The famous Polish Winged Hussars were not medieval “huscarls” but early-modern heavy cavalry, active roughly from the late 1500s to the mid-1700s. They became the shock troops of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and some of the most feared horsemen in Europe. Unlike armored knights weighed down by plate, Winged Hussars rode fast, powerful horses and wore relatively light hussar armor: a cuirass, open helmet, and sometimes mail sleeves. Their trademark was the skrzydła—wooden frames with rows o