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Endemic warfare appears to have been a regular feature of Celtic societies. While epic literature depicts this as more of a sport focused on raids and hunting rather than an organized territorial conquest, the historical record is more of different groups using warfare to exert political control and harass rivals, for economic advantage, and in some instances to conquer territory.
These were well-trained and equipped professional soldiers made up of infantry and cavalry. [5] Aside from Hobelars, who were highly mobile, lightly armoured, cavalry skirmishers and archers, used primarily for scouting and ambushes, the main Gaelic cavalry was usually made up of a king or chieftain and his clan.
Native Irish displaced by the Anglo-Norman invasion, operated as bandits in the forests of Ireland where they were known as "wood kerns" or cethern coille. [8] They were such a threat to the new settlers that a law was passed in 1297 requiring lords of the woods to keep the roads clear of fallen and growing trees, to make it harder for wood kerns to launch their attacks.
Caesar, however, had denied their earlier request to settle in Gaul, and the issue turned to war. The Celtic tribes sent out a cavalry force of 800 against a Roman auxiliary force of 5,000 made up of Gauls, and won a surprising victory. Caesar retaliated by attacking the defenseless Celtic camp, and slaughtering the men, women, and children.
Trimarcisia (Ancient Greek: τριμαρκισία, trimarkisia), i. e., "feat of three horsemen", [1] was an ancient Celtic military cavalry tactic or organisation; [2] it is attested in Pausanias' Description of Greece, in which he described the use of trimarcisia by the Gauls during their invasion of Greece in the third century BCE.
The First Celtiberian War (181–179 BC) and Second Celtiberian War (154–151 BC) were two of the three major rebellions by the Celtiberians (a loose alliance of Celtic tribes living in east central Hispania, among which we can name the Pellendones, the Arevaci, the Lusones, the Titti and the Belli) against the presence of the Romans in Hispania.
There is no surviving description of the equipment of the original Irish hobelar, but they may have been equipped after the style of native Irish cavalry of the period, who wore aketons, hauberks, and basinets and wielded swords, scians [15] and lances. The pony itself was unarmoured, and was ridden in the Irish style, i.e., no saddle, no ...
The small size of Celtic horses meant that the Celtic heavy cavalry of north-western and central Europe appear to have been employed as heavy skirmisher cavalry, rather than the shock cavalry of the Middle East and North Africa, the heavy cavalry of Gaul and Celtiberia being widely regarded as some of the finest horsemen of the ancient world ...