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Medieval Horses Are Not What Fantasy Authors Lead You to Think
I just read a fun romp of a fantasy novel where the author, unfortunately, made a couple of horse-related mistakes. This included having the protagonist basically ride fast endurance cross country on a destrier.
Uh.
No.
The author clearly didn’t actually know what a destrier was. And the reason he was wrong is because a “destrier” was the horse you used for jousting in a tournament.
Destriers were bred to do one thing very well…sprint a short distance carrying a guy in armor. That was it. They were ridiculously valuable because of the amount of money that could be won in tournaments.
A muscular sprint horse like that is a little short of…uh…stamina. Destriers were never ridden long distances or used for transportation, because they would run out of steam too quickly.
Dear fantasy author, the word you needed was “courser.” Ahem.
So, here are some very common misconceptions, or things people just didn’t get.
Medieval Horses Were Small
Go to a Ren Faire and you’ll see people charging around on Clydesdales.
That’s not what a destrier was, although given how much people have increased in size…and…