THE COMBROGI AND ARTHUR’S MILITARY
“Combrogi” is a real term found in Welsh literature that I chose to appropriate in place of the more modern Knights of the Round Table.
Chain mail really was a Celtic invention, but whether or not the Combrogi’s saddles would have had stirrups is a matter of controversy. Most historians say they would not have, but at least one Arthurian scholar has put forth a hypothesis that the invention may have been carried to Britain by the Sarmatians, who were sent to Britain by the emperor Marcus Aurelius in 175 AD. As a fiction author, I have chosen to take this unlikely possibility and spin it into a partial explanation for the Combrogi’s unprecedented success in battle.
Lancelot’s views on training horses may seem very modern, but they actually have ancient
