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The Stirrup
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Editors' Note: We are indebted to Dan Derby for most of this marvelous article

How the Stirrup Changed the World - 24 September 2001

A stirrup is such a small thing -- a bit of metal and leather weighing a little over a pound (around 600 grams) -- but it changed the world, or at least some important pieces of the world. Typically a ring with a horizontal bar to receive the foot, it is attached by a strap to a saddle. N fact, Cambyses, the king of Persia, stabbed himself to death around 500 BC while leaping onto his horse fully armed without stirrups. But this is not a story about safety, it is a story about competitive advantage.

The horse was domesticated around 6000 BC in southern Russia. It was a food animal long before it was a pack animal. It evolved in the Americas 20 million years ago but with the coming of humans was eaten into extinction by 5000 BC. Only its fortuitous prior expansion into Asia saved it from total extinction.

Around 4000 BC our ancestors were raising and eating smallish horses out on the grasslands of the Eurasian steppes. According to Dr. David Anthony, Director of the Institute of Ancient Equestrian Studies at Hartwick College, they began to be ridden, probably somewhere in Kazakhstan. This new skill gave the tribes an enormous tactical advantage. Riding a horse and armed with a spear they could more easily hunt down and kill enemies or wild game on foot. They could attack at a speed and power that enabled them to dominate the land.

Retreat as a Weapon
Just as important, if outmatched, they could retreat at a speed that enabled them to survive and fight another day. According to Dr. Anthony, the most dangerous part of primitive warfare was getting away. A person can run long distances at, tops, fifteen miles per hour. On horseback a man can retreat at upwards of 45 mph, triple his speed on foot. With hit and run tactics, they could attack and escape retaliation. This begat mounted soldiers who would reign over the steppes for the next several thousand years.

Competitive Advantage
The horse enabled tribes fast attack and retreat and allowed a village to prosper at the expense of its neighbors. The adoption of new technology often spells the difference between extermination and domination. Such was the case with the horse. Expensive to maintain, it none the less was a "must have" in its society. Over the next centuries, the horse would give speed and mobility to the people of the steppes.

It is conjectured that only the horse's ability to cover distances allowed civilizations to exist at all in the huge expanses of grasslands of the steppes. Archaeological remains show that tribes with horses became larger, with greater wealth and larger households. Horses enabled them to exploit the resources of the steppes, trade with distant lands, and bring sudden, ferocious warfare on their less mobile neighbors.

Skill and the Arms Race
However, there was a roblem. Only an extraordinarily skilled horseman could ride bareback while shooting, throwing, or striking effectively at the same time. Skill takes lots of practice and that is costly. Keeping hordes of horse warriors required a large support population. Alternatively, the horse soldiers needed to take resources from someone else. In short, tax the people or just take what was wanted.

The Chariot
There were ways around the cost problem. Animal carts had been around down in Sumaria since 3500 BC, but around 1600 BC a Hurrian in Syria hitched a cart to a couple of horses, and the chariot was born. The Egyptians were overrun by a mysterious people called the "Hyksos" who used battle chariots and cavalry. The Egyptians eventually adopted horse and chariot warfare and kicked the Hyksos out; the invaders were never to be heard from again. The Egyptians would be credited with creating the first disciplined cavalry units, which were later perfected by the Persians around 600 BC.

The chariot had almost the speed of the horse, plus it had the carrying capacity of a cart. It was, in many ways, a study in efficiency. While cumbersome compared to a man on a horse, it could carry two. This allowed separation of driver and shooter (or chopper) skills. This division of labor made for easier and cheaper training, an efficiency gain.



The Birth of the Stirrup
However, a chariot, it wasn't much use on the steppes. The Synthians in the Altay Mountains on the Chinese border added a bit of extra leather to their horses' saddles to ease mounting. It was probably only a single loop on one side of the horse. In fact, one can still buy mounting stirrups for those of us not quite as young and athletic as we should be. Don't laugh, remember Cambyses, the king of Persia? The next step was a saddle with two loops, one on each side. Early on, these were simple loops of leather for hanging on with one toe. Not a great cold weather solution, but the advantage was clear. The Sarmatians, next door to the Synthians, also began using this trick. Something this cheap and good spreads fast.

Efficiency
The Stirrup was an enormous advance with a true cost/benefit efficiency. Stirrups cost next to nothing, yet make a huge difference. The stirrups are solidly attached to the horse, thus eliminating the muscle strain of holding on with your legs. The stirrup stabilizes the rider, allowing him to couple (and decouple) with the horse at will. This, in turn, allows for dramatically better control. It gives the rider a much firmer base to push against when swinging a sword or axe, significantly increasing the power behind the weapon. The stirrup also allows a significantly less skilled rider to stay in the saddle while taking advantage of the horse's speed and agility.

It turns a rider's legs and trunk into shock absorbers that steady him for more accurate distance weapons such as spears and bows. If you'd like a demonstration, try throwing a spear while sitting on a stool - or remember that it takes two hands to operate a bow and this is very difficult if riding bareback.

All this for the price of a couple pieces of leather and metal. Historically, prior to the stirrup, heavy infantry was the main fighting force. Cavalry was only an auxiliary arm because to ride and shoot bareback is all but impossible, especially if you are trying to shoot to the rear while retreating. Both hands are occupied with the bow. Balance is difficult and it is next to impossible to control the horse. With the stirrup, this was no longer true. The stirrup enabled the rider both to balance himself easily and control the horse with his knees. The stirrup is so effective that some modern riding instructors insist on bareback riding so that their students develop a "feel" for the horse and their own balance.

China Takes a Beating
Mounted archery began early in the third century. With the adoption of the stirrup, by 317 AD all of China north of the Chang Jiang (Yangtze River) had been overrun by the Xianbei, nomadic peoples from the steppes who used stirrups and were skilled at light and heavy cavalry. They became the ruling elite of this part of China. The Chinese could mobilize untold numbers of foot-solders but these typically had little affect on battle outcomes. The horse soldiers ruled.

By 415 AD the use of two riding stirrups had spread to China and with them, heavy armor, horse bardings (armor) and mounted archery came into use. The stirrup spread quickly through Asia, all the way to Korea and into Japan. It evolved from large toe loops on the side of a saddle to the flat, oval bronze or iron designs recognizable today. The face of warfare had changed forever.

The Nobility
It must also be said that the Nobility did not like the idea of peasants mounted on horses who could wield bows and spears. It put too much power in the hands of "undeserving people". On the other hand, they had no choice.

The Chinese, historically, never did overcome these horse soldiers. Instead, they integrated the Xianbei into their ranks and often gave them the power of Command. However, this was just a beginning. In the 12th Century Genghis Khan had the genius to organize the unarmored horse archers of Mongolia and develop the tactics and communication skills that would create the largest empire the world has ever known.

Europe Gets the Stirrup
By 600 AD, the Scythians and the Avars had been pushed west from the steppes by the Turks, introducing the stirrup to Europe. They were the first waves of horse archers whose mobility and striking power destroyed the Roman Heavy Infantry in much the same way that the Xianbei had defeated the multitudes of Chinese Infantry.

These horse soldiers swept across Europe in waves. After the Avars came the Hun, the Visigoths, the Franks, the Goths, the Vandals, the Lombards and the Mongols. Their armies were almost entirely composed of horse archers. By 700 AD their leaders had become settled European nobility and developed a new social structure, the feudal system. To protect themselves, they exchanged mail armor for plate. They integrated mounted warriors, stirrups, saddles with high pommels and heavy lances into a new fighting system that was co-dependent on the economic structure of the society. Fortified castles rose everywhere to protect the nobility and control the peasantry. The result was a fundamental change to a feudal society.

Mechanical Advantage
None of this would have been possible without the stirrup. Lynn White Jr. in his book Medieval Technology and Social Change, explicitly states that there is a direct causal relationship between the adoption of the stirrup for cavalry and the introduction and development of feudalism in Carolingian France. His belief is that the stirrup was necessary for "shock troop" capability and that without it, the mounted knight could not have evolved. His hypothesis started a fire storm among historians, since it attributed a major social system, the feudal system, to a simple mechanical device. Scholars with vested interests in the social causes of societal change were profoundly offended and a battle was joined that continues today.

From a technical point of view, White proposes that the energy transfer from animal to human to lance is enabled primarily by the coupling of the stirrup. It connects the horse's 1000 pounds and forty-mile-per-hour speed to the end of the couched (under arm) lance via the knight. This massive momentum was used much like a tank to take down massed foot troops or lightly mounted warriors.

Changing the World
The advantages of the stirrup, White believes, launched sweeping changes in warfare and society that lasted for nearly two thousand years. It shifted the balance of power in Europe. The maintenance of horses was expensive, and cavalry training was a long process. To support this, nobility granted land to mounted warriors for their service. The land provided the income to support the knight and this system of land holding was a key part of feudalism. Eventually, knighthood became a mark of social distinction, and the opportunity to become a knight was usually limited to men of noble birth.

White does not mince words. He writes,

• Few inventions have been so simple as the stirrup, but few have had so catalytic an influence on history. The requirements of the new mode of warfare which it made possible found expression in a new form of western European society dominated by an aristocracy of warriors endowed with land so that they might fight in a new and highly specialized way. . . . The Man on Horseback, as we have known him during the past millennium, was made possible by the stirrup. . . .

These mounted warriors were not just individual horsemen, they were part of an integrated fighting system. That fighting system was destined to finally shut down the mounted warriors from the steppes. It allowed the Europeans, for better or worse, to mount excursions into the lands of Arabia on the Crusades and to battle with each other for hundreds of years. And the system of government it spawned was to influence the west for hundreds of years.

While the debate over the feudal system continues, there is no doubt that the stirrup enabled new forms of warfare for several millennia. Success in those forms of warfare changed who ruled and who perished. The languages we speak, the food on our table, the system of government we use and even our genetic makeup were affected. All from a few bits of metal and leather weighing around 600 grams. It changed our world.

Afterword
Only the adoption of another amazingly simple innovation would bring the mounted warrior down. Sometime in the thirteenth century, the English adopted "Five and a half feet of European Yew wood . . . about two pounds," better known as the English longbow. Allowing striking distances several orders of magnitude beyond the mounted knight's lance, it also countered his heavy armor with its penetrating power. Adopted from the Welsh, the English longbow would reverse the success of the tradition-bound French ground and mounted troops.

In early battles, kill ratios (enemy soldiers vs. archers) of 1000 to 1 were not uncommon. With a range of nearly an eighth of a mile, the English longbow became the most feared weapon on earth. By any comparison, it was cheap to build and cheap to man. Overnight, it would dominate warfare and its users would dominate their lands. But that, as they say, is another story.

• Saddle Technology Incorporated
  S.T.I.'s safety breakaway stirrup is designed to "breakaway" from the saddle when the rider is in danger of getting "hung up" in their stirrup, and being dragged by their horse.

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