Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/190

 hoofs were allowed to be worn down to their natural size when they had attained an undue length, instead of being shortened by instruments as at present. Shoes would, of course, be more particularly required during wet and frosty weather; and such is indicated in the description given by Père Daniel, when speaking of the difficulties surrounding Louis I., the Debonnaire (832): 'La gelée qui avoit suivi (les pluyes de l'automne) avoit gasté les pieds de la plupart des chevaux, qu'on ne pouvoit faire ferrer dans un pais devenu tout d'un coup ennemi, lorsq'on y pensoit le moins.' From this passage we might conclude that horses were but seldom shod, though the art of shoeing was known and practised; and that it was only on particular occasions that the hoofs were so protected, as in winter, when ice and frozen roads damaged them, or during war. In some parts of Germany at the present day, agricultural horses are only shod in winter.

Towards the termination of the Carlovingian reign, and the beginning of the Capet dynasty, shoeing became more general. Lobineau, in his History of Brittany, gives many copies of seals of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, on which are depicted knights whose horses are shod with iron shoes fastened by nails. Those who had the care and management of horses became men of high rank, and the Comte de l'Étable soon became the commander of armies. The shoer of