The Warhorse in the 12th and Early 13th Centuries by Elizabeth Chadwick.

The other day there was a discussion on a historical list I'm on concerning the warhorses that would have been around during the days of William Marshal - knight par excellence in the mid 12th and early 13th centuries. The Ardennes breed (example in photo) was suggested as the type of great beast that William would have ridden to high success in the tourneys in which he took part.

It's amazing how this stereotype continues to prevail despite the amount of research that has been done on the fighting horses used at this time in history and despite all the pictorial and historical evidence we have to show that the medieval warhorse of the 12th and 13thc's little resembled the animal above.

As horse historian Daphne Machin Goodall says: 'The shire horse type may be comfortable at the walk, but he would be impossible at the trot, and heaven help the knight if his steed broke into a canter.'  As Tim Severin found out when he tried to ride an Ardennes cart horse to Jerusalem and ended up having to have a special saddle made before he could even sit the horse!

So, what do we know about the medieval warhorse of this time?
Anne Hyland, a historican of equine matters, carried out detailed assessments of horse in relation to horse transport ships and came to the conclusion that 'early medieval destriers were of a very moderate size!
'I estimate the build as stocky, and a height range of between 15 and 15.2 hands.'
The heavy horses of today are bred for haulage.  Weight to pull weight.  Even those said to throw back to the war horses of the Middle Ages have been bred to be taller and weightier than their ancestral counterparts. By the Tudor period Henry VIII was declaring that no heavy horses under 15 hands were to be kept for breeding, but that was not true of earlier centuries.
The ideam 12th and 13thc medieval warhorse wasn't bred to pull weight.  it was bred for speed, responsiveness, and to withstand the short, sharp shock of the charge and clash. In other words far more like a steer roping horse (an American Quarter Horse for example)  than a draught animal. It had to be sturdy enough to bear the weight of a man in a mail shirt and chausses; and to exist on what fodder was available in times of battle campaign. It also had to be trainable, intelligent and feisty but not umanageable.
Breeds are not mentioned - it was too early in history for that, but countries and regions sometimes turn up as providing the most desireable beasts. Spanish horses were hugely valued. William the Conqueror was presented with one on the eve of Hastings, and Norman baron Robert de Belleme had a stud of Spanish grey horses that he grazed on his Welsh Marcher lands. Arabian horses were prized too and one Oliver de Rohan brought nine of them back from the Holy land to run on his pastures.
In the Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal, horses from Lombardy are highly prized, although there is no indication as to what these kind of mounts might have looked like.
You will often find the Percheron horse cited as the descendant of the destrier, but don't be taken in by today's beautiful modern greys, active and fine though they are.  The medieval warhorse that came from the Le Perche region of France was 'of less massive conformation and generally brown in colour. In fact the early horse of le Perche, looked much like his neighbours, the Breton and Norman cobs.' So says Daphne Machin Goodall in her 'A History of Horse Breeding.'  She also makes the point that if such wonderful horses had existed in Charlemagne's time, he'd have been portrayed sitting on one of them to display his might, and not a basic cob!

So, if someone was looking around in today's market for a horse that best resembled the look if one was to go back in time to watch a tourney, what would one be looking for?

Possibly an Andalusian - a Spanish horse of ancient lineage and the correct characteristics.

Modern Andalusian - compare with the 13thC warhorse below

13th century warhorse - Matthew Paris. Nothing like a 'heavy horse' is it?

Or perhaps a Morgan horse - a breed believed to be suggestive today of resembling the destrier type by historian Matthew Bennett.

One of the four horsemen of the apcalypse - 13thC

Or perchance the Welsh cob.

For anyone further interested, there is a clip of a modern destrier in Terry Jones' programme on the crusades at 38 mins 54 seconds. Medieval warhorse, example of the type

Suggested further reading:
The Medieval Warhorse from Byzantium to the Crusades by Ann Hyland published by Sutton
A History of Horse Breeding by Daphne Machin Goodall published by Robert Hale (out of print)
The Medieval Warhorse reconsidered: Essay by Matthew Bennett in Medieval Knighthood V: Papers from the Sixth Strawberry Hill Conference 1994