Ever since I saw the Battle of the Bastards (GoT s06e09), I've always wondered. In the first stage of the battle, one sees a cavalry charge intercepted by another cavalry charge, ensuing in a chaotic cavalry melee.

At first, I doubted such encounter could be plausible in medieval military history. (Boy, was I wrong.) I took into account the value of knights - the most skilled and best equipped units in the army and their war horses, which take huge effort and time to train. An encounter with two cavalries charging into each other at full gallop seems highly counter-intuitive and cannot end well for neither side. Or can it?

And yet, it did indeed happen, as in the Battle of Bouvines , where the first stage of the battle was also fought by two opposing cavalries. That is only one example, but there are several more examples, where two cavalries meet on the field, alas, I have not written them down.

There already is a number of great threads discussing cavalry charges against infantry regiments, where it was established that a cavalry was used wisely and notably as a shock troop, being most effective at assaulting flanks and rears or already demoralized troops.

Can it be that this new notion of a cavalry vs. cavalry melee somehow tackles the previous point, as it not only highly endangers the lives of the horsemen, but also puts the function of the cavalry unit into a new light?

Why would someone proceed with such high-risk high-casualty maneuver? What are your thoughts on it?

Do you believe GoT's depiction of such encounter between two cavalries was truthful to the reality?