﻿The usual depiction of medieval Mongolian cavalry is of an unruly crowd shooting
arrows hither and yon. But the Mongols, like all empires based in the Eurasian steppes,
fielded their own heavy horsemen, fearsome warriors who went toe-to-toe with the most-heavily
armoured troops of the era. In this series we are going to discuss Mongolian heavy cavalry:
in part one, their weapons and equipment, and then in the following weeks, their interactions with
cavalry across the world, starting in China with the Jin Dynasty and working our way west.
A lot of discussion that you will see online about Mongolian cavalry, as well as medieval
warfare in general, is provided by people who have no familiarity with artistic,
textual and archaeological data that survive from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Instead,
they’ll base expectations, often unconsciously, off of what they have seen in movies, videogames,
or TV; what “feels” right to them. Since none of us have experienced a Mongol invasion in a
few centuries, there is a level of inference with every reconstruction, but the more that
those inferences can be supported with direct data from the sources, the better that reconstruction
will be. And that is what the discussion in these videos will do: combining as much material from
medieval Chinese, Islamic, European and Mongolian accounts and more in order to understand how the
Mongols utilized their heavy cavalry. So, let’s talk heavy horse.
First of all: did the Mongols have heavy cavalry? Yes! A wide array of first-hand textual and
artistic evidence from across Eurasia support the presence of heavily armoured horsemen playing
important roles in Mongol armies. And this was not just subject peoples in service of the Khan, but a
part of the Mongol army from its inception. Neither was this an innovation by Chinggis Khan.
We have evidence for fully armoured nomadic cavalry centuries before the Mongol Empire.
At least by the fourth century CE heavy cavalry was a feature of armies both in China and in the
Rouran Khaganate; though some argue for its existence in the Xiongnu state, the evidence
is so far not conclusive. The greatest nomadic power before the Chinggisids was the Göktürks,
for whom some visual evidence of their heavy cavalry survives. This was not isolated to the
eastern steppes either; the sixth century Byzantine military manual the Strategikon
describes nomadic men and horses protected by “iron or felt” armours, at least in the front.
In form, function and general equipment, heavy cavalry across most of Eurasia from the fourth
century basically until the widespread adoption of firearms more or less took the same form,
of which we will get into shortly. Where does a steppe nomad get material
to make metal armour? Well you can watch the long video series I just did on that subject,
and save ourselves some time here. Short answer; they were perfectly capable of acquiring it,
just not in a volume comparable in output to China. The majority of horsemen in this
context are not suited up in metal lamellar or maille, but in leather laminar and padded felt
armours. These are not styles restricted to the Mongols, but widely used across Eurasia.
There is a claim that Mongol horses lacked the strength to be heavy cavalry, a misunderstanding
of an argument put forth by John Masson Smith. The source are qutie unequivocal that Mongol horses’
could be armoured. The eyewitness account of John de Plano Carpini in the 1240s gives us
a very detailed description of how Mongol horses were armoured. In the 1330s Ibn Battuta described
how the Delhi Sultanate specifically purchased horses from the Golden Horde, on account of their
ability to take the weight of armour better than other kinds of horses. What JM Smith argued is
that between occasions when they were armoured up, each horse was given perhaps a week’s break,
in order to distribute the burden. And if there was one thing the Mongol Empire
had plenty of, it was spare horses. The sources indicate that the most common
armour for both horse and rider were laminar and lamellar armours. We’ll deal with these each in
turn, starting leather laminar. Thanks to Friar Carpini’s fact-finding mission in
the 1240s, we have an idea of how Mongol laminar was constructed. Laminar armour began as ox-hide:
the leather was hardened, boiled according to Marco Polo, cut into strips about the width
of a hand, and then stacked in 3-4 layers. They were then covered in pitch to keep them together.
This results in one “band” of laminar, and each of these bands were laced together. These were tied
into five large sections, from the horse’s tail to neck, fastened at the saddle. In artwork these
strips are often painted, and quite brightly too. The horse's head was protected with an iron plate,
which tied into the two sections coming up the neck. This resulted in almost total coverage of
the animal down to its knees and the hock. Similar laminar armour was worn by the rider.
Around the torso it formed a sort of shell that fastened at the shoulders and protected the arms
and legs in long skirts. In the thirteenth century, this style of armour did not include
hand protection, with the common explanation being that this was to leave the arms mobile enough to
handle bows and arrows from horseback, for the bow remained the heavy cavalry’s primary weapon.
According to William of Rubruck, who observed Mongols in it in the 1250s,
this full-length laminar armour was rather awkward for individuals on foot. For a rider on horseback,
these long skirts covered the legs down to the boots. Overall, the sources describe this armour
as quite effective; European writers like Marco Polo and Thomas of Split refer to it being very
strong or even impenetrable, which seems a bit excessive. Iron, acorn-shaped helmets with leather
neck protection are commonly described, but we also see visual evidence for these larger, folding
laminar visors. They could be worn down to cover the face and neck, or folded up into a brim.
There was also the style identified as qatanqg-u degel. This is generally taken to refer to a
thickly padded coat made of layers of felt, also reinforced with metal plates, comparable
to a brigandine or the style of Chinese armour popularly though anachronistically called dingjia.
These are commonly depicted in artwork, showing bright decoration and colouring.
The most expensive armour we may expect our rider and horse to wear would be lamellar. These were
small metal plates; iron or steel, laced together into rows. The general shape matched that which we
saw in the laminar. The advantage here was durability, and of course prestige. Plano
Carpini describes it being polished to shine so brightly, that you could see your own reflection
in it. In the Halych-Volhynian Chronicle, when meeting King Béla IV in Bratislava,
the troops of Prince Danylo Romanovich appear dressed in “Tatar armour.” What precisely that
entailed is unspecified in the chronicle, but what is mentioned was that the local Germans
could not stop staring at them. One final note regarding equipment:
the Mongols did not wear silk undershirts beneath their armour for the purpose of
stopping arrows. That’s a modern myth, and one I dealt with in this video:
The main weapon of the Mongol heavy cavalry was still the bow. The secondary weapon? According
to Carpini, that was another bow. Heavy cavalry across most of the medieval world,
mostly functioned as better armoured horse archers. Shock cavalry was not generally a
distinctive separate category here, but a role they took on as necessary.
The sources differ in what other equipment they have. In Chinese accounts and in Ilkhanid artwork,
shields and spears of different styles appear. Xu Ting and Peng Daya’s account describes short and
long spears specifically for penetrating heavy armour, as well as different types of shield,
distinguished by size, use and unit; the Mongol vanguard being mostly equipped with circular
shields strapped over their shoulders. We also have textual depictions of spears with hooks on
them, designed to catch an enemy rider and pull them from the saddle. Mongols did not hold the
spear in a couched position, but off to the side, clutched by both hands. When not in use, a cord
around the spear’s head and base kept it slung around the rider’s arm and foot. In contrast,
some European accounts like Marco Polo and Simon of St. Quentin have Mongol spears as
uncommon and shields not used at all. Iron maces are commonly mentioned, and axes
more rarely, possibly just as tools. The most common style of sword used was a gently curving,
single-edged sabre of a type common across the Eurasian steppes. Some argue the Mongol
expansion encouraged the adoption of this style across the Islamic world, which previously
preferred straight blades. Written sources mainly indicate that swords were weapons of
the Mongol elite, rather than standard kit. Now it’s one thing to list off types of armour,
but how much of the Mongol army actually wore it? The sources generally agree that most of
the Mongol army was lightly, or unarmoured, horse archers who kept their distance from the
enemy entirely. But they don’t agree on how many were armoured, and likely it varied depending on
time and which specific part of the Mongol army our author was dealing with. Not even the Great
Khan probably knew what percentage of the army was armoured or not. In the account of the Dominican
Simon of St. Quentin, who travelled to Baiju’s court in the Caucasus in the 1240s, he described
armour as very rare, worn only by commanders, officers, and standard-bearers; the elite and the
army leadership, essentially. He even suggested that no more than a tenth of the army had armour.
But two Song Dynasty envoys who travelled to Ögedei’s court and wrote at the end of the 1230s
state that the Mongol vanguard, which numbered 30% of the attack force, was armoured. Since
that is a reference just to the van, it would not include other parts of the army that were also
armoured. The Khan’s keshig, the bodyguard, appear to have been well equipped and could make up a
significant portion of the army when on campaign; it was a 10,000 man unit, after all.
It’s fair to assume that 10-30% range, dependent on circumstances, is a reasonable estimate for how
much of the army was armoured. Given that the Mongol armies were heavily made up of subject
peoples, this number could vary even more. So from sources of the Ilkhanate and its successors
we get an interesting stereotype of the Golden Horde, where they regularly portray the Jochid
State having a huge yet poorly equipped army, apparently in contrast to the Ilkhanate’s smaller,
but better armed, force. What percentage of Mongol troops wore metal vs. leather armours is unknown.
Leather certainly receives greater mention in sources, but iron is referenced consistently
enough that it was being encountered with some regularity by their enemies.
Generally it appears that the armoured units of the Mongols were elite ones; the keshig for
instance was mostly staffed by younger sons and brothers of the nobility. The sources
often describe the Khan’s involvement in ordering production from blacksmiths,
weapon makers and armourers, yet we see very little indication of these wares going out to
the average trooper. Rather, it seems part of the reward for service in the elite units was
the output of these industries. We regularly see the sources describe the generosity of the khan to
the nobility, the military elite, and the guard, and part of this seems to have included outfitting
them with the material output of Asia. In the Ilkhanate, the vizier and historian
Rashid al-Din tells us how the initial hurdles for Mongol government had been
that the local armourers did not know how to make things in Mongolian style. Once overcome,
the Mongols contracted each craftsman to produce a set of armour, bows, weapons, arrows, and so on,
to deliver to the government every year for its distribution. Supposedly this didn’t work well;
apparently no more than 2,000 full sets of weapons were produced every year until
reforms under Ghazan Il-Khan increased this to 10,000, and changed also how these were procured;
instead of paying the craftsmen directly, the Ilkhanate would instead give money to the troops,
who were then supposed to purchase from the producers. Otherwise the craftsmen took the
money and sent nothing in return. Whether this system was this effective is uncertain;
Rashid al-Din’s job in his writing was to make the policies of his employer, Ghazan,
and himself, look as good as possible. Much armour was also simply taken from store
houses or the battlefield. With the fall of the Song Dynasty, much former-Song equipment
fell into Mongol hands; during his journey William of Rubruck saw Mongols wearing maille
hauberks taken from the Alans, and the Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich II complained that after their
victories in Hungary and Poland, the Mongols were wearing armour taken from dead European
knights! It’s technically possible a Mongol put on a Great Helm taken from a dead Templar,
and wore it across Asia, and perhaps even fought in Japan with it. And that’s kinda fun.
This has been a look at the equipment of the Mongol heavy cavalry. Next time,
we discuss how they operated on the battlefield, beginning with the wars
against the Jin Dynasty so be sure to subscribe, click buttons and other things Youtube suggests.