Ralph the Timid -- and the Horses

Question

Ralph the Timid gathered an army to defend Hereford in 1055.  His soldiers fled and Hereford was burned.   "Timid" was the kinder nickname applied to him; others called him "Coward".  

He had been in battles before without such a disastrous result.  What made the difference?  The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that "the English fled, because they had been made to fight on horseback."

So this is really a question for the military historians:  Warriors on horseback were used effectively in combat long before 1055 and well after it -- in fact, the US Special Forces fighting the Taliban in the earliest phases of the Afghanistan war mounted horses to fight alongside the Taliban's enemies in at least one battle.

So what went wrong?  Were the English simply asked to do something they were unaccustomed to?  Or is there some other piece to the story waiting to be unearthed?

Comments

My understanding is that the northerners, Anglo-Saxons and others, had few, smallish horses, too valuable to fight with. They rode to war then fought on foot, a battle-axe can bring down a horse any day. Same reason the English find the idea of eating horses repulsive. Battle of Hastings illustrates this. Poor Ralph was a "foreigner".

Answer 1

If it helps... https://chat.openai.com/share/6d19e187-7f8d-4181-8530-814a5940180c .

Comments

The ability of AI to answer questions accurately, meaningfully and coherently is scary.

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The ability of questioners to point the machines in the right direction is required (at the moment). Ultimately the machine's answer will be The Answer, even if it is wrong.

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I fear a new world in which AI is the property of the new trillionaires, and the rest of us will be relegated to cleaning their toilets.