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The warhorse was the most iconic animal of the Middle Ages. As distinctive symbols of status, horses were central to the aristocratic image and closely bound up with concepts of knighthood and chivalry. As weapons of war, bred for strength and stamina, warhorses changed the face of battle. But our established understanding of warhorses is based almost entirely on historical scholarship. In contrast, archaeological evidence, which has immense potential to challenge received wisdom and transform knowledge about an animal so critical to medieval life, has remained neglected and untapped.
The AHRC-funded project ‘Warhorse: A Medieval Revolution?’ aims to address this gap in knowledge and, for the first time, brings together several lines of enquiry to explore the medieval horse in all its aspects. Through a multi-disciplinary approach, combining traditional zooarchaeology, geometric morphometrics, and genetic analysis with equine material culture, landscapes, and documents, this research strives to understand the development of this crucial species and how it came to define an entire era.
Presenting preliminary results, this paper examines the zooarchaeology of medieval horses from the 8th through to the mid-16th centuries. Biometrical analyses enable us to study changes in size, shape, and robusticity of the animals resulting from human selection. Through these changes, zooarchaeology has the ability to inform about advances in warfare and to illuminate the place of equine culture in the medieval society.

EAA2021: Abstract

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