Jinete

Jinete (Spanish pronunciation: [xiˈnete]) is Spanish for "horseman", especially in the context of light cavalry.

The word Jinete (of Berber zenata) designates, in Castilian, Catalan, Basque, Galician and the Provençal dialect of Occitan language, those who show great skill and riding especially if this relates to their work. In Portuguese, it is spelled ginete. The term jennet for a small Spanish horse has the same source.

As a military term, jinete (also spelled ginete or genitour) means a Spanish light horseman armed with a javelin, sword and a shield, a troop type developed in the early Middle Ages in response to the massed light cavalry of the Moors. Often fielded in significant numbers by the Spanish, and at times the most numerous of the Spanish mounted troops, they played an important role in Spanish mounted warfare throughout the Reconquista until the sixteenth century. They were to serve successfully in the Italian Wars under Gonzalo de Córdoba and Ramón de Cardona.

Sir Charles Oman describes their tactics thus :

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