140 THE HORSE IN HISTORY 



attracted much attention. Printed for Dame 

 Julyana Berners, who evidently had much practical 

 knowledge of horses and the way to manage them, 

 it mentions incidentally that every good horse 

 ought to possess the following fifteen " pro- 

 perties " : — 



" Of a man : — bolde, prowde, and hardy. 

 Of a woman : — fayrbrested, fayr of heere, and easy 



to leape upon. 

 Of a fox : — a fayr taylle, short eeres, with a good 



trotte. 

 Of a haare : — a grete eye, a dry hede, and well 



runnynge. 

 Of an asse : — a bygge chyn, a flatte legge, and a 



good hoof." 



From the above list we may conclude that in 

 spite of the unwieldy appearance of most of the 

 horses shown in the early drawings there must 

 have been plenty of active animals in England 

 long before the second half of the sixteenth 

 century. Most likely the large and clumsy horses 

 belonged practically to the class that to-day we 

 speak of as shire horses, and that the majority 

 were employed for carrying men in armour, 

 historians being unanimous in declaring that 

 by the middle of the sixteenth century a man 

 of medium height could not, when sheathed in 

 armour, have weighed together with the armour 

 worn by his horse less than some thirty stone, 

 and that often he must have weighed more. 



