In an article, “The Role of Cavalry in Medieval Warfare: Horses, Horses All Around and Not a One to Use,” appearing in the Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Bryce Lyon challenged the hegemony of the cavalry in medieval warfare. He considers my conclusion concerning the supremacy of knights to be “a romantic statement of this idée fixe.” He thinks that scholars should follow the studies of Bernard Bachrach and others on warfare in the early Middle Ages to the eleventh century. From the study of Carolingian military operations, he concludes that sieges with ladders and tunnels and campaigns in dark woods and marshy terrain were more numerous than battles.

If these campaigns were more numerous than battles, how is it then that in 1066 there were three battles which followed each other: the landing of Hardrada and his defeat of the troops of Edwin and Morcar at Fulford on September 20, the march of Harold to the north and his defeat of Hardrada at Stamford Bridge on September 25, and, afterwards, the battle of Hastings on October 14? Where were the sieges? And the woods? Harold came out of a forest to do battle, and he was defeated.

Bryce Lyon gives no examples of the campaigns in dark forests and marshy terrain, and he gives no numerical comparisons with battles. There were a few exceptions. There were certainly sieges with ladders and tunnels.