NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF HORSE-SHOEING. 471 
the wars of Belisarius, or still later, it is nevertheless certain that 
in Abyssinia, in Barbary, and even in Guinea, they are fixed on 
doors and the threshholds of houses, as much as in Europe, Asia, 
or America. We have seen one carved on a pagan Runic monu¬ 
ment of the eleventh century. The practice is known in the east 
of Asia, in Japan and China, in Bokhara and Persia; and it is to 
be traced on the cabin door of the Hottentot, and the west-coast 
Negro, almost as frequently as on the barn-door of a Dutch or 
English farm. The horseshoe may even be seen nailed to the 
masts of coasting vessels; not, as might be expected by antiquaries 
endeavouring to make it the practice of some lunar arkite reminis¬ 
cence, by placing the iron with the heels uppermost, but, on the 
contrary, in all cases they are downwards, and while in this posi¬ 
tion it defeats all plausible connexion with a known pagan sys¬ 
tem. No reason is offered as a substitute; we are simply told that 
no witch nor evil spirit can enter where this symbol is fixed*. 
This answer is universally the same, and no more strict inquiry 
can extract any thing further, or more rational. It is difficult to 
conceive when or why an object, pretended to be of such recent 
invention, could be made everywhere to symbolise a contemptible 
superstition; how abettors could be found to spread it over the 
whole surface of the earth, without an ostensible motive, or even 
time to perform the task. 
When plate armour began to increase in weight, in order to re¬ 
sist the rising use of fire-arms, the so-called great horses, dextriers 
or chargers, were more and more confined to the large black breeds 
of the Netherlands and the chestnuts of Lombardy, on account of 
their heavy limbs, supposed greater strength, broad hoofs, and thick 
hairy fetlocks, which protected the lower joints among the armour 
and arms strewed over fields of battle. These horses were shod 
with large and very heavy iron shoes, slightly pointed and turned 
up at the toe, and cocked at the heel with high and broad spikes, 
to afford a surer footing in a charge. A specimen of the kind is 
figured in an exceedingly rare pamphlet, printed in 1485t. Cor- 
* It used to be the custom, in Devonshire and Cornwall, to nail them on 
the great west doors of churches,—possibly to keep off witches, one of whose 
especial amusements it was 
“ To untie the winds, and make them fight 
Against the churches.” 
On the church door at Halcombe, in Devonshire, were formerly four horse¬ 
shoes, said to be those of a horse ridden some distance into the sea, by one of 
the Carews, for a wager. 
t Jacobi publici Florentini Oratoris Institutio. Plate on the last page. 
This pamphlet, specially noticed by Dibdin, has been sold for above eight 
guineas. 
