Stirrups

Stirrups

The American Heritage Dictionary (3rd edition) defines a stirrup as "a loop or ring hung from either side of a horse's saddle to support the rider's foot" (The American Heritage Dictionary 799). Stirrups were invented by the Chinese in the year 477 A.D., and by the early Middle Ages the countries of Japan, India and Korea seem to have adopted its use. Stirrups became known in Persia, Byzantium and France in the 7th or early 8th century A.D.. Before stirrups were invented, riders had to use "a wooden stool or [they leaped] directly on to the horse's back" (Gans 1). Stirrups provided riders with much greater stability while on horseback especially during battles with lances and swords.

A number of historians believed that the invention of the stirrups created the rise of feudalism. This belief caused what is called the great stirrup controversy still going on up to the present day. There has been several theories proposed pertaining to this controversy. For example, Heinrich Brunner in 1887 said that "feudalism was a wide effect of the development of mounted shock warfare by the Franks" (Gans 1). Brunner's stance of the controversy is that he believes that the rise of feudalism was not caused by the introduction of the stirrup but was caused by the Frankish army's envy of the fighting ability of the Moslem cavalry. As a result, the Frankish army became primarily a cavalry army. Before that time, the Frankish army used to fight on foot using a long handled ax called a francisca. Heinrich Brunner proposes that the Frankish army transformed itself from an infantry force to a mounted cavalry between 732 A.D. to 891 A.D. in an article he published called "Knights' Service and the Origins of Feudalism" (Gans 1).

The American Heritage Dictionary (3rd edition) defines cavalry as "troops trained to fight on horseback or in light armored vehicles" and feudalism as "a political and economic system of medieval Europe by which a landowner granted land to a vassal in exchange for homage and military service" (The American Heritage Dictionary 141, 312). Lynn White Jr. in 1962 said that both feudalism and cavalry was caused by the introduction of the stirrup. White agrees with Brunner's argument that "it was true that feudalism arose out of military necessity but that Brunner's details were wrong" (Gans 1).