THOROUGHBRED HORSES. 



157 



evacuation of England by the Romans, and its conquest by the Saxons, 

 considerable attention was paid to the English breed of horses, and we 

 know that after the reign of Alfred, running horses were imported from 

 Germany ;' this being the first historical intimation we have of running 

 horses in England. It is scarcely to be doubted that this importation 

 produced a marked effect on the character of the native breed, but here, 

 as before, no historian has thought it worth his while to record the fact 

 of either improvement or deterioration. 



" 'English horses, after this, appear to have been highly prized on the 

 continent, so that the German horses which were presented by Hugh 

 Capet to Athelstan had ])een turned to good account. Tlie English them- 

 selves were, however, anxious to preserve the monopoly of the breed, for 

 in 930, A. D., a law prohibited the exportation of horses. In Athelstan's 

 reign many Spanish horses were imported, which shows the desire of the 

 Flnglish, even at that early period, to improve the breed. It is no won 

 iler that their descendants should have produced the finest horses in the 

 world. Shortly before the Norman conquest a horse was valued at thirty 

 shillings, a mare or colt at twenty shillings, an ox at'thirty pence, a cow 

 :it twenty-four pence — these prices in case of their being destroyed or 

 negligently lost — and a man at a pound.' Money, it should be noted, 

 then being equivalent to at ledst fifteen times its present value. William 

 the Conqueror took great pains to improve the English breed, introducing 

 many fine animals from Normandy, Flanders and Spain. This monarch 

 owed his success at Hastings chiefly to his cavalry ; his own horse was a 

 Spanish one. In this reign we have the first notice of horses being 

 employed in agriculture. They had been used for the saddle for many 

 centuries, Bede informing us that the English began to use horses as early 

 as 681 A. D., and that people of rank distinguished themselves by appear- 

 ing frequently on horseback. During the Conqueror's reign the then 

 Earl of Shrewsbury, Roger de Belesme, brought a number of Spanish 

 horses to his estate of Powisland. The breed issuing from these is highly 

 eulogized by Giraldus Cambrcnsis and Dayton. In the reign of Henry 

 I. we have an account of the first Aral) horse imported into the country. 

 It was presented by Alexander I., King of Scotland, to the church of St. 

 Andrew's, with many valuable accoutrements and a considerable estate. 

 History, however, is silent as to the purposes to wh'ch this animal was 

 devoted, or as to wdiat ultimately became of him. 



" It has been well jDointed out, in this connection, that the ancient histo- 

 rians, being exclusively monks and churchmen, naturally paid little atten- 

 tion to the breeding of horses, which were held to belong to w^ar rathei 

 than to agriculture, and were forbidden to their order ; and farther, it 

 may be observed that, until, comparatively speaking, very recent times, 



