Reiter (Ger., horseman, though the word was conscripted straight into English and converted into the French reître). The reiter was an armoured cavalryman of the 16th and 17th centuries, German in origin though imitated elsewhere. He carried a sword and a pair of long wheel-lock pistols, and often used the caracole, a manoeuvre which enabled formations of reiters to maintain a steady volume of pistol fire. Reiters played an important part in the French wars of religion, when John Casimir, son of the Elector Palatine, brought many to support the Huguenots. Improvements in infantry firepower sounded (all too literally) the reiter's death knell.
— Richard Holmes
