THE ENGLISH. g^ 



the continental princes, and received from Hugh Capet of France, who 

 solicited his sister in marriage, various presents, doubtless of a nature 

 thai would be thought most acceptable to him ; and among them several 

 German running horses. Hence our breed received another cross, and 

 probably an improvement. 



Athelstan seems to have seriously devoted himself to this important 

 object, for he soon afterwards decreed (a. d. 930) that no horses should bt» 

 sent abroad for sale, or on any account, except as royal presents. This 

 proves his anxiety to preserve the breed, and likewise renders it probable 

 that that breed was beginning to be esteemed by our neighbours. In a 

 ^document bearing date A. D. 1000 we have an interesting account of the 

 relative value of the horse. If a horse was destroyed, or negligently lost, 

 the compensation to be demanded was thirty shillings ; a mare or colt, 

 twenty shillings ; a mule or young ass, twelve shillings ; an ox, thirty 

 pence; a cow, twenty-four pence; a pig, eightpence ; and, it strangely 

 follows, a man, one pound.* 



In the laws of Howell tbe Good, Prince of Wales, and passed a little 

 before this time, there are some, curious particulars respecting the value 

 and sale of horses. The value of a foal not fourteen days old is fixed at 

 fourpence ; at one year and a day it is esiimated at forty-eight pence ; and 

 at three years sixty pence. It was then to be tamed with the bridle, and 

 brought up either as ?i palfrey or a serving horse ; when its value became 

 one hundred and twenty pence ; and that of a wild or unbroken mare, 

 sixty pence. 



Even in those early days, the frauds of dealers were too notorious, and 

 the following singular regulations were established. The buyer was 

 allowed time to ascertain whether the horse were free from three diseases. 

 He had three nights to prove him for the staggers; three months to prove 

 the soundness of his lungs; and one year to ascertain whether he was 

 infected with glanders. For every blemish discovered after the purchase, 

 one-third of the money was to be returned, except it should be a blemish 

 of the ears or tail. 



The practice of letting horses for hire was then known, and then, as 

 now, the services of the poor hack were too brutally exacted. The be- 

 nevolent Howell disdains not to legislate for the protection of this abused 

 and valuable servant. " Whoever shall borrow a horse, and rub the hair 

 so as to gall the back, shall pay fourpence ; if the skin is forced into the 

 flesh, eightpence ; if the flesh be forced to the bone, sixteen pence." 



One circumstance deserves to be remarked, that in none of the earliest 

 historical records of the Anglo-Saxons or the Welsh, is there any allu- 

 sion to the use of the horse for the plough. Until a comparitively re- 

 cent period, oxen alone were used in England, as in other countries, for 

 this purpose ; but about this time (the latter part of the tenth century) 

 some innovation on this point was creeping in, and, therefore, a Welsh law 

 forbids the farmer to plough with horses, mares, or cows, but with oxen 

 alone. On one of the pieces of tapestry woven at Bayonne in the time of 

 William the Conqueror, (a. d. 10G6) there is the figure of a man driving 

 a horse attached to a harrow. This is the earliest notice we have of the 

 use of the horse in field-labour. 



With William the Conqueror came a marked improvement in the 



♦ According- to the Ansrlo-Saxon computation, forty-eigrht shillings made a pound, 

 equal in silver to about three pounds of our present money, in value to fiitteen or sixteen 

 pounds, and five pence made one shilling. 



