Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/435

 and it must have been of such temper as to insure its toughness and endurance. To judge by the price, the horse-shoe nail must have contained two-thirds more iron than the lath-nail, and about half as much as the broad nail. The price of these nails rises and falls evenly with that of horse-shoes. During the first ninety years, they are dearest in the years 1311-20, and though the price declines slightly after this time, it does not revert to the cheap rates of the thirteenth century. After the plague, the rise is instant and permanent, the rate being doubled, and remaining high, the dearest time being, as before, the decade 1371—1380. Evidence for the last ten years is wanting, but judging by the exactness with which the price of these articles follows that of horse-shoes, we might certainly affirm that if the latter stood at from 8s. 4d. to 8s. the hundred, the former would be about 2s. 6d. the thousand. The general rise on the average of the last forty years is not, indeed, quite so large as that of horseshoes, though it is upwards of 100 per cent.; but it will be remembered that the rate of horse-shoes for the last ten years is excessive, and the evidence insufficient.'

The annexed illustration, from the Louterell Psalter, represents a waggon-team ascending a terribly steep hill, the horses' feet being shown as well armed with shoes and large-headed nails (fig. 149, next page). This drawing is of great interest in many respects, but particularly as displaying the mode of harnessing and driving draught horses at this period, as well as the construction of the waggons. In the reign of Richard II. (1377-99), from a bailiff's account of a manor in Surrey, it appears that the