EARLY WORKS ii 



Middle Ages all the more inexplicable, because 

 there was plenty of sound material to work upon. 

 Yet, from a scientific point of view, it redounds to 

 the credit of vets, saddlers, and horse-owners 

 who are livinor now, or who lived during this last 

 century. 



Take a modern discovery such as electricity. 

 We feel surprised at the rapid strides which in- 

 ventors have made in motor-cars. On the other 

 hand — and it is impossible to emphasise the fact 

 too much — we are amazed at the comparatively 

 few discoveries made in riding, driving, stable- 

 management, shoeing, and veterinary since the 

 early writers wrote before and immediately after 

 Christ. This uninventive gap is all the more 

 incomprehensible when we reflect that, in the 

 Middle Ages, there were no trains, nor very 

 quick communication such as we have now, and 

 consequently people were far more dependent on 

 horses then than now. 



I defy anybody to study this engrossing sub- 

 ject without wondering again and again that 

 warriors and citizens in the Middle Ages were 

 so uninventive ; even in Shakespeare's age — so 

 full of cleverness in other directions. The early 

 Romans and Greeks had bequeathed the same 

 MSS. which we possess now. Yet the Saxons, 

 Danes, Normans, and other peoples of Europe 

 paid no heed to them. Doubtless a few literary 

 monks knew sufficient about them to occasion- 

 ally read them with interest, and preserved the 

 antique writings because they saw in them 

 interesting relics of a remote civilisation. 



