440 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



new one every seventh year, at the expense of the towns- 

 men who reside near the place.' 



Examples of ostentatious extravagance in horse-shoes 

 are numerous in the middle and succeeding ages. During 

 the Roman period, we have already remarked that attempts 

 at display in this particular direction were made by the 

 wife of Nero and others, when golden or gilded solece 

 were fastened on the feet of mules or horses. Gold and 

 silver shoes and nails were fashionable, it appears, among 

 the wealthy who were ostentatiously inclined, to so late a 

 period as the 17th century. When Boniface, Marquis 

 of Tuscany, one of the wealthiest princes of his time, went 

 in 1083, to iTieet Beatrix, mother of the famous Matilda, 

 marchioness of Tuscany, who married Godfrey of Lor- 

 raine, his escort was so grandly equipped, that instead of 

 iron, the horses had silver shoes and nails, and when any 

 of these came off they were the property of those who 

 picked them up. 



Qui dux cum peregret illo, 

 Ornatos magnos secum tulit atque caballos. 

 Sub pedibus quorum chalybem non pouere solum 

 Jusserat, argentum sed ponere, sic quasi ferrum 

 Esse repercussum clavum voluit quoque nullum, 

 Ex hoc ut gento possent reperire quis esset. 

 Cornipedes currunt, argentum dum resilit, tunc 

 Colligitur passim, passim reperitur in agris, 

 A populo terrae testans quod dives hie esset.' 



Bartholomeus Scriba, in his Annales Gennenses, for the 

 year 1230, asserts that a certain man, named Ermemolinus, 

 gave eight thousand bizantines to Genoa, as a mark of 

 his affection and friendship ; and with this money the 



' Donhnnc, Vita Mathilda, lib. i. cap. 10. 



