Did the introduction of the stirrup indirectly lead to Feudalism?

by lagerbaer

This was an anecdote in some business book I'm currently reading (A World without Email, Cal Newport) and it's not crucial to the point the author is making, but it sounds fascinating nonetheless.

He quotes some historian from the 60s or so to argue the following:

  • When the stirrup was introduced, it was initially seen as mildly useful in making riding a bit easier
  • But then people figured out that bracing yourself in the stirrup while carrying a lance made the lance blow so much more powerful!
  • That lead to armored knights being the defining power on the battle field.
  • So if you, as a state, wanted to survive, you better got yourself a bunch of armored knights!
  • Supplying and sustaining those sorts of troops is super expensive and required "capital", which back then, really, meant land. So you confiscated a bunch of land from the church, gave it to your loyal vassals to use and maintain armored knights and that's that.

Is this school of technological determinism still relevant, or is this waaaaay off, similar to Jared Diamond's geographical determinism?

DanKensington

Ah, the Stirrup Theory! It's one of those things that has been soundly disproven in academia-land, but still lingers in popular culture. It's also wrong in both its historical claims and its practical underpinnings, as we will see. (Indeed, effective lance-armed heavy cavalry were already around before the Western European knight; cue angry cataphract noises.) As always, more can be said if anyone would like to go at Lynn White's thesis; for the meantime, here are some previous posts on the matter:

In addition to these, some practical demonstrations, specifically Richard Alvarez's tests and this paper by Alan Williams, David Edge, and Tobias Capwell. The stirrup is certainly helpful, nobody's saying it isn't, but it's overhyped. To put it in gaming terms, stirrups are a veterancy upgrade to cavalry units, they don't unlock any new units. (Funnily enough, Attila Total War does exactly this in its Charlemagne campaign, heh heh heh...)