barding

thumb|A museum display of a sixteenth-century knight with an armoured horse thumb|Chinese Song dynasty lamellar horse barding as illustrated on [[Wujing Zongyao]]

Barding (also spelled bard or barb) is body armour for war-horses. The practice of armoring horses first developed extensively in antiquity in the Asian kingdoms of Parthia and Pahlava. After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC it likely made its way - along with cataphract technology - into European military practices via the Seleucid Empire and later the Byzantine Empire. Though its historical roots lie in antiquity in the regions of what was once the Persian Empire, barded horses have become a symbol of the late European Middle Ages chivalry and the era of knights.