HEAVY ARMOUR. 6i^ 



the advantages afforded by nail-shoeing — advantages 

 hitherto overlooked, or but partially resorted to, by the 

 Romans ? 



From this time until the general adoption of iron 

 shoes, we are led to infer that horsemen were as lightly 

 clad and armed as was compatible with the services sought 

 from them. But after the downfall of the Roman em- 

 pire, and when the horse had by this hoof-defence been 

 converted into a more perfect animal — when it could, 

 without prejudice, be put to the most varied uses on all 

 kinds of ground, and in all seasons, with but a small 

 amount of care, so far as its feet were concerned, a new 

 era was inaugurated in the art of war, from which we may 

 date modern im.provements. For it was about the time 

 when, as we have seen, the fashion of protecting the lower 

 surface of the horse's foot by a rim of iron, became 

 general, that the benefits of the feudal system introduced 

 by the people who shod their horses, began to be ex- 

 perienced, and a perceptible change in tactics and equip- 

 ment became noticeable. 



From this system sprang the age of chivalry, when 

 the feudal knight and the feudal tenant, heavily armed 

 and heavily caparisoned, horse and rider closely covered 

 with invulnerable masses of iron, and bearing clumsy 

 weapons, sallied out to the battle-field or the tournament, 

 or travelled great distances to the rendezvous of their 

 superiors, there to be trained or prepared for the contests 

 which, unhappily, were of too frequent occurrence. 



Riding double was unknown to the Romans. ' Do 

 you think that two can sit upon one horse ? ' asks Martial. 

 Suetonius even describes messages being conveyed in 



