The stirrup
A loop of leather lets a rider brace, and cavalry becomes shock cavalry.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 200 years
- Known to
- ± 50 years
- Era
- Classical, Holocene
Paired stirrups appear in China by around 300 CE and spread west over the following centuries. Without them a rider is held on by grip alone; with them the rider can stand, strike downward with full force and absorb the shock of a couched lance. Lynn White famously argued the stirrup enabled feudalism in Europe, a claim now considered overstated, but its military effect on mounted combat is not in doubt.