Lancers
Lancers were a class of heavy cavalry armed with lances in European armies in the early modern period . A type widespread in England was called a half -lancer ( English : demilancer or demilancer ).
General
From the middle of the 16th century there was a fundamental change in riding. This concerned their sociological structure on the one hand, but also their equipment and fighting style. The proportion of noble knights equipped with lances decreased compared to the now mostly armed servants who were of minor or no nobility. The riders were no longer equipped with such valuable horses, so-called wrestling horses (lesser horses). Characterized disappeared full armor of the rider and the horse armor of the riding animal and was the to the knees reaching trot Harnisch replaced. The lancers were usually armed with the strongest wrestling horses, a harness, a lightened lance, a riding sword and wheellock pistols. The main task of the lancers was to break through the lines of the enemy. The farewell to the lance began in Germany as early as the middle of the 16th century, in France the lance had mostly been discarded until 1580 and in England until 1600. The Battle of Coutras in 1587 during the Huguenot Wars is indicative of the end of the heavy lance: 1300 armored pistol riders of the Protestant army, in combination with infantry fire, flew after a short battle in 2000 "Gens d'armes" of the Catholics equipped as lancers. In the first third of the Thirty Years' War , the lancers merged with the cuirassiers . Only the Polish hussars kept the heavy lance until the late 17th century.
In addition to the increasing spread of handguns among the cavalry (see Caracolla and Arkebusierreiter ), the introduction of the pike among the infantry also accelerated the temporary end of the lance. The use of the heavy lance also required more skill and practice than that of handguns. Only with the advent of the Uhlans was it generally used again in a lighter form.
Half-lancers
In the 16th century came in England in addition to usually as Lanzierern ( Lancer equipped) Men-at-arms so-called half-Lancer ( Demi-lancer on). These had a slightly lighter lance and were also armed with one or two pistols in a holfter on the saddle and a sword. The half-lancer was three-quarters or half-armored. The armor and shoulder plates were bulletproof. Open balaclavas were worn instead of the closed helmet . The leg armor was replaced by long, leather gauntlet boots, which at least offered some protection against edged weapons . The horses were unarmored. The half-lancers were characteristic of the early modern development of reduced armor while increasing its thickness to protect the vital areas of the body against bombardment with handguns such as the arquebus and later the musket, which were increasingly widespread at the time . The reduced passive armament also increased the mobility of horse and rider considerably while reducing costs and maintenance effort . Like other contemporary cavalry classes , the demi-lancers were often used to attack the flank of the enemy and pursue the fleeing enemy. The half-lancers played an important role in the Eighty Years' War on the Dutch-English side and were dug up on a large scale in 1588 to ward off the feared invasion of the Spanish Armada , using a militia-like system. For financing purposes, levies were levied on the first and second stand .
Footnotes
- ^ Oman, p. 475.
- ↑ a b Tincey and Turner, pp. 7-11.
- ^ Tincey and Turner, p. 11.
- ^ Tincey and Turner, pp. 9-12.
literature
- Liliane and Fred Funcken: Historical weapons and armor - knights and land servants from the 8th to 16th centuries, Orbis Verlag, p. 198ff
- Georg Ortenburg: Weapons and the use of weapons in the age of the Landsknechte, Koblenz 1984, p. 98ff
- J. Tincey, G. Turner: Ironsides: English cavalry, 1588-1688. Osprey Publishing, Oxford 2002, ISBN 1-84176-213-X .
- Sir Charles WC Oman: A history of the art of war in the sixteenth century. Methuen, London 1937. (Reprinted: Greenhill Books, Elstree 1987, ISBN 0-947898-69-7 )