horse trappings
Horse Trappings
Functional equipment allows horses to be rid-
den or worked; archaeological inds of metal trap-
pings demonstrate the evolution of type as well
as decoration, while the status of the horse and
horse ownership is conirmed by written sources
and horse burials.
hroughout the Middle Ages horses were
used for work, recreation and war, dictating the
form and use of their trappings, which also var-
ied over time. Invariably most horse-equipment
is functional, allowing the animal to be ridden or
worked, but such elements could also be embel-
lished. A head-harness (bridle) and stirrups were
used to control the horse, whilst the body-harness
was designed to keep the saddle in place. Other
accessories were used to protect the horse (or
rider), mark ownership, or to allow the horse to
work equipment, such as pull a cart.
Archaeology provides the best evidence for
equestrianism in the early Anglo-Saxon period.
Both horse-inhumations (with prestigious grave-
goods, thus high-status) and horse-cremations (less
apparent as a minority rite) are found. Cheek-ring
snales (paired rings) and bar bits (vertical bars)
account for most known head-harnesses; some
cheek-bar bits have distinctively shaped upper
and lower bars, most common in East Anglia. Also
recovered are various buckles and strap-connec-
tors. he in situ disposition of some of these sug-
gests they are from girth-straps and hence evidence
for saddles, presumed to have been made of wood
and leather, placed on the horse over a saddle-
blanket. Other ittings, such as a igure-of-eight and
double-links, ind few parallels abroad, but might
not necessarily be an insular tradition. Early Anglo-
Saxon prick-spurs also survive.
Most decorative are mounts, normally cast in
copper-alloy, sometimes gilt or silvered, and oten
embellished with chip-carved Style I animal-
ornament. Until the late 6th to early 7th century
cruciform mounts were most popular, thereaf-
ter being replaced by disc mounts; this change
was accompanied by a transition from Style I
to Style II animal art decoration. Circular rivets
were also silvered or tin-coated for decorative
efect. While these trappings have aesthetic quali-
ties, their primary function was to strengthen
strap-junctions etc.
Late Anglo-Saxon written sources, includ-
ing poems, such as he Battle of Maldon, char-
ters and wills, demonstrate that horse-trappings
278
(like the horse itself ) were objects of status,
highly-prized, bequeathed from one generation
to the next. Unsurprisingly, this documentary
evidence is silent on the form and style of horse-
equipment, though further clues can be gleaned
from late Anglo-Saxon art, particularly manu-
script illuminations, such as the Harley Psalter
and the Old English Hexateuch. hese indicate
that horses would have been tacked-up with a bri-
dle, (normally) a saddle and (in the later period)
stirrups. Little extraneous detail is shown, though
some illuminations, such as the Prudentius
Psychomachia manuscript now in the British
→
Library (fol. 31r), depict tassels (see fringes and
tassels) hanging from the harness-equipment,
which may fossilise earlier artistic tradition.
Whereas copper-alloy bridle-ittings and -links
are relatively common metal-detector inds, iron
bits etc. are best documented through excava-
tion in → London, Winchester and York. Like-
wise, copper-alloy stirrup-strap mounts and
stirrup terminals are oten found by detectorists,
but not normally the iron stirrups themselves.
Whilst many copper-alloy horse-trappings of this
period are decorated in ‘Viking’ art-styles, some
are clearly Romanesque. he best examples of
this are stirrup-strap-mounts, placed at the junc-
tion of stirrup and stirrup-leathers, presumably
to prevent wear to the leather strap, which have
geometric, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic
decoration.
Archaeology suggests that horses became com-
monplace from about 1200, particular in ‘urban’
areas like London. his increase in material cul-
ture is matched by the evidence of a variety of writ-
ten sources, from royal wardrobe and household
accounts to → Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, as
→
well as the visual record, including the Luttrell
Psalter, which contrasts the trappings of the medi-
eval war-horse, in all its heraldic inery (fol. 202v),
with that of the mundane work-horse (fol. 171)
and seals, which provide a well-dated sequence of
horses in full-dress, increasingly accurate as the
→
period progresses. Whilst the Bayeux Tapestry
shows harness ittings, saddles (even saddle-strap
buckles are occasionally depicted) and stirrups,
its design is clearly simpliied. Archaeological
record remains the best evidence for medieval
horse-trappings. Leather, textile and wood horse-
gear rarely survive, and ferrous metalwork is less
commonly recovered outside controlled archaeo-
logical excavation—the exceptions are river and
foreshore inds.
279
Fig. 39 Heraldic harness pendant. Image provided courtesy of the Portable
Antiquities Scheme.
Medieval horse-bits and snales (including
their mouth- and cheek-pieces) vary tremen-
dously and most are simple and purely functional.
It has been suggested that curb bits (seen more
commonly in art than as archaeological inds)
were used exclusively for riding. he chrono-
logical development of curbs is now becoming
clearer, but is yet to be published. he vari-
ous buckles, hasps and strap-hooks, invariably
iron, used to fasten leather (and textile) straps,
are generally undecorated items, indistinguish-
able (though size provides a clue) from non-
equestrian examples. Horseshoes are purely
functional: nailed onto the hoof since the 10th
century. Stirrups developed through time. In
the 13th and 14th centuries their sides and
foot-plates were expanded, and a plate, some-
times decorated, was added to mask the suspen-
sion loop. In the 15th century, they changed from
being tall and narrow, with a curved foot-rest,
to a broad D-shape, with a lat foot-rest.
Decorated horse equipment includes harness-
bosses, which occasionally have loral motifs or
simple incised lines. Most spectacular are harness-
pendants of a wide variety of forms and designs,
→
some being heraldic, which are believed to date
from the 12th century; some are precious metal,
→
gilt, silvered and/or enamelled (Fig. 39). It is
believed that such pendants became less popular
by the end of the 14th century, being replaced
by decorated leather or fabric trappings. Related
horse trappings
are suspension mounts and other mounts; the
latter, in particular, resemble pendants in their
form and decoration. Spurs were a status-symbol,
and gilded examples denoted knighthood. Prick-
spurs, with a single-pointed goad, are known
from the Roman period, and were to be replaced
by spurs with rowels in the 13th century.
he form and design of organic materials,
including textiles, associated with the horse is less
well known, though the few excavated remains
that survive, together with manuscript illumina-
tions (Plate 20), suggest that some such accessories
were extremely colourful and ornate; for example,
the horses at the funeral of Henry V (1422) had
‘trappers . . . painted’ with arms, including that of
the king.
→ →
See also horse trapper; saddles.
Acknowledgements: to John Clark, †Geof
Egan and Chris Fern.
Bibliography
Manuscript sources
London, MS British Library Additional 42130
(Luttrell Psalter), fols. 171, 202v. London, MS
British Library Cotton Claudius B. iv (Old English
Hexateuch), fols. 25, 51 etc. London, MS British
Library Cotton Cleopatra C viii (Prudentius Psy-
chomachia), fol. 31r. London, MS British Library
Harley 603 (Harley Psalter), fols. 7v, 29r, 69r etc.
hose
Printed sources
Clark, J., ed., he Medieval Horse and its Equip-
ment c. 1150–c. 1450, Medieval inds from exca-
vations in London 5 (Woodbridge: 2004). Fern,
C., ‘he archaeological evidence for equestrian-
ism in early Anglo-Saxon England, c. 450–700’
in Ed. A. Pluskowski, Just Skin and Bones? New
perspectives on human-animal relations in the
historical past, British Archaeological Reports
International Series 1410 (Oxford: 2005), 43–71.
Graham-Campbell, J., ‘Anglo-Scandinavian
horse equipment in eleventh-century England’,
Anglo-Norman Studies 14 (1992), 77–89. Lewis,
M.J., he Archaeological Evidence of the Bayeux
Tapestry, British Archaeological Reports British
Series 404 (Oxford: 2005). Lewis, M.J., ‘A new
date for “Class A, Type 11A” stirrup-strap
mounts, and some observations on their distri-
bution’, Medieval Archaeology 51 (2007), 178–84.
Museum of London, Medieval Catalogue (Lon-
don: 1940). Owen-Crocker, G.R., ‘Hawks and
horse-trappings: the insignia of rank’ in Ed. D.
Scragg, he Battle of Maldon AD 991 (Oxford:
1991), 220–37. Sawyer, P.H., Anglo-Saxon
Charters (London: 1968). Seaby, W.A. and
Woodfield, P., ‘Viking stirrups from England
and their background’, Medieval Archaeology
24 (1980), 87–122. St. John Hope, W.H., ‘he
funeral, monument, and chantry chapel of King
Henry the ith’, Archaeologia 65 (1914), 129–86.
Whitelock, D., ed. and trans., Anglo-Saxon
Wills (Cambridge: 1930). Williams, D., ‘Late
Anglo-Saxon horsegear’ in Ed. J. Puls, Portable
Antiquities Scheme South-east Regional News-
letter 2 (Winchester: 2005), 1–5. Williams, D.,
Late Saxon Stirrup-strap Mounts: a classiication
and catalogue. Council for British Archaeology
Research Report 111 (York: 2007).
Michael Lewis
Hose
Clothing worn by men and women from the
9th century; men wore separate hose up to the
early 15th century when joined hose became
the norm.
Hose (caligas, chausses) were leg coverings
worn by men and women but they difered mark-
edly according to the wearers’ gender. he hose
worn by men were made in two distinct forms:
separate hose and joined hose. During the 9th
280
and 10th centuries men generally wore separate
hose that were either thigh-length and usually
of → linen, or knee-length and of → wool. By
the 11th century men’s hose were usually knee-
length, made either of wool or linen and they were
sometimes referred to as ‘chauses’. From the 12th
to 14th centuries hose were mostly knee- or thigh-
length. high-length hose were more fashionable
and they could either have a stirrup under the foot
or encase the foot, both of which would ensure
a better it. From the mid-12th century onwards
men’s hose could have itted soles and those made
with a leather sole could be worn without shoes.
For example King John (1167–1216) had a pair of
footed hose with cowhide soles. In contrast, the
soles and inner soles could be made from a range
of materials including leather and felted wool. he
weeper depicted on the tomb of John of Eltham
in Westminster Abbey (d. 1337) may be wearing
footed hose with his tunic.
he hose were shaped in a point at the top in
order to make it easier to tie them to the breech
clout/braie girdle (a band of cloth or length of
cord worn round the waist and used to hold up
the brais or hose). For Edward III’s visit to Ports-
mouth in the 1340s he was supplied with 77 pairs
of hose of diferent colours. he hose were bound
with ribbon and to make them it required 57¾
→ →
ells of fabric and 24 lengths of silk ribbon to
tie them up. As the 14th century progressed men’s
→
hose were oten tied to their gipon ( jupon). his
is conirmed by comments made by John of Read-
ing in his Chronica which he was writing at some
point between 1366 and 1369. Here he describes
the hose as being very long and tied very tightly to
→
the doublet so making it very diicult for the
wearer to kneel down. A range of other names were
in use for hose at this point including ‘gradlings’,
→
‘lorels’ or ‘harlots’. Brightly coloured hose and
→
striped hose were popular, as were mi-parti or
two-coloured hose. For example, a man wears
hose with one leg in red and the other in white
in a depiction of Richard II’s court in Philippe
de Mézières’ Epistre au roi Richart (c. 1395–6).
Hose could be worn over under-breeches (brac-
cas). Edward III’s wardrobe account for 1343–44
included ‘six pairs of linen robarum for the king
made frounced (gathered) and lined in the new
fashion, each pair xiiijd, vijs’.
he early 15th century saw the continued use
of separate hose but they became far less com-
mon. hey needed to be very long, so allowing