caparisons from the 17th century. These belong to a category which, in the case of other European armoury collections, has been extensively destroyed and lost.

Saddle design varied from one kind of tournament to another. King René's knights stand rather than sit in their high wooden saddles, so as to present the biggest possible target to their opponent. In the "Stechen" and "Rennen" type of tournament, one of the objects of which was to unseat one's opponent, the saddles were small and light. The saddle for the "German course" (Rennsattel) had no back and resembles the "English" saddle of our own age. The rider's thighs were protected by shield-shaped plates, "Dilgen", hung loosely over the saddle bow.

The Royal Armoury in Stockholm has several saddles with steels. Three of them formerly belonged to Gustav Vasa and once formed part of complete sets of armour for horse and rider. Saddle steels were used in mêlées and for Italian jousts (Welsch Gestech). The high pommel and cantle gave the rider a relatively safe seat. On the other hand, staying in the saddle was made more difficult by wearing a full suit of armour, because then the rider was less able to grip the sides of the horse with his legs.