Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/193

181 HISTORY.] H O K S E 181 Bibliography. M. S. Arloing, &quot;Organisation du pied chez le clicval,&quot; Ann. Sci. Nat., 1867, viii. pp. 55-81; H. Burmeister, Los caballos fosilcs de la Pampa Argentina, Buenos Ayres, 1875 ; Chanveau au&amp;lt;l Arloing, Traite d anatomic comparee des atiimaux domcstiqti.es, Paris, 1871, and English edition by G. Fleming, 1873 ; A. Eeker, &quot;Das Europaische Wildpferd und dessen Beziehungen zum doinesticirteu Pferd,&quot; Globus, Bd. xxxiv. , Brunswick, 1878; Major Forsyth, &quot;Beit rage zur Geschichte der fossilen PiVrde besonders Italiens,&quot; Abh. Schw. Pal. Gcs., iv. pp. 1-16, pt. iv. ; George, &quot; Etudes zool. sur les Hemiones et quelques autrcs especes chevaliaes,&quot; Ann. Set. Nat., 1869, xii. p. 5; E. F. Gurlt, Anato- mische Abbildancjen der Haussdugelhiere, 1824, and Hand, dcr vcrylcich. Anat. der Haussdugcthirrc, 1 vols., 1822; Huet, &quot;Croise- ment des di verses especes du genre cheval,&quot; Nouv, Archives du Museum, 2d ser., loin. ii. p. 46, 1879; Leisering, Atlas dcr Anatomic des Pfcrdcs, Leipsic, 1861; 0. C. Marsh, &quot;Notice of New Equine Mammals from the Tertiary Formation,&quot; Am. Journ. of Science and Arts, vol. vii., March 1874; Id., &quot;Fossil Horses in America,&quot; Amcr. Naturalist, vol. viii., May 1874 ; Id., &quot; 1 oly- dactyle Horses,&quot; Am. Journ. Sci. and Arts, vol. xvii., June 1879; Franz Miiller, Lchrbuch dcr Anatomic des Pfcrdcs, Vienna, 1853 ; R. Owen, &quot;Equine Remains in Cavern of Brmii&amp;lt;iuel, Phil. Trans., vol. clix. (1870), p. 535; V. Percivall, The Anatomy of the Horse, 18S2; G. Stubbs, Anatomy of the Horse, 1766. if the Horse, (W. H. F.) PART II. HISTORY, MANAGEMENT, AND BREEDING. From the evidence of philology it is plain that the horse was already known to the Aryans before the period of their dispersion. 1 The first mention of the British horse occurs in the well-known passages in Caesar (B. G., iv. 24, 33; v. 15, 16; cf. Pomp. Mela, iii. 6), in which he mentions the native &quot; essedarii &quot; and the skill with which they handled their wrtr chariots. We are left quite in the dark as to the character of the animal thus employed; but there would appsar to be much probability in the surmise of Youatt, who conjectures the horse to have been, &quot; then as ever, the creature of the country in which he lived. With short fare, and exposed to the rigour of the seasons, he was pro bably the little hardy thing we yet see him; but in the marshes of the Nen and the Witham, and on the borders of the Tees and the Clyde, there would be as much pro portionate development of frame and strength as we find at the present day.&quot; After the occupation of the country by the Romans, it appears that the horses of their cavalry were crossed with the native mares, and thus there was infused into the breed new blood, consisting probably of strains from every quarter from which Roman remounts were procured. As to the effect of this cross we are not, however, in a position to judge. We are also quite un certain as to the extent to which the Jutes and Saxons may in their turn have again introduced a new breed of horses into England; and even to the close of the Anglo- Saxon period of English history allusions to the horse are still very unfrequent. The horstkegn we know, how ever, was from an early period a high court official; and from such a liw as that of Athelstan prohibiting the ex portation of horses except as presents, it may be inferred that the English breed was not only much valued at home but also in great request abroad. 2 The period of the Norman Conquest marks an important 1 Compare Sanscr., nqva; Zendish and Old Persian, acpa; Lithu anian, aszva (mare) ; Prussian, asvinan (mare s milk) ; Old Higli German, elm. ; Anglo-Saxon, eok; Icel., ior; Gothic, ailios, aihous(l); Old Irish, ech ; Old Cambrian and Gaelic, ep (as in Epnna, the horse goddess); Lat., eqiuw, Gr., nrjros or &quot;KKOS. The word seems, how ever, to have disappeared from the Slavonic languages. The root is probably ak, with the idea of sharpness or swiftness (&Kpos, &KVS, acus, ocior). See Pott, Etym. Forsch. , ii. 256, and Helm, Kultur- pflanzen u. Hausthiere in ihrcm Uebergang aus Asien nacfi Griechen- land u. It dien sowie in das iihriye Europa (3d ed., 1877), p. 38. The last-named author, who points out the absence of the horse from the Egyptian monuments prior to the beginning of the 18th century B.C., and the fact that the earliest references to this animal in Hebrew literature (Judg. v. 22, 28; cf. Josh. xi. 4) do not carry us any further back, is of opinion that the Semitic peoples as a whole were indebted for the horse to the lands of Iran. He also shows that literature affords no trace of the horse as indigenous to Arabia prior to about the beginning of the 5th century A. D., although references abound in the pre-Islamitic poetry. Horses were not numerous even iu Mahomet s time (Sprenger, Leh. Moh, iii. 139, 140). Compare Ignazio Guidi s paper &quot; Delia sede primitiva del popoli Semitici &quot; in the Transactions of the Accademia dei Lincei (1878-79). 2 Some fragments of legislation relating to the horse about this period may be gleaned from Ancient Laws and Institutes of England (ful., London, 1840), and A/tcie-nt Laws and Institutes of Wales (fol., London, 1841). stage in the history of the British horse. William the Conqueror s own horse was of the Spanish breed, and others of the same kind were introduced by the barons on their estates. But the Norman horses included many varieties, and there is no doubt that to the Conquest the inhabitants of Britain were indebted for a decided improve ment in the native horse, as well as for the introduction of several varieties previously unknown. According to Giraldus Cambrensis, Roger de Bellesme, a follower of William L, afterwards created earl of Shrewsbury, im ported some stallions from Spain into England ; their produce was celebrated by Dray ton the poet. It is curious to notice that agriculture seems to be the last use to which I the horse has been put. The earliest suggestion that horses were used in agriculture is derived from a piece of the Bayeux tapestry, where a horse is represented as drawing a harrow. This, however, must have been an ex ceptional case, for we know that oxen were user! until a comparatively late time, and that in Wales a law existed forbidding horses to be used for ploughing. In 1121 two Eastern hnrses are said to have been imported, one of them remaining in England, and the other being sent as a present by King Alexander I. to the church of St Andrews, in Scotland. It has been alleged that these horses were Barbs from Morocco, but a still more likely theory is that they existed only in name, and never reached either England or Scotland. The crusades were probably the means of introducing fresh strains of blood into England, and of giving opportunity for fresh crossings. The Spanish jennet was brought over about 1182. King John gave great encouragement to horse- breeding : one of his earliest efforts was to import a hundred Flemish stallions, and, having thus paved the way for improving the breed of agricultural horses, he set about acquiring a valuable stud for his own use. Edward III. was likewise an admirer of the horse ; he procured fifty Spanish horses, probably jennets. At this time there was evidently a tendency to breed a somewhat lighter and speedier horse ; but, while the introduction of a more active animal would soon have led to the dis placement of the ponderous but powerful cavalry horse then in use, the substituted variety would have been unable to carry the weight of armour with which horse and rider were alike protected ; and so in the end the old breed was kept up for a time. With the object of pre serving to England whatever advantages might accrue from her care and skill in breeding an improved stamp of horses, Edward III. forbade their exportation ; they con sequently improved so rapidly in value that Richard II. compelled dealers to limit their prices to a fixed maximum. In the ninth year of his reign, Edward received from the king of Navarre a present of two running horses, supposed to have been valuable. The wars of 1346 checked the improvement of horses, and undid much of what had been previously accomplished, for we rwud that the cavalry taken into France by Edward III. were but