8 THE PRACTICAL HORSESHOER. 



In the eleventh century — or, to give the exact date, A.D. 

 1038 — Boniface, Marquis of Tuscany, a wealthy prince, in 

 going- to meet Beatrix, his intended bride, had his horses 

 shod with silver, and the shoes were allowed to he cast off 

 in order to he appropriated by the multitude that followed 

 in throngs. At a later date Lord Doncaster, an English 

 ambassador, acted in a similar manner on his public en- 

 try into Paris. The following account may be amusing : 

 '^ Six trumpeters and two marshals in rich velvet liveries 

 closely laced over with gold, led the way ; then came the 

 ambassador and retinue of pages, booted, with horses rich- 

 ly caparisoned. The ambassador's horses were shod with 

 silver shoes, lightly tacked on, and when he came to a place 

 where persons of beauty or eminence were, his horses pranced 

 and curveted in a showy manner and threw the shoes away, 

 which the greed}^ multitude scrambled for, and he was con- 

 tent to be gazed on until a farrier — or, rather, argentier — 

 from among his trained footmen took from out a velvet bag 

 others and tacked them on, which lasted until he came to 

 the next group of grandees, and thus, with much ado, he 

 reached the Louvre." 



William the Conqueror is said to have introduced horse- 

 shoeing in England, yet one Welbeck in Nottinghamshire, 

 the property of a Saxon chief named Gamelbere, who re- 

 tained his fief on the condition of shoeing the king's palfrey 

 whenever he should lie at the Manor of Mansfield, and that 

 he should give another palfrey Avhenever he should lame the 

 king's animal, is recorded. If the account should be true, 

 horseshoers must be older in England than the Norman 

 Conquest, and when looking at the Bayeux tapestry it is 

 perceived that both Saxon and Norman horses showed un- 

 equivocal marks of shoes and hob-nails on their feet. 



Henry de Ferrers, who bore six horseshoes in his shield, 

 was of the Norman invaders, and, it is believed, was intrust- 

 ed with the inspection of the king's farriers. The armorial 



