Although today it is a battle scarcely known outside central Europe, Lechfeld can be seen as a symbolic moment in the grand march of medieval history. For the triumph of heavy cavalry over light mounted archers coincided with the dawn of an age in which the sort of armored, lance-wielding horsemen whom Otto commanded began to take center stage in western warfare. For the next two centuries, powerful, mounted warriors dominated battlefields, while also beginning to burnish their status in society at large.
