How did medieval knights use their lances in actual battles?

We all know about jousting – two mounted knights with lances charging at each other, each trying to knock the other off his horse. But formalized sport presumably was inspired by some actual battle tactic, the way the sport of fencing grew out of earnest swordfighting. In battles, would you see a massed charge of knights with lances going against another massed charge of knights with lances? Or would the knights do the sensible thing and concentrate on using their lances to skewer the enemy’s relatively defenseless foot soldiers? Or both? Which more often?

Hereis a cool history of the Lance- aparently it was born from the Norman Spear. And they were very much used in battle.

I’m currently reading a series of books set during the Hundred Years War, and the author (Cornwell) gives great detail on how lances were used in battle. The knights would ride in very tight formation - “knee-to-knee” - and use their lances to skewer the front ranks of footsoldiers and men-at-arms. Usually, they would become stuck in the victim or in the ground, and then the knight would have to engage in one-on-one combat. Whenever possible, the knights would fall back to grab another lance, regain formation, and do it again. A bloody business, war.

And the foot soliders would also use the long lance type spears dug into the ground to try and fend off the knights riding in.

I wouldn’t want to be either one of those soldiers. If I had to choose I’ll take the guys on horseback.

As mentioned, the lance evolved from the use of the Norman spear on horseback. As the saddle improved longer and more accurate (counterbalanced) spears eventually became the lance.

The use of the lance is tied to the use of heavy calvary on the field (although light calvary certainly could and did put the weapon to use) and their purpose was two fold.

  1. Break enemy formations. The sight of a hundred charging 1 ton mountains of steel, muscle and beast must have been terrifying and commanders of the time counted on that fear to drive enemy units from the field. It took a tremendous amount of training to overcome that impulse to flee and to stay in formation against heavy calvary. Most would (and did) flee, making them easy targets for the advancing heavy calvary as well other infantry and light calvary units on the field.

  2. Shock troops. When either the opposing men stood their ground (and had no pikes available to them), or when heavy calvary was able to outmaneuver and flank an enemy position, they rode in with their lances and skewered the enemy, usually forcing an opening in the lines through which they or another unit could break through and flank. You didn’t want enemy calvary behind your lines, that’s for sure.

I was expecting to read about the use of pikes during that period during England’s campaign in France, but apparently they were mainly used by the Scots (against the English) and the Flemish (against the French) – they didn’t gain wide-spread usage on the battlefield until the Renaissance, thanks to the Swiss.

Or you’d get crucified.