Jinetes skirmish at the Battle of Higueruela, 1431

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

Etymology

The word jinete is used in Castilian and the Provençal dialect of Occitan to refer to skilled riders, particularly those whose work requires expert horsemanship. The term is generally derived from Hispano-Arabic zanáti, a gentilic form of Zanāta, the name of the medieval Berber Zenata confederation.[1][2] Felipe Maíllo Salgado has linked the medieval terms jinete and jineta to the history of Spanish cavalry and their lexical development.[3] The Portuguese equivalent is ginete. The same word also gives English jennet, meaning a small Spanish horse.

Medieval Hispanic light cavalry

As a military term, jinete (also spelled ginete or genitour) means a Spanish light horseman that wore leather armor and was armed with javelins, a spear, a sword, and a shield. They were a type of mounted troop developed in the early Middle Ages in response to the massed light cavalry of the Moors.[4] 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:

Contemporary usage

In Mexico, jinete can mean "rodeo rider", hence "cowboy".

In Castilian, it is used adjectivally of a rider who knows how to ride a horse, especially those who are fluent or champions at equestrian practices, such as the gaucho, the huaso of the plains, the cowboy, Vaquero, or charro among others. It is also used in the Spanish Army to designate personnel belonging to the cavalry arm.

In its original Spanish title The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez is Los Cuatro Jinetes del Apocalipsis. Canción de jinete is a poem by Federico García Lorca.[13]

The novel El jinete polaco by Antonio Muñoz Molina was published in 1991.[14]

References

  1. ↑ "jinete". Diccionario de la lengua española. Real Academia Española. Retrieved 7 May 2026.
  2. ↑ Corriente, Federico (1996). "Hacia una revisión de los arabismos y otras voces con étimos del romance andalusí o lenguas medio-orientales en el Diccionario de la Real Academia Española" (PDF). Boletín de la Real Academia Española. 76: 153–195. Retrieved 7 May 2026.
  3. ↑ Maíllo Salgado, Felipe (1982). "Jinete, Jineta y sus derivados: contribución al estudio del medievo español y al de su léxico". Studia Philologica Salmanticensia (6): 105–117. Retrieved 7 May 2026.
  4. ↑ Contamine, Philippe (1984). War in the Middle Ages. Oxford: Blackwell. p. 58. ISBN 0-631-13142-6.
  5. ↑ Oman, Charles (1991) [1924]. A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages. Vol.II 1278–1485. London: Greenhill. p. 180. ISBN 1-85367-105-3.
  6. ↑ Oman, Charles (1987) [1937]. A History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century. London: Greenhill. p. 51. ISBN 0-947898-69-7.
  7. ↑ Contamine (1984), p. 58
  8. ↑ Contamine (1984), p. 135
  9. ↑ Contamine (1984), p. 163)
  10. ↑ Contamine (1984), p. 172
  11. ↑ Contamine (1984), p. 167
  12. ↑ Oman (1987), p. 52
  13. ↑ César García Alvarez (1977). Canción de jinete (in Spanish). Revista Chilena de Literatura (9/10 ): 171–178. (subscription required)
  14. ↑ Elizabeth Amann (Autumn 1998). Genres in Dialogue: Antonio Muñoz Molina's El jinete polaco (in Spanish). Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos 23 (1): 1–21.(subscription required)
allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinete