Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/419

 employment of horsemen had been amply demonstrated to them at the battle of Hastings, where their victory was mainly due to the well-equipped cavalry force they carried from Normandy. We have seen that in France shoeing was extensively practised at this time, and was, indeed, an inevitable necessity, from the custom introduced of cumbering men and horses with heavy weapons, and encasing them in massive armour. At Hastings, even the steeds were rendered proof against the attacks of the Anglo-Saxons by an impenetrable covering. Roger de Hovenden, writing of this period, says, 'Cepit Rex Angliæ 100 milites, et septies viginti equos coopertos ferro, et servientes equites, et pedites multo.'

So that in England the practice of shoeing horses with iron shoes attached to the hoofs by nails, was, after the settlement of the Normans, completely established and general. The form of shoe introduced by them was, perhaps, more artistic than that of the earlier periods, and the same as that in use in France; being usually furnished with calkins, heavy, larger in size than those found before their arrival, and having three, or more rarely four, nailholes on each side. These nail-holes were nearly square, and wider at the top or ground-surface than the bottom or foot-face. The heads of the nails were also square, to fit the holes, and projected more or less from the surface of the shoe. The points of the nails, when driven through the hoof, were cut off, and only enough of the nail left to double over and form a clench or clinch.' Examples of