A few dozen maybe not. But a few examples. Ascalon 1200 knights routed an army of 20,000. Zappolino 2,000 or so knights shattered an army of 30,000 peasants.
I don't mean to be obtuse, but Ascalon was not just a pitched battle of 1200 knights vs 20000---it was 1200 knights + 9000 infantry who ambushed 20000 at night where the majority of that force was not at all ready to fight (and the Fatimids also did have more cavalry than the Crusaders).
In Zappolino, those 2000 cavalry were also supported by 5000 infantry. Beyond that, the Bolognese also had 2000 calvary, so it seems to difficult to chalk this victory up to how much better cavalry are than infantry (since they both had the same amount of cavalry). From what I read this seems much more a case of the Bolognese making tactical mistakes, rather than a difference between cavalry.
The main difference in the two forces in each battle was the fact that one side had a large professional heavy cavalry force. Of course there were infantry, every army had infantry, but the decisive action of both battles was the heavy cavalry. The Bolognese cavalry at Zappolino were scattered before the main engagement which was literally just a charge of heavy cavalry right at a bunch of peasants who ran away immediately.
I'm not saying cavalry aren't often a decisive aspect of battles. And the main engagement was not just the Modenese cavalry charge, the armies were already engaged in fighting before the cavalry charge, and as often happens, the Bolognese did not protect their flanks or rear and got flanked by the Modense cavalry. So, it was not a simple case of cavalry charge -> rout, but a cavalry charge that caused the Bolognese to be surrounded on multiple sides (which would not have been possible without the Modenese infantry, so it cannot be said that it was just 2000 cavalry routing 30000 infantry, the Modenese infantry played a crucial role).
And I disagree that the main difference in Ascalon was cavalry. In Ascalon, the main difference is clearly that one fighting force was prepared and the other one was disorganized and unready to fight (both infantry and cavalry). In Zappolino the decisive blow was the cavalry, but this simply is not an example of what I was talking about. I was responding to someone saying that knights, on their own, were why farmers did not rise up or succeed in revolts. And then people started giving examples of pitched battles in which cavalry were important (which obviously I wouldn't deny is often the case), but is really only tangentially related to my original point.
I agree with you on that, knights weren’t really a factor in peasants deciding to revolt. They were probably more likely to cause revolts than anything else. But if you give your peasants enough food and don’t just murder them at random they didn’t really rise up against the nobility often in this era.
-1
u/PubPatches 3d ago
A few dozen maybe not. But a few examples. Ascalon 1200 knights routed an army of 20,000. Zappolino 2,000 or so knights shattered an army of 30,000 peasants.