Couched lance and heavy cavalry charge
Lanza en ristre y carga de caballería pesada
- Date
- c. century XI · confidence low
- Place
- Normandy, France
- Credited to
- Frankish and Norman knights
- Field
- Conflict
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
The technique of holding the lance under the arm and charging with the horse's momentum, concentrating the weight of rider and mount on the point. With a high-cantled saddle and stirrups, it made the armoured knight the decisive shock weapon of the 11th-13th centuries.
The Bayeux Tapestry (c. 1070) still shows overarm lances; the debate (Lynn White, Bachrach, Hyland) concerns whether the stirrup implied the couched lance and its exact date, around 1100.
What it led to
- feudal cavalry and chivalric culture
- ever heavier armour and tournaments
- countermeasures such as the pike square and the longbow