SAXON CAFALRY. 281 



Robert of France, presented Athelstan of England with 

 three hundred fine coursers and their trappings, besides 

 other valuables.' Athelstan enacted that 'no man shall 

 send any horses over sea, but such as be presents.''' 



In the reign of this monarch it is probable that horses 

 were used for ploughing; for in one of his laws (16) it is 

 ordained that ' every man have to the plough two well- 

 horsed men.' From these laws we also learn, that a horse 

 was valued at half a pound, ' if it be so good ; and if it be 

 inferior, let it be paid for by the worth of its appearance, 

 and not by that which the man values it at who owns it, 

 unless he have evidence that it be as good as he says.' 



About this period, too, tournaments began to be 

 popular among the Anglo-Saxons. In 934, Henry the 

 First of Germany published his institutions concerning 

 them, and certain classes and persons were forbidden to 

 engage in them under penalty of losing their horses.^ 

 Even previous to this period, Nithard mentions that some 

 French gentlemen fought in play on horseback.'* 



It has often been asserted that the Anglo-Saxons had 

 no cavalry in the days of Harold, and that their defeat at 

 the battle of Hastings was chiefly due to the absence of 

 that arm from their force. This would appear, however, 

 to be incorrect. At the decisive battle between that un- 

 fortunate monarch and the Danish invader, Hardrada, at 

 Stamford Bridge, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, only a 



^ MSS. Cleop. B. 5. 



• ' Nemo equum aliquem ultra mare mittat nisi eum donare velit.' 

 — Legis Atheist. 



3 Goldastus. Constitutioncs Imperialis, vol. ii. p. 41. 



* Turner. Hist. Anglo-Saxons, vol. iii. p. 130. 



