Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/234

206 was valued at five times the amount of a labourer or shepherd, and equal to that for the murder of a Roman slave belonging to the king. The German and Salic laws also show that the duty of the 'maréchal' or 'mariscalcus' was to attend to twelve horses. 'Si mariscalcus, qui super xii. caballos est, occiditur,' &c. From the Rhenish provinces as far as Russia, what is termed the German shoe is in use. This is the model figured by Quiquerez, and which is flat on both sides, and with the fuller or groove for the nail-heads so far from the edge of the shoe, as to make the nail-holes very coarse. Immense calkins, and even toe-pieces of various shapes, are as much in vogue with the Germans as they are with the waggoners of Manchester, Liverpool, and other large cities in England and Scotland. The Dutch and Russian shoes are coarse imitations of the German ones.

For Scandinavia, I am not aware of any discoveries which would show that this handicraft was practised at a very early period. If we are to give credence to the historians, archæologists, and anthropologists of that country, the Celtæ inhabited this region of the north; and if they did so, they doubtless preserved the same arts and usages as their nation in other parts of Europe. The 'Duergars' were their traditional workers in metals; and these fabricated steel and iron implements in secret caves. I can find but little mention of shoes, however, though doubtless these cunning workmen armed the hoofs as well as the bodies of the warriors, who were essentially an equestrian race.