CART HORSES. 215 
horses are now raised more numerously than cart 
horses in the shires, and hence the term “shire 
horse” is inaccurate, as well as somewhat vague. 
The old black cart horse, or shire horse, is now most 
nearly represented by the black horse of Lincolnshire. 
One hesitates to conclude that the beautiful, high- 
mettled charger of the Middle Ages, as he has been 
described by poets and romancers, was really a dull, 
ugly beast, with “misshapen legs,” and “a great 
fiddle-case in place of a head.” Was it such a steed 
that carried the Disinherited Knight in his encounter 
with Brian de Bois Guilbert? Sir Walter Scott re- 
lates, that “the trumpets had no sooner given the 
signal than the champions vanished from their posts 
with the speed of lightning, and closed in the centre 
of the lists with the shock of a thunderbolt”; and 
the charger of the Disinherited Knight is described 
as “wheeling with the agility of a hawk upon the 
wing.” It is possible that the English shire horse, 
or war horse, was improved by crosses of Arab blood, 
for Arab horses might have been brought into Eng- 
land at the time of the Crusades. Isaac of York, it 
will be remembered, supplied Ivanhoe with the horse 
and armor which he used when he overthrew Brian 
de Bois Guilbert, and awarded the crown of beauty to 
Rowena; and the thrifty Jew exclaimed to Rebecca, 
as they gazed upon the conflict, ‘Ah, the good horse 
that was brought all the long way from Barbary, he 
takes no more care of him than if he were a wild 
ass’s colt!” In this, however, Isaac of York must 
have been misreported by Sir Walter. No Barbary 
horse or Eastern horse of any description was ever 
big or strong enough to carry a knight in armor, 
