Hello friends, I was thinking about this because of the heavy cavalry thread in the Asian History forum.

While heavy cavalry has been less of a norm in the far east than it has in Europe or the Near East, we do see two particular times where heavy cavalry was prominent. The first is the period around the Age of Fragmentation, and the next is during the time of the Song dynasty.

But what I noticed is that the designation of "Cataphract" is often used to refer to the type of heavy cavalry of the AoF (and possibly in Korea); whereas the heavily armoured and armed Liao and Song horsemen (and horses) are simply referred to as "Heavy Cavalry" or "Armoured horse", and I have not seen references to them as "Cataphracts". What is the differentiation here?

Also, the Tang recorded the Tibetan cavalry as extremely heavily armored too, but I was not certain enough on where they fit to try and list Tang as one of the aforementioned eras. What category do they fall under?

Records on the performance of these cavalries in battle would be extremely nice too.

Two Quotes from Wikipedia

I think that the differentiation might be based on the fact that cataphracts generally had little or no armour on their horses whereas for heavy cavalry both rider and horse are completely covered in armour. If this is the case than Tibetan cavalry would be considered "heavy cavalry" as well.

If this isn't the case, which I suspect since I just read that there was Chinese cavalry during the Age of Fragmentation that had armour on both rider and steed, then maybe it has to do with western historians correlating the European cavalry equivalent to the Chinese equivalent during the same relative time period. This wouldn't surprise me because I've heard and noticed many times this sort of correlating of Chinese historical events and things to what historians see as the Western equivalent.

As mentioned above cataphract come derives from a greek term. Usually it indicated (at least in the ancient era of Greece and Persia) a fully armoured rider and horse armed with a kontos or light lance along with a sword or mace or axe. Usually the riders did not use a shield.

Another term is used by the Byzantines to describe similar troops and that is the clibonaphorai. The term cataphract was still used to described heavily armed cavalry with little or not horse armour, kataphractoi.

Usually I see the term cataphract when reading books/articles that pertain to the ancient era. In later era's "heavily armed cavalry tends to be used, although it is a vague term.

I have seen some authors use the term for cataphract for Chinese cavalry, but not for periods after the Tang.

Chris

Can someone describe a heavy cavalry, like what kind of armour the horse dorns and the armour which the knight wears and what's his weapon?

Also, describe the cataphracts, in every sense of the word?

I am not so knowledgeable about these 2 subjects, so I would like to know more. PLEASE, PLEASE AND THANKS.

HOPE someone can answer my question, PLEASE!!!

The first writer to use 'cataphract' to refer to AoF heavy cavalry was Chris Peers in the Osprey series; in fact I didn't know what a cataphract was until I read his book ten years ago. His choice not to use the same term for Khitan, Jurchen, Mongol, or Song heavy cavalry was purely arbitrary, since they were basically similar to AoF in terms of equipment (full horse armour, full rider armour, lance, single-edged sword, and often a bow). Chronology is not so relevant since the East Roman (Byzantine) cataphracts of the 10th century were about contemporary with the Song and Khitan heavy cavalry.

JiG is partly correct that Roman cataphracts originally had little or no horse armour; those with horse armour tended to be called clibanarii rather than cataphractarii. The true, horse-armoured cataphract only became common in East Roman armies in the 10th century. The Sarmatians, Parthians, and Sassanid Persians on the other hand commonly used heavy cavalry with horse armour, and this is where the Romans got the cataphractarii and clibanarii ideas from. When we use the term 'cataphract' now, we are usually referring to cavalry like that of the Sassanids and 10th-century East Romans, i.e. heavily armoured horse and rider, but using lamellar rather than plate armour.

'Heavy cavalry' is a generic term to refer to any mounted soldier used for charging in formation rather than scouting or skirmishing. The use of horse armour or lances is not essential to classification as heavy cavalry; only the tactical function is. The heavy weaponry and armour of the heavy cavalryman is a result of the function, rather than a cause of it, and is therefore not the key element of the definition.

The ancient Chinese terms that are normally translated as 'cataphract' are kaima 鎧馬 ('armoured horse') and tieqi 鐵騎 ('iron cavalry').

Cataphracts refer to fully armoured cavalry, like the ones used by Parthians in roman times, and in Sassanid army.

Following is an image of Sassanid Cataphract (I can't know if the source is relibable though)


The difference between them and ordinary heavy cavalry are their horse bardings. There are heavy cavalry in china but I have never seen fully armoured ones in any movies or pictures.


PS: romans and byzantines also call their heavy cavalry "cataphracts", even though most of them have no horse barding.

Hi folks,

Chris started to explain, but I'll expand a little..

The modern term cataphract comes from the greek via Roman writers. The term was originally used (in a military sense) by the Greks to differentiate betwen decked (cataphract) and undecked (aphract) war galleys. It then took on a general meaning of 'armoured' and was occasionaly used to describe soldiers (the normal Greek term hoplite actually means 'equipped man').

When the Romans came into contact with the Parthians and Armenians they encounered fully armored men riding fully armoured horses who used a long 2 handed lance with a heavy broad spearhead (called a kontos - Greek for 'barge pole'). The writers had to have a term for these and they became known as 'cataphracts'. Later the Roman army included 'cataphract' units (though the first seem to have lacked horse armour and there is much confusion with clibriani - a term probably derived from 'bread oven' a fairly apt description of wearing full metal armour in the Middle East in summer!). However later Roman and Byzantine authors still used the term to simply mean 'armoured' on occasions.

Modern military historians and gamers now tend to use the term cataphract to describe fully armoured men on fully armoured horses, fighting in close formation, often charging at a trot rather than a gallop to keep the close formation, with a long heavy ance as the main melee weapon. This differentiates them from European 'knights' in their writings.

In truth the troops originally called cataphracts mostly had bows as well and are essentially very similar to other Persian, Central Asian, Nomad, Chinese, Manchurian heavy cavalry who have horse armour, bow, lance and sword. It's a very artificial differentiation and has to be understood in term of writers aproaching the subject fom a Western 'Classical' background.

These writers will also make assumptions about 'light cavalry', seeing them as not only lightly armoured, or unarmoured, but fighting in dispersed formations as 'skirmishers' (another word that has layers if implications).

I hope that helps those who are coming from a background in Asian history or writing.

Perhaps some members here can supply pictures of Chinese full horse armour, including pictures that are already on CHF?

Most Chinese examples cover the whole body of the horse, unlike the Sassanid example shown in that illustration.

Attached is a pic of Song dynasty cavalry with full armour for both rider and horse.Click to view attachment

What I would like to know is the origin of this pic. Where did it come from; was it from a Song military manual or possibly from the Song shi?

Also, from what I understand cataphracts, primarily in the era of 'ancients' or antiquity the fully armoured cataphract was used primarily to 'mow down' infantry. As Tom explained the cataphract formation was very tight and the charge was slow.


Chris

From Thomas Chen's site, of Song heavy cavalry:


(Period unknown)


As an off topic remark: I often see pictures of Song's heavy cavalry, but are there any passages from the official histories about their units, equipments, or their performance in battle? Were they used during the Southern Song period, or was the military completely turned into infantry then? Also, I remember Tadamson once said that they used the caracole tactic like the Liao troops, but I was curious about where this account comes from, particularly since most of the time I see them equipped with polearms (though I suppose bows wouldn't be out of the question too).

Chris, I think you found your answer in YZB's post. Your picture is taken from the first one he posted, which is half of a Song-period depiction of the Tang-period episode of Guo Ziyi using his personal prestige to defeat the joint Uyghur-Tibetan attack on Chang'an, by convincing the Uyghurs to turn agains the Tibetans.

Any pictures of AoF heavy cavalry, guys? Especially tomb figurines from the Northern Dynasties?

I have an illustration, but I'm not sure of its accuracy. It's the attached.

I also have some tomb rubbings from Chris Peers' Warlords of China.



I think that this should be reasonably close to AoF heavies.

That is certainly accurate enough, and very well drawn. Was the artist someone you know?

No, it was from the collection of the Encyclopedia of Chinese Arms and Armor (which did have some illustrations that seemed slightly dubious).

Here's a Song Heavy, from the same collection. I haven't ever heard of Song cavalry using a large sword, and the helmet seems a little unorthodox (in fact, helmets are often one of my biggest gripes for this collection).



Sephodwyrm also had several drawings for 3k that seemed cataphractlike too, if I recall correctly.

Those were beautiful. Unfortunately, there is no evidence for the use of full-body horse armour in the Three Kingdoms period.

Hmm.

Chris Peers' book says that Horse armor appeared in the Three Kingdoms period (particularly in Wei):



However, I still have difficulty imagining what this Ma Kai Yi Ling is.

Here's a photo of the AD 302 tomb figurines Peers mentioned. Notice the 'aprons' on the chests of the horses.

ma-k'ai i-ling is simply 馬鎧一領, i.e. "one suit of horse armour". As for the "opponents" of Cao Cao whom Peers mentions, that's actually Yuan Shao at Guandu.

Yun, I got your email, and here are the pictures.


Eastern Wei cavalryman, mid-6th century


Armored Cavalry of Goguryeo, probably early 4th century
(Yun would like to add that Goguryeo probably adopted horse armor from the northern Chinese states in the early to mid 4th century).


Armored cavalry of Goguryeo, 4th century


Jurchen barding, 12th-13th century


Jurchen barding, 12th-13th century


Northern Qi cavalryman, mid-6th century


Northern Wei cataphract, 5th-6th century


Northern Wei cavalryman, 5th-6th century


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I'll go ahead and let Yun do the explaining.

The pic of the two riders combating are taken from a Persian manuscript in the era of Tamurlane (late 1300's). You can see the writing in the upper left hand portion of the pic.

I have come across some info from an ex-song court official (can't remember the source) but it basically states the greatest strength of the Song enemies is their abundence in horses. The greatest weakness in the Song military was the lack of horses. Although the imperial court could boast a large cavalry force the reality was only 1 or 2 out of 10 had a horse to ride. To remedy this problem many court officials sought to expand the size of the military (infantry) to hopefully overwhelm the enemy.

To keep riders proficient they were rotated from the urban cities to the fronier on a regular bases.

Yes, I've seen the top image on Thomas Chen's website, but where did he get it from?

Chris

The term heavy cavalry is sometimes mistakenly taken as full armoured horses and riders. The earliest descriptions about horse armour in the west is found in Pontus and Dacian armies. Clashes between the Early Roman Empire and these fragmented states had indeed devastated almost pictures in tombs. Indeed, one could hardly found a full horse armour in Western armies not until 14-15th century. Early heavy cavalry in Western Europe was shown armoured the riders, not horses. Usually there were a type of soft materials cover horses, as shown in many pictures during Early and High Medieval Tournament.

Heavy horsemen in the Middle East perhaps had more meaning to be defined as Kataphraktoi with lamellar cuirasses. Khwarazmian cavalry as well as Armenian Heavy Cavalry were prefered in Eastern states.

In Russia, there were evidences shown that Polovtsians and Pechenegs were also covered with full horse armours.

Try this link for more information about cataphracts
http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Military/parthian_army.htm

It do look a lot liks Heavy Chinese Cavalry.

Nice page, but it does not look like at all. Parthians were still in the sphere of Byzantium Military influence. The images shown there reflect the influence of Byzantine Cataphracts or Pronoia Allagion.

It's the other way round, actually. The Romans adopted the cataphract from the Parthians and Sarmatians. As for the late Byzantine cataphracts of the 10th and 11th centuries, these were probably a revival of Sassanian cataphract styles that had disappeared for about 300 years before that.

?? What period is it really? That did not look like an ancient Cataphracts. Heavy Cavalry in Ancient time was emphasised in Pontus, Armenia, Parthia and part of Dacia.

Whatever, the case, the Parthian Empire had been replaced by the Sassanian Empire by the time Byzantium was renamed as Constantinople and made the eastern capital of the Roman Empire. So it is inaccurate to describe the Parthians as under Byzantine military influence.

The horse armour in the picture is scale rather than lamellar, and is based on actual suits of Parthian or Roman horse armour found at Dura Europos, a city that was on the Roman-Parthian/Sassanian border. See http://www.le.ac.uk/ar/stj/dura/index.htm

I also found some photos of horse armour in the National Museum of Syria that is labelled 'Dura Europos' and said to be of the 3rd century, but it doesn't look like the Dura finds. Maybe someone here can help identify it?





(source: http://dspace.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/38666 and http://dspace.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/38664?mode=full )

The museum's label for the above suit of horse armour:

Thanks for correction. I have been mistaken to rushly come to conclusion.

About the armour, I believe that I have seen this armour from a Syrian member named Jubelu before. It is indeed, according to my personal opinion, East Parthian Cataphract. Several other drawings in ancient time has been found in Greco-Bactrian empire.