This article offers a comprehensive overview of the research carried out around the various roles assigned to war horses in the Middle Ages, bringing into focus the latest methodological and bibliographical contributions to the field. Taking as a starting point the centrality of the horse to military practice as a warfare tool, a line of research has focused on the high cost of its breeding, maintenance and equipment as determining factors linking it to a socioeconomic elite. However, this was not always the case: only the confluence of a long series of technical, sociological and ideological changes made it possible for the warlike weapon to become as well a symbol of hierarchy and social pre-eminence. The presentation of the main views and lines of research on these issues is the main object of this work.