C: TAP. IV.] 



FEUDAL CAVALRY. 



127 





javelins, and some with lances, fell upon the flanks and 

 rear of the Frankish infantry,' who were not protected 

 either by helmet or cuirasses, and were armed only with 

 sword, battle-axe, and buckler.^ 



The highly trained Eoman archers who, clad in com- 

 plete armour, harassed with their arrows the unwieldy 

 mass of defenceless barbarians, soon threw them into 

 confusion and checked their victorious charge. At this 

 crisis, the Heruli under their leader Sin dual, forgetting 

 their revengeful feelings in the excitement of battle, 

 charged impetuously the pointed head of the column 

 which had pierced the Roman line of battle. This 

 settled the fate of the day, and the barbarians, sur- 

 rounded and defeated, were almost annihilated. The 

 historian Agathias makes the almost incredible state- 

 ment that only five Franks survived out of thirty 

 thousand, while the Roman loss was only fourscore. 



One of the most important and most interesting 

 battles of the dark ages was that fought at Tours or 

 Poictiers in the year 732, between Charles Martel and 

 the Saracens under Abderrahman, for on that field was 

 settled the fate of Christian Europe. The Saracen 

 caliph crossed the Pyrenees at the head of an army, 

 variously computed at from 80,000 to some hundreds of 

 thousands. One monkish chronicler puts the losr of 

 the Arabs at 375,000, which is evidently a gross exag- 

 geration, but it is a proof that the numbers must have 

 been very great. The accounts of the battle are in- 

 complete and very deficient in military details. 



The foUowiiig account, taken from the Arabian chroni- 

 cler, gives the best idea of the combat. After saying 

 that there was war between the Count of the Frankish 

 frontier and the Moslems, and how the Count raised an 

 army and fought against them, the chronicler says : — 



" But Abderrahman drove them back, and the men of 

 Abderrahman were pufied up in spirit by their repeated 

 successes, and the ' were full of trust in the valour and 

 the practice in war of their Emir. So the Moslems 

 smote their enemies and passed the river Garonne and 

 » Daniel, i. 20, 21. 2 Qibbon, iv. 278, 279. 



