Thought this was clever.
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That is cleverā¦and just the other day, one of the lesson kids dads asked me if knights rode big giant horses like my 17ā3hh black clyde cross. I then launched in to a much less clever talk about how that was a myth and they were mostly stout regular sized horses. So even smaller then!
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I heard about this from a friend a bit ago. Iām not sure itās all that accurate to say they rode pony sized equines. Have you ever seen the armor outfits some of those horses wore? It just the length of the neck armor requires a sizable steed. Iād say at least 16 hands, although a stout 15.3 might do. Ditto the length of back needed to accommodate the saddle plus the armor on the quarters. Most of the examples I saw seemed a little too big on the standard plastic horse models that we all know and love.
Iām basing this on the fabulous Higgins Armory collection in Worcester MA. If you have examples near you take a look and see what you think.
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I donāt think you need osteoarchaeology to show this. I have known for along time that midieval horses were quite small. You only need to look at the pictures and paintings, where the riders feet hang well below the horseās belly.
In fact, Henry VIII (post medieval) complained that the English horses were too small, and banned the breeding of mares under 13 h and stallions under 14h. So he clearly thought a 14 h pony was 'big enough". (later updated to 15 h for satllions, but still not the massive draft horses used in the movies). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breed_of_Horses_Act_1535_%26_Horses_Act_1540
Also " The medieval war horse was of moderate size, rarely exceeding 15.2 hands." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses_in_warfare
And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses_in_the_Middle_Ages#Size_of_war_horses
which specifically refers to Analysis of existing horse armour located in the Royal Armouries indicates the equipment was originally worn by horses of 15 to 16 .hands
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I wonder if perhaps some of the larger horse armor was intended more as a display of pageantry rather than for actual use in battle, and larger horses might have been retained for the purposes of pageantry in order to present a more impressive picture?
That, or if the armor is a modern recreation, it could have been fitted to modern horses rather than to the measurements of original pieces.
For a solid bit of research, take a look at the work by Ann Hyland. Especially her book 'The Medieval Warhorse" For an endlessly interesting look at the question, go to Youtube and find āModern Historyā by Jason Kingsley OBE. He isnāt always right, but he is actually trying things out in real life rather than on paper.
In general 15 hands was the large end of the scale until quite recently. It still lingers, in the draft world, you will find that the few remaining farmers who work their horses are constantly looking for smaller animals. Why? Inch for Inch a 16 hand horse is just as powerful as the 18 hand horse, if not more so due to more muscle and less leg; a shorter horse is easier to work in the woods (should you be in the woods); and finally throwing a harness over a 16 hand, or even better 15.2 hand, horse is So So much easier. And if you have to do that everyday and then work, you start to notice these things!
We have very little true medieval armor. We have a lot from the Early Modern Period, which is when horse sizes started to trend upwards. The question though, is did the horses trend upwards due to deliberate breeding first or due to better nutrition due to the reduced population/change in agricultural practices/etc of the period. Or both. One could spend a long time studying that!
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well, we know that the 17-19h drafties are a modern thing.
The people were not that tall (with remarkable exceptions) and impractical as work horse.
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The writer of that article needs to get out moreā¦thinking that ponies are sweet kiddies animals!
Now I love ponies, I grew up in England where kids and ponies are just the norm. I have met so many beautiful, sweet, priceless kids ponies. I think war ponies were the other sort, the only safe place was on their back, and good luck with that.
I think that war ponies right back to early history would have been mean little offspring of unwed parents, and would certainly strike terror into their enemies.
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We have a set of armor that weāve had at our art gallery in Kansas City for probably 50 years but Iāve been in there in the last year and it was not there and I was really broken hearted not to see it itās a fixture
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You may well be right, Night_Flight. But my recollection is that what I was seeing wouldnāt have fit the massive horse weāre used to in movies (where most actors are vertically challenged anyway). 
Iād like to add that the armor I saw lacked any padding that would have necessarily been used to prevent abrasions or pinched skin. AIR, Higgins collected only real stuff: could have had forgeries or inaccurate copies though. Padding wouldnāt have survived. Considering that Iād revise my height estimate for the examples I saw to 14.3-15.2 hands. And I donāt recall exactly what period those pieces were from. But thank you all for the fascinating info.
Now shall we start in on palfreys?
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The origin of the word āponyā is uncertain but it entered the English language only in the mid 17th century (1640-50s). Before that, any neighing quadruped was a āhorseā, regardless of height. Different types, doing different work, were given names (stot, affir, cob, palfrey) but they werenāt ābreedsā in the modern sense.
Interestingly, it was in this Stuart period that gaited horses disappeared from the national herd so something significant was happening, maybe reflected in the names. England had been famous for ambling and pacing horses under the Tudors. After the 17th century, English horses trotted.
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Deb Bennett has had a series of articles in Equus on the history of horse breeds. I really recommend them.
Anyway, she noted in one of her articles that Charles I (a Stuart) wanted to have people breed a specific kind of horse for the new kind of warfare. These would be lighter horses with greater endurance and horses who trotted rather than ambling. These new horses didnāt have to carry knights wearing the full suit of armor, but they instead were wearing lighter chainmail.
At that point knights were also using stirrups (which they didnāt have for most of the Middle Ages warfare). With stirrups they could more easily mount a horse from the ground and the horse could be taller.
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Where did you get that from? Stirrups in England date back to at least the 10th century
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I think youāre right (from what I have read) that they date from about the 10th century in most of western Europe; eastern Europe had them somewhat earlier.
I think that dating makes it about halfway through the Middle Ages.
Charles I was late in the game! By that time guns had been introduced and plate armor (which wasnot THAT prevalent anyhow because of the cost.
https://ageofrevolution.org/200-object/antoine-fauveau-cuirass/ (1814)
Dredging up my doctorate in medieval Scottish politicsā¦Early Medieval for Great Britain is generally 476 (fall of Rome) to 1066 (Norman Conquest). High Medieval is 1066 to 1350. 1350 is seen as the end date as the Black Death and Hundred Years War really start to bite, but more importantly as the Medieval Warm Period during which one could grow wheat in Iceland, grapes in Norway, and commercial crops in Greenland, started to give way to the Little Ice Age which lasted till 1850 and we are still warming up from. Late Medieval is 1350 to late 1400ās, and ends due to gunpowder, exploration, population collapse, and Reformation (not really in that order!). All of this is subject to slippageā¦in Scotland, āprehistoryā i.e. no written records, goes later in to the 900ās for certain areas; on the other hand Medieval can arguably be moved to 1500 as an end date for cultural affairs. And of course, 476 really is a non date, Britain had been post Roman for well over a century at that point; I doubt they ever knew about the fall of the last Roman Emperor. And 1066 really doesnāt work well for architecture, 1100 is better.
Interestingly, as a medievalist, if you look at those datesā¦alot of the negative things like witch trials and the Spanish Inquisition are Early Modern not Medieval. (Just had to throw that in there, Iām always bugged by the bad rap the Medieval period gets! 
).
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I agree with you @B_and B_ about the bad rap that the Medieval period gets.
Hey, those people survived the utter collapse of the biggest empire to date. It wasnāt always pretty but the people survived, some technological progress was made, and limited literacy and numeracy not only continued, they were supported by the powers that be for a limited population whose people were not necessarily aristocrats or nobles (monks mostly.)
the church held the true power
and not only did the people survive the collapse of (several) empires, but also found their society decimated by pestilence.
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Yup! Actually the technological achievements of the medieval period are staggering. One only has to look at a Gothic Cathedral to understand how far from the Roman engineering things moved. There are also some really foundational shifts in thinking and education that create the possibility of the Renaissance and the development of the scientific world view.
There is definitely some backwards motion, especially in sanitation and road building, arguably due to no single power center. But the Roman Empireās capabilities on that score can be overestimated, plagues of various types and famines were a part of life in any society up until the Western Worldās (and only the western world) 20th century experience.
History always builds on what comes beforeā¦whether that building is positive or negative is another matter.
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