f 



COUNTING THE HORSE-SHOES AND HOB-NAILS. 399 



Walter le Bruin or Brun, a farrier or marechal, had a 

 piece of land granted him in the Strand, in the parish of 

 St Clement's Danes, London, whereon to erect a forge, 

 on condition that he should render at the Exchequer, 

 annually, for the same, a quit-rent of six horse-shoes, with 

 the nails (62) thereunto belonging. This strange pay- 

 ment was made twice during the reign of Edward I., and, 

 curiously enough, was continued so late as 1827 (and 

 may be even now), at the swearing-in of the annually 

 elected Sheriff of London and Middlesex, on the 30th 

 September, to the representative of the Sovereign, for the 

 said piece of ground, though it has long been city pro- 

 perty. This was the origin of the odd custom of count- 

 ing the horse-shoes and hob-nails.' ' 



From the daily expense book of the 28th year of 

 Edward L^ (1299 — 1300), we learn that the pay of the 

 smith was fourpence a day, and that horse-shoes were 

 charged at ten shillings per hundred, and nails twenty- 

 pence a thousand. Iron sold at fivepence per stone. 

 In it also notice that the functions of the armourer 

 and smith were divided, special workmen representing 

 each of these crafts. In the same record we find an 

 entry for divers instruments of farriery to shoe horses, 

 which appear to have been sent to that monarch in the 

 Holy Land : ' Diversa utensilia ferrator equorum qui 

 missa fuerunt Regi in terra Sancta ut dicebatur.' 



The draught-horse {equus ad tractandum or carrec- 

 tarum) was as yet a somewhat rare animal, the state of 



' Madox. Hist. Exchequer. Allen. History of London, vol. i. 

 p. 76. 



* Liber Quotidianus Contrarotulatoris Garderobe, London, 1787. 



