12 EQUITATION AND HORSE TRAINING. 



ress in equitation. These two fasliions were cliivahy 

 and tournaments. All the youths of the French nobility, 

 eager to rise to the dignity of knighthood, received an 

 education in which the first essential was to learn how 

 to ride. Equitation, it is true, was very limited. The 

 lancer's deep saddle, required to resist an adversary's 

 shock, led to a very constrained seat. Methods of con- 

 trolling the horse were neither accurate nor progressive; 

 the legs held straight and far out from the horse could 

 be closed only by jerks; the overloaded horses necessarily 

 lacked suppleness. Equitation was simply an exhibition 

 of brute strength, but it was well adapted to the form of 

 combat and to the breed of horses then existing. 



During this period of the middle ages we find no works 

 on equitation. The horsemen of that period were cer- 

 tainly^ not writers and, moreover, equitation with them 

 was a business rather than an art. 



Italian schools. — The lack of authors and of historical 

 documents brings us up to the time of Pignatelli, an 

 Italian nobleman, who, in the sixteenth century, founded 

 at Naples the first school of equitation that ever existed. 

 His example was promptly followed in Italy, and other 

 schools were founded, one at Ferrare by Caesar Fiaschi 

 and one at Naples by Frederick Grison. Their system 

 consisted in exaggerated supplings, exacted in a brutal 

 manner. The}" obtained results, however, and horses 

 trained in these schools were certainly well in hand, but 

 training was very long and was not alwaj^s successful. 

 All the horses of Italy, especially those of Naples, had a 

 reputation for viciousness, which was probably due 

 simply to the exceptional severity of the horsemen. 



French schools — Sixteenth century. — The principles of 

 the Italian school were brought to France at the end of 

 the sixteenth century by La Broue and Pluvinel, pupils 

 of Pignatelli. The nobility eagerly took up the theo- 

 retical study of an art that seemed new to them; competi- 



