ABSTRACT
People's perception of the military history of the Carolingian world is dominated by the figure of the armoured mounted knight to whom they attribute a mighty significance on the battlefields of the central middle ages. The horse gave the warrior mobility. In the long wars of the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes, both sides travelled on horseback, but fought on foot. In the nature of things this circumstance must have tended to produce mounted encounters, and indeed it is inherently unlikely that the mounted man ever totally vanished from the battlefield. The traditional view that heavy cavalry developed under Charles Martel rests heavily upon three events which have recently been subject to a critical analysis. Merovingian noblemen probably rode to battle and sometimes even fought on horseback. In 578 Guntram Boso killed Duke Dragolen in what seems to have been a skirmish in which at least the principals were horsed.
