The stirrup is a ring with a flat bottom fixed on a leather Strap, usually hung from each side of a saddle to create a footrest for the rider on a riding-animal (usually a Horse or other equine, such as mule). It greatly increases the rider's ability to control the mount, increasing the animal's usefulness in communication, transportation and warfare. It is considered one of the basic tools used to create and spread modern Civilization. Some argue it is as important as the Wheel or Printing press.
It was invented at first as a single mounting stirrup only used in gaining the saddle; the first dependable representation of a rider with paired stirrups is in a Jin tomb of about 322 CE. The stirrup was spread throughout Eurasia by the great horsemen of the central Asian steppes. It is uncertain when it was first adopted by the nomads the first attested use is by the Alans. Some historians believe the Huns must have used them to enable their conquests. [image] Stirrups reached Sweden in the 6th century, leading to the establishment of mounted Thegns during the Swedish Vendel Age. From this period have been found rich graves of mounted elite warriors, which include stirrups . The importance of the horse during this time is reflected in the later Norse sagas, where the 6th century Swedish king Adils is said to have been a great lover of horses and to have had the best horses of his days. Interestingly, all accounts of this king's warfare describe him as fighting on horseback, although the later Vikings never or rarely did so. To add a 6th century source, Jordanes claimed that the Swedes had the best horses beside the Thuringians, reflecting the importance of the horse during this time (see also the Battle on the Ice).
Stirrups were first indirectly documented in Central Europe during the reign of Charles Martel in the 8th century, when verbs scandere and descendere among the Franks replace verbs denoting "leaping" upon a horse. A pair of stirrups have been found in an 8th century burial in Holiare, Slovakia.
Lynn White Jr., in Medieval Technology and Social Change (1966) suggested that the rising feudal class structure of the European Middle Ages derived ultimately from the use of stirrups: "Few inventions have been so simple as the stirrup, but few have had so catalytic an influence on history. The requirements of the new mode of warfare which it made possible found expression in a new form of western European society dominated by an aristocracy of warriors endowed with land so that they might fight in a new and highly specialized way."