Horse Heredity in the Dark Ages

By Kim Rendfeld

The early medieval warhorse had two jobs. The first was to charge into battle with a fully armed and armored warrior on his back. The second was to beget foals as strong and brave as he was.

He—they were all stallions—was shorter than today’s thoroughbred. The modern thoroughbred can be 5-foot-1 to 5-foot-8 at the withers. A Germanic early medieval warhorse was about 4-foot-5, and a Roman military horse could be 4-foot-9 to 5-foot-3. (Yes, my horse friends, I know the proper unit is hands, and medieval people likely used that measurement or something similar. But like most 21st century Americans, I think in terms of feet and inches.)

All horses were expensive; they could cost three to five times more than a bull and as much as 90 times more than a ram. But the warhorse, a predecessor of the famous destrier, was the most costly of all livestock, both to purchase and to maintain. As was the case with all grazing animals, land had to be set aside for pasture rather than crops, and if we are to believe written sources, horses required a lot more oats in winter than oxen did.

Horses were critical to the military and had a variety of functions, carrying soldiers and baggage and pulling carts with supplies. The only time a warhorse was put to work was in combat (well, maybe he was used in the hunt, too).

This meant warhorses belonged only to the wealthy, who could afford to set aside land and have livestock work for such limited times. While medieval animals were valued more for their work than companionship as pets, warriors did get attached to their steeds, akin to fellow soldiers. The men relied warhorses not to freeze or bolt when they heard clashing swords and screams or saw an enemy attacking them. A horse giving in to fear endangered both man and beast.

Early Signs of Bravery

In other words, there was no room for cowardice—for anyone. Medieval people believed gelding would make a horse timid. The folk also thought that male horses were solely responsible for passing desirable characteristics, like courage and pride, to their offspring. As for the females, they just needed to have the broad quarters and abdomens good for bearing young, maybe be good-looking, and have attained the right age, at least 3 years. Some writers recommended mares stop breeding at age 10 because her foals would be lazy, while others thought she could reproduce throughout her life.

Mares outnumbered stallions, anywhere from 10 to 30, so not all colts grew up to reproduce. The rate of gelding varied region by region, but the decision of whether a colt would later become a stallion or a gelding was made when the animals were young, likely before they were 3. (Male horses were ages 3 to 4 1/2 before being allowed to mate. The belief was that younger parents had smaller and weaker young.)

Because bravery was a desired trait, owners would watch for signs. Those included a colt running in the front of the herd, staying calm when seeing or hearing something unfamiliar, being more playful than other horses his age, and when racing, leaping over ditches and crossing bridges without a fuss. Easily spooked colts would have an appointment with the knife in the fall, considered the perfect time for the procedure.

In Spring, a Stallion’s Fancy Turns To ...

At this time of year, between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice, a stallion would be fulfilling his more pleasant responsibility and become reacquainted with his harem. He didn’t have access to his mares at any other time. He was fattened, perhaps on barley and vetch, before and during the spring because his duty was exhausting. A strong, well-fed stallion was believed to sire strong foals, but he had a deadline.

Breeding after summer solstice was believed to result in weaker foals. Yet a real practicality came into account. A mare’s pregnancy lasts 11 to 12 months. Her caretakers would prefer her to deliver when the grass was growing so that both mother and baby would have fodder.

Conceiving foals might take more than one try. The mare was thought to be pregnant when she no longer showed interest in the stud.

Not all the mares in the herd would be available to the stallion. Some of them would have recently given birth. Nursing foals took six months, and the mothers would not be bred for another six months after that. The waiting period might have been to time optimal conception and the availability of fodder. Yet the owners of the herd would want to keep their animals healthy, if more for practical reasons than sentimental ones. They needed to protect their investment.

The inspiration for this post is a tragedy that happened while Charlemagne was at war against the Avars in 791. In his half of the army, a pestilence killed nine-tenths of the horses, which from a military perspective is devastating. Think of it as nine-tenths of the vehicles being wiped out. Even if you have more tanks in production, that kind of a loss is still a huge blow, and in this case, you can't speed up production.

This occurred in the late fall, and more horses would be on the way. Some mares in the herd would be in foal, and there would be some months-old foals along with maturing colts and fillies. But none of that was enough to come anywhere near replacing a loss of this magnitude. A normal year would have some deaths from illness or age among the herd, and aristocrats would expect to lose some horses in battle. But not this many.

First, stallion and mares would need to wait until spring to breed. On top of the 11-to-12-month pregnancy, it would take another two years for horses to be ready for someone to ride them.

Replenishing the herd was a slow process indeed, and in the meantime, the army was crippled.

All images public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: Horse Breeding in the Medieval World by Charles Gladitz

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Kim Rendfeld learned about the mass loss of horses while researching her work in progress, Queen of the Darkest Hour, a novel about Charlemagne's influential fourth wife, Fastrada, and his rebellious eldest son, Pepin. She has written two novels set in early medieval times.

You can order The Ashes of Heaven's Pillar, about a Saxon peasant who will fight for her children after losing everything else, at Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, CreateSpace, Smashwords, and other vendors.

Kim's first novel, The Cross and the Dragon, in which a Frankish noblewoman must contend with a jilted suitor and the fear of losing her husband, is available at Amazon, Kobo, iTunes, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, CreateSpace, and other vendors.

Connect with Kim at on her website kimrendfeld.com, her blog, Outtakes of a Historical Novelist at kimrendfeld.wordpress.com, on Facebook at facebook.com/authorkimrendfeld, or follow her on Twitter at @kimrendfeld.

The Horse in Early Medieval Britain

By Elaine Moxon

In heraldry, the horse signifies readiness to act for one’s king and country or a readiness for duty. It is also a symbol of speed, intellect and virility. These attributes have their roots in very early history. Our affinity with this beast resonates throughout our pre-history. In Sub-Roman Britain our Celtic ancestors were riding horses as well as using them to pull chariots, which were themselves symbols of speed and agility. At Sutton Hoo there is a wealth of grave goods highlighting the importance of horses in Saxon noble culture from the 5th Century onwards (gilt-bronze decorated bridles, bran tubs, horses as symbols on metalwork and ceramics such as Pagan cremation urns, bow-brooches, footplates).

Sutton Hoo helmet
Picture courtesy of A.J. Pilkington

Detail of Sutton Hoo helmet
Picture courtesy of A.J. Pilkington

Aside from burials, archaeological evidence does exist to support horses used in Anglo-Saxon warfare between 650 – 899AD, although there are some who continue to dispute this. Wooden saddles and a step-rope for mounting (not a riding stirrup) were being used. The horse was incredibly useful as transport, scouting, a fast attack (as I used in my ‘Battle of Bathumtun’ in WULFSUNA) and, if an army came under siege, food. Whilst no direct evidence exists of warriors engaging in battle on horseback, that is not to say it could not have been the case and indeed, I made use of this grey area when writing my novel. Lack of archaeological evidence can often provide the writer room for fictional creativity!

Bede mentions the bearing of weapons and riding a stallion as ‘attributes of the elite male warrior class’ so to ignore this, even if it may be a social or cultural stereotype, would be to ignore at least an essence of the historical fact. Likewise, Sundkvist says the horse is ‘the most important animal of the Old Scandinavian cult’. They ‘played a part in sacrifices and divination, were emblems of sovereignty and symbolised a warrior-ideal’. To support these comments, an array of Old English words abound that refer to horses and their upkeep:

Stodfaldas – stud folds/paddocks
Stodmyra – stud mares
Stodhors – stud stallions
Stodðeofas – stud thieves
Hengest – stallion
Horsa – horse
Horsþegn – horse thegn/thane

There are also several mentions of the importance of horses in a variety of literature from, or in reference to, the Early Medieval period or thereabouts. These further substantiate horses as means of owning and showing wealth and a deeper spiritual connection with the divine. It is worth noting here that in Germanic culture white horses were linked to nobility and kingship, while red (chestnut) horses were linked to Frejya and fertility.

‘a saddle made fair with skill, adorned with gems...was the war-seat of the high-king.’~ Beowulf

(Horse) ‘is for leaders the joy of princes –
A steed proud in its hooves – where the hero
Wealthy in mounts exchanges speech –
And shall always be a comfort for the restless.’~ Old English Rune Poem, Exeter Book

‘Peculiar to that people, in contrast, is to try as well the portents and omens of horses: maintained at public expense in the groves and woods, they are white and untouched by any earthly task; when yoked to the sacred chariot, the priest and the king or leading man of the state escort them and note their neighs and snorts. To no other auspices is greater faith granted, not only among the common folk, but among the nobles and priests, for they see themselves as mere servants of the gods, but the horses as their intimates.’~ Tacitus (of horses and the Germanic people).

‘...all the blood from them was called hlaut (sacrificial blood), and hlautbolli, the vessel holding that blood; and hlauteiner, the sacrificial twigs (aspergills). These were fashioned like sprinklers, and with them were to be smeared all over with blood the pedestals of the idols and also the walls of the temple within and without; and likewise the men present were to be sprinkled with blood. But the meat of the animals was to be boiled and to serve as food at the banquet.’~ Snorri, Saga of Hákon the Good from Heimskringla

‘I know that I hung on the windy tree
For nine full nights, wounded with a spear, given to Oðinn,
Myself to myself,
On that tree of which no one knowsFor nine full nights, wounded with a spear, given to Oðinn,Myself to myself,On that tree of which no one knowsWhere the roots run.’~ Hávamál, from Prose Edda

Yggdrasil Tree
Wikimedia Commons [Public Domain]

That aforementioned tree is Yggdrasil, the World Tree connecting all the worlds in Norse (and Germanic) mythology. It is interesting to note that ‘Yggdrasil’ can be translated as Ygg’s Horse and ‘Ygg’ is another name for Odin. Odin, or the Saxon equivalent Woden, was the Chief of all the gods in later centuries (replacing Tiw as the all powerful leader of the gods). He of course rode ‘Sleipnir’ the famous eight-legged horse to enable him passage between the land of the living and the land of the dead, resonating with other cultures and legends like ‘Epona’. The same might be said of the mythical unicorn or Pegasus. All of these horse-like creatures link in some way to the divine and magical.

It is not uncommon to find that the eating of blood or flesh of animals, thought to be a link to the divine, is carried out as a way for people to connect with deities. For instance, on the Baltic island of Őland, hundreds of horse remains have been unearthed. The animals were stabbed for blood-letting and their bones split to remove the marrow. Feasts of horseflesh have also been uncovered from the Viking period at Lade and Maere in Trøndelag, Norway. In Denmark there are records of horse sacrifices every nine years, nine being a magical number for the Saxons and other Germanic people.

In conclusion, the Early Medieval age is steeped in horse mythology and the enduring image of warrior and horse irrevocably entwined; an image that would prevail for centuries after.

Bibliography 

Seven Ages of Britain – Justin Pollard
A Nobleman Should be on a Horse’s Back – Stephen Pollington
Woden’s Warriors – Paul Mortimer

Additional Attributions

Yggdrasil Tree By Unknown - AM 738 4to, 44r. Digitized version available from http://skaldic.arts.usyd.edu.au/db.php?table=images&id=22912. Image processing (crop, erase etc.) by Skadinaujo (talk · contribs), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6049413

~~~~~~~~~

Elaine Moxon writes historical fiction as ‘E S Moxon’. Her debut Wulfsuna was published January 21, 2015 and is the first in her Wolf Spear Saga series of Saxon adventures, where a Seer and one named ‘Wolf Spear’ are destined to meet.

She is currently writing her second novel, set once again in the Dark Ages of 5th Century Britain. You can find out more about Book 2 from Elaine’s website where she has a video diary charting her writing progress. She also runs a blog. Elaine lives in the Midlands with her family and their chocolate Labrador.

Blood, betrayal and brotherhood.
An ancient saga is weaving their destiny.
A treacherous rival threatens their fate.
A Seer's magic may be all that can save them.

Old Horsey Terms

Studs, Mares, and Horses

by Sue Millard

Stud

You think you know this one, don’t you? So did I, and I was wrong.

I understood this word to mean a collection of horses. A stud could mean mares and a stallion for breeding purposes – “It was said of one sportsman that he came to Cheltenham with a wife and a stud of ten horses, and left it with ten children and his stud down to one – but the devil of a rider still!” (from Malcolm MacDonald’s novel about Victorian England, Abigail). Or else it was a stable full of riding horses. In North America the term “stud” often means just the male horse, a stallion – and also in “stud colt”, a juvenile male.

Consequently I was very surprised when I read in the Oxford English Dictionary that “stod” in Old English was a gender-neutral term that could mean any horse, and certainly not just a male. It comes from the Scandinavian roots of English; and in modern German Stute means a mare! There is an old farm in Cumbria not far from where I live that is called “Studfold” – an enclosed field where a herd of mares was kept. “Stud” is recorded around 1000AD as the group term for a number of horses in single ownership, or kept in one place.

Mare

Having given my understanding of the “stud” a considerable whack, the Oxford English Dictionary repeated the trick when I looked up “mare”. This is an even older term that is, you guessed it, another gender-neutral term for a horse, and so, again, not exclusively the female. If you have read the Lord of the Rings, you may recall Gandalf being told that the grey horse Shadowfax is “one of the mearas”. Tolkien was using Old English, as he did with quite a lot of other words that he gave to the Rohirrim. I’m quite sure he was familiar with Beowulf, where there are lines about mearas being led through the feasting hall in decorated headgear – possibly similar to this earlier celtic style face protection:

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/17/02/4e/17024eb4991b8bf1b987cc9105d1f903.jpg .  It took several centuries, through to the end of the 16th century, for the word mare to become standard usage for a female horse or pony.

Horse

By now you can probably guess with confidence that this is another generic term, and indeed I think most non-equestrians would still use it that way today. It’s from Common Germanic and Old Saxon, and it pops up in lots of northern English placenames. Several Cumbrian villages owe their names to this Viking word: Rosthwaite means a clearing for a horse and Rosgill is the little valley of the horse. There’s another clue in the fact that both are pronounced locally with the unvoiced S sound, not the Z we hear in the word roses.

Most of the Fell pony breeders in northern England still call their animals “hosses” rather than ponies – “pony” is a term that, having only appeared in the mid 17^th century, is comparatively modern! But “hoss” lives on!

I’ve already talked about Coursers, Palfreys, Rouncies and Destriers on EHFA, but let’s have a look at Capalls and Nags.

Capall

Latin has donated the word caballus – a horse, mare or hack – to several languages in Europe. Icelandic has kapall, Manx has cabbyl, Irish has capall, capull (but apparently not in Old Irish), Breton has caval; Welsh has ceffyl, and Cornish cevil, kevil, keffyl. I’m sure Richard Nankivell, the “Old Horse” who broadcasts on Radio Cumbria, is aware that his Cornish name means “Horse Valley”. These word variants seem to have come into each language direct from Latin, and not from each other as sometimes happens. In English the term is not recorded until the late 13^th C, c1290 Land Cokaygne Hors, no capil, kowe, no ox; and a little later, in 1362, Langland’s Piers Plowman Þenne Concience on his Capul Carieth forþ Faste. (Then Conscience on his little horse carries forth fast…).

Nag

A nag was a small horse, and therefore a cheap one – size, like modern horsepower in cars, becoming more and more expensive the more of it you wanted to buy. C. M. Woolgar’s Household accounts from medieval England (1992) cites an account of  c.1336–7   Item in i ferro anteriore pro le nagg et i remocione pro morel ii d. (Item, 1 [new] front shoe for the nag and 1 remove [old shoe replaced] for the black horse, 2 pence), and in 440  Promptiorum Parvulorum Nagge, or lytylle beest.

And of course there is also the well-known 1535 Act of Henry VIII concerning the size of horses that he wanted his gentry to keep, and the removal of “Horses and nagges of small stature and value” from the breeding pastures, so as to ensure a good supply of large animals. For three centuries, from mid-16^th C to late 19^th C, “nag” and “Galloway” lived in much the same pigeon-hole and were, no doubt, equally used and abused as “maids of all work” in the horsey world.

Sumpters, badgers, broggers and chapmen

Finally, I have to admit I have been surprised again by the dictionary. I can’t remember which eminent horse writer first gave me the idea that a “sumpter” was a pack-horse (and I wrongly defined the word “sumpter” on this blog in February 2014!), but the OED is very clear that a sumpter is actually the man who leads, loads and looks after the pack-horses.

c1320   Brasenose College Muniments mentions “Robert the Sumpter”.

c1420   Sir Amadace xxx,   His sometour and his palfray-mon bothe. [both his pack-horse man and his riding-horse man]

Other specific job names linked to pack-horse use are the “badger” – a corn dealer; the “coper” a horse-dealer; and the “brogger” – a dealer or broker, especially a carrier of wool both as fleeces to be cleaned, carded and spun, and goods woven or knitted from it. There was also the “chapman” who was a peddler of small goods such as buttons, needles and threads, and reading material in the form of “chap-books”, which were small printed pamphlets containing songs, ballads, and stories of sensational interest such as disasters and executions. Although the Cleveland Bay horse is said to descend from “Chapman horses”, ie, pack horses, only a highly successful chapman would have needed to carry his lightweight wares on pack-horses.

Pack-horses in fact carried almost every kind of produce, from edible to utilitarian to raw materials: fish, cheese, fruit, grain; turf, lime, straw, hay; metal ores such as silver, copper and lead in their raw state from mines to the smelter, and as ingots or “pigs” from the smelter to cities or ports. In the North of England, tracks that were used by pack-horses carrying lead ore are often still known as “Jingling Gate” (gate meaning the Scandinavian “way” or “path” and “jingling” from the bell-collar worn by the leading pack-horse of the group). Also, if you find a pub called “The Clickham Inn” it probably once served a busy pack-horse route.

We no longer have these terms at our tongue’s ends, the way we talk today about hatchbacks, sports cars, SUVs and people carriers. And that’s a sign of the changing times: we have to dig into historical dictionaries, or the heads of addicts like me, to discover the meanings of the terms that people once used daily to describe their fastest means of transport.


References drawn from the Oxford English Dictionary’s Historical Thesaurus.

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Sue Millard looks after the web site of the Fell Pony and Countryside Museums at Dalemain, http://www.fellponymuseum.org.uk/ Her historical novel, Coachman, is among those available from her Jackdaw E Books site, http://www.jackdawebooks.co.uk/

 

Grimalkins, Buffers, Prancers and Chick-a-Biddies: Animals of the Regency Era

by Maria Grace

Francis Grose 
Author of Dictionary of The Vulgar Tongue

We have a house full of cats and a dog who thinks she a momma-cat.  They all have their own proper names. But they've also got multiple nicknames each. I may just incorporate a few of these regency Era slang terms as new nicknames for them!
  
Cat

• Grimalkin. 
• Tibby.

Ram Cat. A he cat.
Gib Cat. A northern name for a he-cat, there commonly called Gilbert.
Cherry-coloured Cat. A black cat, their being black cherries as well as red.
Smellers. A cat's whiskers.

Dog

• Buffer
• Jugelow

Gnarler. A little dog that, by his barking, alarms the family when any person is breaking into the house.
Rum Bugher. A valuable dog. 

Horse

• Grogham
• Keffel
• Prad
• Prancer

Rip. A miserable rip; a poor, lean, worn-out horse.
Roarer. A broken-winded horse.
Rum Prancer. A fine horse. 
Star Gazer. A horse who throws up his head
Queer Prancer. A bad worn-out foundered horse
Scarlet Horse. A high red, hired or hack horse: a pun on the word hired.
Galloper. A blood-horse, a hunter.
Gibbe. A horse that shrinks from the collar, and will not draw.

Chickens ect

• Cackler. 
• Margery Prater.
• Chick-a-biddy. 

Sucking Chicken. A young chicken
Cackler's Ken. A hen-roost. 
Cackling Cheats. Fowls. 
Cackling Farts. Eggs. 
Cobble Colter. A turkey.
Gobbbler. A turkey cock.
Quacking Cheat. A duck.
Tib Of The Buttery. A goose.

Cow

• Dunnock. 
• Mower. 

Cow's Spouse. A bull.
Churk. The udder.

Calf

• Blater
• Cow's Baby
• Essex Lion
• Quaking Cheat
• Rumford lion

Sheep

• Bleating Cheat
• Woolbird
• Havil

Bleating Rig. Sheep-stealing. 

Hogs

• Grunter. 
• Swing Tail. 

Lice

• Active Citizen 
• Creepers 
• Scotch Greys  

Other Animals
Dickey. An ass.
Roll your dickey; drive your ass.
Kingswood Lion. An ass. Kingswood is famous for the great number of asses kept by the colliers who inhabit that place.
Long One. A hare: a term used by poachers.
Pantek. A hart; that animal is, in the Psalms, said to pant after the fresh water brooks
Sea Lawyer. A shark.

Quoted from: Grose, Captain (Francis). (2004) Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1811 ed. Ikon Classics

Related articles

• The Vulgar Tongue - a dictionary of slang by Francis Grose
• The sheer delight of historical slang...
• A little colorful language: Weddings and Marriage
• They didn't say that...did they?
• Addle-Pates, Gudgeons and Paper-sculls: Fools in the Regency Era
• A LIttle Colorful Language--Soldiers

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 Maria Grace is the author of Darcy's Decision,  The Future Mrs. Darcy, All the Appearance of Goodness, and Twelfth Night at Longbourn.  Click here to find her books on Amazon. For more on her writing and other Random Bits of Fascination, visit her website. You can also like her on Facebook, follow on Twitter or email her.