The first certain account of stirrups, as far as I have been able to learn, is in a book by Mauritius[1363] respecting the art of war, where the author says that a horseman must have at his saddle two iron scalæ. This work, commonly ascribed to the emperor Mauritius, is supposed to have been written in the end of the sixth century; and it is not a sufficient proof to the contrary, that mention is made in it of the Turks, Franks, and Lombards. The first were then well known; for Justin II. some time before had concluded a peace with them: the Lombards made themselves known in the middle of that century: and the Franks had been known much longer. The same words are inserted by the emperor Leo VI., in his work on tactics, which he wrote in the end of the ninth century[1364]. Still clearer is another passage of Mauritius[1365], and of the emperor Leo[1366], where it is expressly said, that the deputati, who were obliged to carry the wounded horsemen from the field, ought to have two stirrups on the left side of the horse, one at the fore-part and the other at the hind-part of the saddle-tree, that they might each take a disabled soldier on horseback behind them. That these scalæ were real stirrups there seems to be no reason to doubt; and in my opinion, that word, and other expressions of the like kind to be found in later writers, may be understood in this sense, especially as concomitant circumstances appear rather to strengthen than to oppose such a conjecture.
Isidore, in the seventh century, says “Scansuæ, ferrum per quod equus scanditur;” and also “Astraba, tabella, in qua pedes requiescunt[1367]:” both which expressions allude to stirrups. Leo the Grammarian, in the beginning of the tenth century[1368], calls them, as Mauritius does, scalæ. Suidas, who wrote about the same period, says anaboleus signifies not only a riding-servant, who assists one in mounting, but also what by the Romans was called scala. As the machine used for pulling off boots is named a Jack, because it performs the office of a boy, in the like manner that appellation, which at first belonged to the riding-servant, was afterwards given to stirrups, because they answered the same purpose. Suidas, as a proof of the latter meaning, quotes a passage from an anonymous writer, who says that Massias, even when an old man, could vault on horseback without the assistance of a stirrup (anaboleus). Lipsius thinks that the passage is to be found in Appian[1369], respecting Masanissa; and in that case the first meaning of the word may be adopted. Suidas, according to every appearance, would have been in a mistake, had he given Masanissa at so early a period the Roman scalæ, with which he could not be acquainted. But that the passage is from Appian, and that Masanissa ought to be read instead of Massias, is only mere conjecture; at any rate Suidas could commit no mistake in saying that the Romans in his time made use of scalæ. Lipsius, however, was not altogether wrong in considering this quotation alone as an insufficient proof of stirrups, because with the still older and more express testimony of Mauritius he was unacquainted. Eustathius, the commentator of Homer[1370], speaks in a much clearer manner; but he gives us to understand that stirrups in his time, that is in the twelfth century, had not become very common. On a piece of tapestry of the eleventh century, which Montfaucon caused to be engraven[1371], the saddles of all the horses appear to have stirrups. Aimonius calls them scandilia[1372], and in the twelfth century the word staffa occurs very often, and without doubt in that sense[1373]. In the ages of superstition, the clergy carried their boundless pride to such a length, that they caused emperors and kings to hold their stirrups when they mounted on horseback[1374]. It however long continued to be thought a mark of superior dexterity to ride without stirrups, at least Phile praises Cantacuzenus on this account[1375].
FOOTNOTES
[1344] The principal works in which information is to be found on this subject are the following: Hieron. Magii Miscellan. lib. ii. cap. 14.—Gruteri Lampas, ii. p. 1339.—Lipsii Poliorceticon sive de Militia Romana, Antv. 1605, lib. iii. dial. 7.—Pitisci Lexicon Antiquit. Rom. iii. p. 482.—Salmasius in Ælii Spart. Antonin. Carac. p. 163.—G. J. Vossius, De Vitiis Sermonis, Amst. 1695, fol. p. 11.—Polyd. Vergilius De Rerum Inventoribus, lib. iii. cap. 18.—Hugo De Militia Equestri, i. 4.—Licetus De Lucernis.—Menagiana, iv. p. 263.—Brown’s Vulgar Errors.—Berenger’s History and Art of Horsemanship, London, 1771, 4to.—Montfaucon, Antiquité Expliquée, iv. lib. 3, cap. 3, p. 77, and Supplement, iv. lib. ii. cap. 4.—Le Beau, in Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, xxxix. p. 537.
[1345] De Aëre, Locis et Aquis, sect. 3. The author here speaks in particular of the Scythians, who were always on horseback; but he afterwards extends his observations to all those much addicted to riding.
[1346] Galen. De Parvæ Pilæ Exercitio, cap. 5. De Sanitate Tuenda, lib. ii. cap. 11.
[1347] Vita Caligulæ, cap. 3.
[1348] Fabricii Biblioth. Med. et Inf. Ætatis, vol. v. p. 845.
[1349] The history of this anatomical discovery, written by Ingrassias himself, may be found in J. Douglas, Bibliographiæ Anatomicæ Specimen; Lugd. Bat. 1734, 8vo, p. 186. This discovery was claimed by a person named Columbus; but that it belongs to Ingrassias has been fully proved by Fallopius in his Observat. Anatomicæ.
[1350] Vegetius De Re Milit. i. 18.