Paired riding stirrups
Estribo de montar (par de estribos rígidos)
- Date
- c. 300 CE · confidence medium
- Place
- Nanjing (Jin) and Manchuria (Xianbei), China
- Credited to
- Jin riders and the Xianbei peoples of northern China
- Field
- Movement
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A rigid ring hung from the saddle on which the rider rests a foot, giving stability to strike, shoot and charge without falling. A small device with enormous military and social consequences.
India had big-toe loop stirrups (2nd century BCE); the first documented rigid pair is from a Nanjing tomb (322 CE); it reached Europe via the Avars in the 6th-7th centuries.
What it led to
- Heavy shock cavalry with a couched lance (cataphracts, knights)
- Lynn White's thesis: European feudalism as a system for maintaining knights
- The advantage of steppe peoples (Avars, Turks, Mongols) over sedentary armies
- Accurate mounted archery
Built on
- Early ironworking (bloomery iron)c. 1400 BCE
- Mounted cavalry as a military armc. 865 BCE
- Nailed iron horseshoec. 450 CE
- Saddle
- Indian toe stirrup (2nd century BC)
- Iron metallurgy
Made possible
- Couched lance and heavy cavalry chargec. century XI
- Medieval heavy cavalry
- High-cantle saddle