Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/295

Rh shall begin to make four horse-shoes, with their complement of nails, until he places them under the feet of the kings horse, to convey away an offender.' The duties of the smith were:—'He is to make all the necessaries of the palace gratuitously, except three things: these are, the suspending irons of the rim of a caldron, the blade of a coulter, the socket of a fuel-axe, and head of a spear; for each of these three things he is to be paid the value of his labour. He is to do what is wanted by the officers of the palace gratuitously; they are to present him with clothes for each piece of work. He is entitled to the "ceinion." His seat in the palace is on the end of the bench, near the priest of the household. His protection is, from the time he shall begin his work in the morning until he shall finish at night.'

There were three arts which the son of a taeog (or villain) was not allowed to learn 'without the permission of his lord; and if he should learn them, he must not exercise them, except a scholar, after he has taken holy orders: these are scholarship, smithcraft, and bardism.' To show the value put upon the extremity of a horse's limb, it is enacted that 'the worth of a horse's foot is his full worth.'

'Four horse-shoes (Pedeyr pedhol), with their complement of nails, are two pence in value;' a small sum, if the Welsh money bore a like value to that then current among the Anglo-Saxons, five of their pence making one shilling.