The article, based on an episode (the battle of Drincourt, 1166) from the biography of “the flower of chivalry" by William Marshall (set out in the “History of William Marshall” composed by the Anglo-Norman poet Jean in the first third of the 12th century), deals with the strategies and practices by which the young knight could earn social capital and military competence at the `proprietorial warfare`. Such kind of warfare completely dominated in the military culture of the Medieval West. This warfare was shaped by four main factors: a. the dominance of land as a form of wealth; b. the limited competence of government; c. the state of technology which, broadly, favoured defence over attack; d. the geography and climate of the West. The battle of Drincourt was a typical one for proprietorial warfare. The reason was the conflict over land ownership. The immediate cause of the conflict in 1166 on the border of the Duchy of Normandy was the deprivation by the English King Henry II of his old enemy William Talvas, count Ponthieu from his inheritance in South Normandy. The territory of the county of Ponthieu was located north of Normandy at the mouth of the river Somme. Talvas, along with his allies, counts of Flanders and Boulogne, invaded the Norman County of Eu. Drincourt, a frontier fortress that covered the Normandy capital Rouen from the north and expectedly was under attack. The seigneurs who defended it acted in very weak interplay with their monarchs. The chief royal military administrator in the region, Constable of Normandy Richard du Hommet, left Drincourt immediately after receiving news of the enemy's arrival. The battle took place around and inside the fortified settlement, the victory went to the side that was on the defensive. The terrain played a major role in the battle. William Marshall proved himself in it as a model knight, and his first success largely determined his further advancement on the social hierarchy in Western medieval society. Although the poet Jean's message is inscribed in the apologetic knightly biography, the author - or authors, if we agree with David Crouch that the poet put the original Marshall’s storytelling on the poem, it composed without any snobbery focus to proves of noble combatants. Poet described all military techniques of the day: from the iconic knight's mounted shock combat with couched lance to the use of household tools such as a hook to knock down walls in a fire. The poet colorfully conveyed the chaos and spontaneity of tactical concepts of the proprietorial warfare. Old feudal conflicts divide the leaders, the invaders enter the battle incoordination, giving the defenders time to regroup and even rest - the ambush of Marshall in the sheep detachment repeated twice confirms it. The poetic description of the Battle of Drincourt is also of key event to the understanding of William Marshall's fighting skills, for which he largely built his political career.

This paper is focused on the joust between English squire John Chalons and French écuyer Louis de Bueil, that was held in 1446 in Tours, France, in the King Charles VII of France and his courtiers presence. The mounted combatants fought with full armour on using couched lances. The article also covers the connection issue of this chivalric encounters type with warfare and military practices of that time, their effectiveness in then military training and interpretations of 15th century tournaments and pas d’armes in the 20th -early 21 century historiography. Available existing sources for this event suggest that the fighters with premeditation used lethal combat techniques during the collision, that resulted in Louis de Bueil death. However, Jean de Bueil, the older brother of the deceased, soldier, courtier and writer, expresses his highly hostile attitude towards chivalric practices of this kind in his autobiographical work "Le Jouvencel", which in the long run led to a false interpretation of the Late Middle Ages pas d’armes as an escapist and anachronic manifestation of the Late Middle Ages elites culture, spread by renowned Dutch scholar Johann Huizinga and his epigones. The article has its emphasis on participants’ arms and armour, as well as their impact on the course and result of a joust. The paper presents the analysis of the narrative program of eight mid. 15th century colored handwritten miniatures, conveing the stages and course of the duel. Visual narration is created with profound knowledge of the knight weapon and equipment features, as well as an accurate understanding of the equestrian encounters course and logic. Depicted by unknown artist plate armor on the combating fighters has direct historical analogies among the preserved survived artifacts of knights weapons. This miniatures series may be considered as a ‘documentary military art’ prominent example for its time.

The article is devoted to the analysis of how Carolingian cavalrymen and their arms and armour are depicted in a set of Carolingian visual sources dating back to VIII – X centuries. How a Frankish horseman was armed in the VIII-X centuries is generally clear. However, the questions of how well a Frankish horseman fought and how he used his weapons in a battle have so far remained unnoticed by researchers, with the exceptions of Lynn White, Bernard Bachrach and Guy Halsall. But even they were more interested in general trends than in particular combat practices. This is largely due to the conciseness of written sources. As Timothy Reuter argues, “yet the face of battle … generally eludes us when we read these works”. However, in studies of the Frankish combat practices, visual sources are of paramount importance, as only they provide a holistic and clear picture of the cavalry armament complex, as well as the use of this complex in a combat. In recent times, the historiographical debate about the time when armoured cavalry appeared in the Frankish army and about the period when such cavalry transformed itself into chivalry is incomplete. It largely revolves around the relevance of the theses uttered by Lin White in the 1960s. Important sources in this debate are the Carolingian visual material that scholars exploit permanently but arbitrarily. This text is an attempt to systematize the Frankish iconography of the VIII - X centuries as an iconographic complex depicting armoured cavalry, its armament and its practical use. The Frankish iconography of VIII - X centuries confirms clearly the existence and importance of armoured cavalry in the army of the first Carolingians, despite the modern scholar’s different views on its force level, as well as its leading role in Frankish military culture in no later than the second half of the ninth century. The cabinet view of Western researchers about the uselessness of cavalry during sieges is not confirmed by sources. On the contrary, both the images and texts of that period demonstrate the widest possible use of cavalry in such military actions, primarily as a force for rapid response to the initiatives of the besieged. Technological transformations in mounted fighting were slow. Despite the fact that the stirrups have been recorded in Europe since the VII century, in the Carolingian visual material stirrups first appeared in the second half of the ninth century in a miniature from the manuscript "The Life of Saint Wandrille”. Further, their images are frequent but irregular, so Lynn White's theory on the crucial role of the stirrup introduction for transforming the Carolingian society of VIII - IX centuries and corresponding introduction of mounted shock combat during this period is not confirmed by visual sources. However, Bernard Bachrach's opposition thesis about the unpopularity of stirrups among the Franks in this period cannot be accepted either. It is likely that the stirrups’ introduction and the transformation of military techniques was slow, in parallel with the increase in the quality and quantity of saddle horses. The image of a couched lance has appeared permanently in the Frankish iconography since the 9th century. The motif of a rider with a lance held by a straight grip horizontally in an arm bent at an elbow first appears in the ninth century in The Golden Psalter of St. Gallen and The Boland Prudence, in the context of a cavalry march and the pursuit of one cavalry unit by another. Stirrups, saddles and spurs are visible too in the Carolinian iconography in that period. The third image of a couched spear on the relief of a sarcophagus from Civita Castellana is difficult to attribute chronologically accurately. By analogy with the images of war horses, equestrians and their equipment, the relief can be widely dated to the ninth century. In the Carolingian visual material of the tenth century, the motif of thecouched lance is found twice more (Codex Perizoni, Psychomachy of St. Lawrence) in the images of a siege and a convoy of captives. In four images from five, there is no enemy hit with a lance stroke, while in the fifth, the relief displays a hunting scene with a hunter on horseback striking a wild boar with a lance. Interpretation of these images by means of German and Italian fencing manuals, as well as the 1938 military regulations for the Polish cavalry, leads to the conclusion that the armoured cavalry’s knowing the technique of couching a lance does not automatically mean their ability to mounted shock combat. Holding the spear horizontally under the armpit gave a rider the opportunity to use fencing techniques and shock blows with a shaft or "winged” ends of lance head, which were effective in a melee. According to the Carolingian visual sources, the spread of stirrups since the ninth century seems indisputable, resulting in the development of armoured cavalry and its combat effectiveness in the Frankish army. Although the identification of a couched lance with mounted shock combat techniques is erroneous, the war horse and rider's armament, consisting of a spear, sword, shield, helmet, and body armour, defined the Carolingian and Ottonian armoured cavalry as a fighting force. This set of equipment was the technological basis, and the community of its bearers was the favourable environment in which chivalry emerged later as a fighting force. Frankish military technologies of the VIII - X centuries and the Frankish military culture of this period in the broadest sense of the term served as the technological and cultural basis for forming chivalry and chivalrous military technology in the future. Despite the obvious growing importance of cavalry in the Frankish army and progressive experiments with spear-wielding techniques during the VIII - X centuries, which are clearly proved by both visual and textual sources of the day, the available source material does not prove the existence of mounted shock combat among the Frankish military elites. So, it is early to speak about the emergence of knightly military technology and, accordingly, chivalry as a fighting force in the VIII - X centuries. However, Lynn White's thesis that it was the period that opened the "window of opportunity" for transforming equestrian combat and developing and proliferating weapons for it and ultimately for the growth of cultural and political role of specialists capable of it in the Frankish kingdoms remains relevant.

The text discusses the techniques of combat use of the spear on horseback by the Sarmathian cavalry reflected in visual sources. The author attempts to interpret the «Sarmatian military iconography» on the base of Western European martial treatises of the XV—XVI centuries and expressed his arguments about the presence or absence of mounted shock combat and a spear’s two-handed grip in the Sarmatian military practices. In conclusion full discussion of the «Sarmatian seat» is based on an a priori statement that the Sarmatians possessed the technique of mounted shock combat. The historical sources do not confirm this thesis. Instea, if we assume that the Sarmatians used the riding horse primarily as means of transport on the battlefield (rather than as a means of radically increasing the power of the blow, as did the knights during shock attack), then various techniques of holding and using a spear, including two-handed grip, look quite possible, especially at low speeds of the horse. But they should not look at the «Sarmatian seat» for anything specifically Sarmatian, their battle tactics were based on the tactical and technical characteristics of the spear as a weapon. To master the military technology of mounted shock combat a range of conditions were required: widespread use of metal armor, specially bred and trained horses, the presence of a saddle of special design and stirrups, as well as specific rider skills, including special landing in this saddle in «long» stirrups, and, most importantly, the appropriate economic base and cultural background on which the horseman who practiced such military technology were able to improve on their experience and to transfer competencies to the next generation of military elites. Such conditions developed as a result of the long evolution of military technology and military culture, relatively late, in the middle of the eleventh century. not everywhere in Europe, but exclusively in the Franco-Norman area and led to the genesis of Western European chivalry. Whereas no nomadic culture, even in the Middle Ages, was able to adapt the technology of mounted shock combat.