Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/338

 3i« Hiflory of Dome [lie Manners pounds, thefe were only poflefTed or given as prefents by kings. The value of horles went on riling through the thirteenth century, until Philippe le Hardi found it necelTary to fix it by an ordonnancL', which limited the price which any man, whether lay or clergy, however rich, might give for a palfrey, to lixty pounds tournois, and that to be given by a fquire for a roncin to twenty pounds. The prices of horfes appear not to have varied much from this during the fourteenth century. In the middle of the century following the prices rofe much higher. Of the colours of horles, in the middle ages, white feems to have been prized mot^ highly, and after that dapple-gray and bay or cheilnut. The fame colours were in favour among the Arabs. One of the poets of the thirteenth century, Jean Bodel, defcribes a choice Gafcon horfe as follows : — " His hair," he lays, " was more fliining than the plumage of a peacock ; his head was lean, his eye gray like a falcon, his breafl large and fquare, his crupper broad, his thigh round, and his rump tight. They who faw it laid that they had never feen a handfomer animal." The food given to horfes in the middle ages feems to have been much the fame as at the pre lent day. In i43^'5 the queen of Navarre gave carrots to her horfes. Although the mediaeval knight refembled the Arab in his love for his horfe, yet the latter was often treated hardly and even cruelly, and the pra6tice of horfemanfliip was painful to the rider and to the horfe. To be a Ikilful rider was a tirft-rate accomplifliment. One of the feats of horfemanfliip pra6tifed ordinarily was to jump into the laddie, in full armour : — No foot Fit-zjames in Jilrrup Jlald, No grafp upon the faddle laid j But ivreath''d his left hand in the mane, And lightly bounded from the plain. Though horfe-races are mentioned in two of the earliefi: of the French metrical romances, thofe of " Renaud de Montauban," and of "Aiol," they feem never to have been pradifed in France until very recently, when they were introduced in imitation of the Englifli falliion. Poll- horfes were firft introduced in France during the reign of Henry II., that is, in the middle of the lixteenth century. Great