Судан и Большой Ближний Восток

264 III. Судан и его соседи stroke makes any sense under circumstances, the latter being one of the reasons for developing of tapering blades later in the 13th–14th C. As for the knight, he had all the advantages of his higher position, let alone the weight of the horse itself. As a result, the knights just wiped out the Irish infantry or local militia of Visby, cutting them up at will. Thus, it is not surprising that the infantry had to develop its own types of arms, the major one being a long pike used to create a defensive wall to keep knights on distance, as well as various staff-weapons, such as halberd or hedging bill, which were more effective against cavalry than the sword. The early medieval straight sword, with minor modifications, remained a sufficient tool to secure knight dominance over his subjects, who were bound to fight on foot, as cavalry warfare required a lengthy training, preferably from the childhood. The second reason of keeping straight sword in its once established form was the very basis of knightly warfare. The knightly combat was a single combat par excellence , not only at the tournament. On the battlefield the knights often followed the same pattern. A concerted shock attack of the knightly units could be applied at the first stage of a battle, but afterwards the fighting usually split into a number of single combats. This is not a feature of the knightly literature only, as one may believe, 1 but also a reality of many battles, especially of most common local ones, and of those fought by the knights only (without mercenaries involved). Moreover, it was a typical of knightly warfare, at least in local skirmishing, to stop fighting when the horses and men were exhausted (which is by no means strange, as even a well-trained knight could not swing his heavy sword for long), rest for a while, and then resume the battle. It is difficult to imagine such a courteous behaviour on the battlefield in the East! 1 This opinion became quite popular; though in fact, it is merely another extremity — as opposite to the previous literal acceptance of poetical descrip- tions of battles in the medieval literature as a series of champions’ duels. See, e. g., a typical attempt by Bernard Bachrach to deny the reality of such single combats and even to reject the very importance of the knight cavalry inMedi- eval warfare. [The Cambridge illustrated History of Warfare. The Triumph of the West. Ed. G. Parker. Cambridge, 1995. P. 88–91.]