Post by varkie on Aug 8, 2005 13:53:43 GMT 1
I wanted to carry this thread on, so here is where we got to on the old board:
Subject : Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : varkie
Date : 30.07.05 9:30:00 PM
All my own horses are barefoot, so I often read barefoot threads with interest.
What I have noticed is that many pro barefoot people will argue against shoes, saying that shoes are quite recent because they were only started to be used at 'x' time by 'x' people for 'x' reasons. Thing is, I've heard quite a few different versions by now, and they can't all be true!
So what I'd like to know is when did people begin to use shoes on horses & why. I don't want hearsay though, I want hard documented evidence - does anyone actually have any references for this - ideally either of the time or archaelogical findings?
I intend to start to do a little research on this myself too, but thought I'd ask here as well!
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From :
Date : 30.07.05 9:45:00 PM
the romans used shoes on their horses..strapped on not nailed
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : varkie
Date : 31.07.05 10:09:00 AM
Thanks for that - but do we know why they used them, and do we have any references written by Romans which say this?
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : carol
Date : 31.07.05 11:17:00 AM
If you go to www.horseshoes.com there's a fair bit of historical stuff.
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : Francis Burton
Date : 31.07.05 12:21:00 AM
Ann Hyland wrote a book called "Equus: the horse in the Roman world". She probably discusses horseshoes, though what she says might be coloured by traditional assumptions about shoeing.
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : varkie
Date : 31.07.05 1:06:00 PM
Thanks to both of you. I'll follow both of those up. I'll bear in mind the possible bias also.
Although my own horses are barefoot, I want to come at this totally impartially - not interested in turning it into a pro or anti barefoot - just want to know the historical reasons why people began to shoe horses - and I'm after hard facts, not hearsay!
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : JS
Date : 31.07.05 9:00:00 PM
A very good thing too!
I wonder if Dr. Deb might know something?
www.equinestudies.org - an email address is given there. You could also put a query on the forum section. It is an american site, so their "history of shoeing" is not as long as Europe's, but someone might be able to direct you in the right way.
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : JackieJATaylor
Date : 01.08.05 0:57:00 AM
I'd love to know HOW the Romans managed to design a strap-on shoe that worked - I'd love to have access to a strap on plastic shoe. If anyone find a picture.......
Jackie
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : carol
Date : 01.08.05 6:33:00 AM
www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/9/9/14990/14990-h/14990-h.htm#art16
Not sure if the above link will work, but there are some extremely weird and wacky illustrations in the article.
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : carol
Date : 01.08.05 6:34:00 AM
Yep, it works, just tried it...
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From :
Date : 01.08.05 7:00:00 AM
I think the romans used shoes because they made stoned roads and marched many miles every day, so probably wore the hooves down a lot.
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : Finn
Date : 01.08.05 10:37:00 AM
Well, there's also a school of thought that suggests horses travelled alongside the road, off the cobbles--and that only animals (horses and oxen) with damaged feet were fitted with hipposandals. There's a pic of one at www.romansinsussex.co.uk. Apparently modern re-enactors have found that hipposandals come off at more than walking pace, so I suppose they'd be more useful on pack animals. See www.unrv.com/culture/roman-road-construction.php, and also scholar.chem.nyu.edu/tekpages/horseshoes.html.
There's a copy of Xenophon's Art of Horsemanship on the Project Gutenberg site, where he talks about barefoot condtioning on gravel.
Some good stuff also on the Normans at wmich.edu/medieval/mip/index.html while www.horsehoes.com/learning/henry/henry.txt is a documented potted history of shoes.
The Bayeux tapestry is an interesting source too--many of the horses are obviously shod, some not. Other discontinuities in the tapestry (the famous vanishing Saxon moustaches, for example) probably suggest that details were very much at the whim of the embroiders, so we can't assume that it was normal to shoe some horses not others.
Sutton Hoo might be another good source if you can get your hands on the archaelogical reports of the grave of the young prince and his horse. Haven't the info to hand, but I'm pretty sure there were no horseshoes, even though there was a full set of tack otherwise.
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : Pen
Date : 01.08.05 1:27:00 PM
Jackie, have you seen dallmer clogs? They are to all intents and purposes strap on shoes. A friend has used them successfully for 2 years. - www.hufshop-online.de/acrobat/dallmer_anleit.pdf-
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : Jackie
Date : 01.08.05 5:45:00 PM
Ah, never seen a good pic of them - thanks.
Jackie
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : Francis Burton
Date : 01.08.05 10:23:00 PM
Well, I had a look in Ann Hyland's book on Roman horses and she doesn't appear to discuss shoes at all!
However, I found another book, a slim volume called OLD HORSESHOES by Ivan G. Sparkes. This has a short first chapter on "Roman and Romano-British shoes and hippo-sandals". The Romans called them "solea ferrea" and they didn't have holes. Several designs are pictured, including a sketch of home the sandal would be fixed in place with leather straps.
Here's a quote from the book:
"The first specific reference to nailed horseshoes is probably that quoted in the Tactica of the Emperor Leo VI (AD 886-911) where, amongst a list of items essential to the cavalryman, are included 'lunar or crescent-shaped iron shoes and their nails'. It is certain that nailed shoes were in use as early as the fifth century AD, and some writers postulate their existence within iron-age communities, with the terms 'Romano-British' and 'Celtic' shoes frequently applied to them. Unfortunately there is no prominent change of style or of detail which allows us to identify these early shoes and separate them from those of the early Norman period, nor does archeological evidence place them firmly in chronological sequence."
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : JS
Date : 01.08.05 10:45:00 PM
Well this is going to be a problem because any shoe from any past age is going to look more or less the same.
I picked up a shoe in one of our fields which is very broad and I have been told by various "experts" from the County Council that it is an oxen shoe or a horse shoe from the Civil War (which is could be as the field was supposed to be used as a camp site) - so who is right? It is rusting away in the corner of a cupboard at the moment.
I think you have a long search Varkie, becuase you really want to be going back to original sources, not what someone has written in a book which may be wrong.
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : Finn
Date : 02.08.05 9:33:00 AM
But of course a proper archaeologial dig will place an artefact in context, thus allowing it to be identified and (roughly) dated. Isolated items are quite tricky.
But.... given the incomplete archaeological record, does absence of shoes, farriery tools etc indicate lack of shoeing? No, arguably that we just haven't found *evidence* for shoeing. And yes, JS, historians can be wrong and some historians are bad, so secondary sources have to be approached critically. But original sources are also problematic. For a start with shoeing, we're dealing partly with pre-history, times in which there are no written records at all, let alone ones to do with shoeing. When there are written sources, they're in foreign or old languages--Latin, Greek, Old Norse, Middle English for starters. So most people have to rely on a translation, which is a bad compromise at the best of times and may be misleading. Then there's the problem that those who could write weren't those doing the shoeing--which might appear say in household accounts, but was too everday to mention otherwise (which might lead the unwary to conclude there was no shoeing at all). And of course, suppose you have a written source--Xenophon on barefoot, for example. Can you assume from what he says that *all* of Athens kept their horses barefoot? All of Greece, over the X years of its heyday? Well, no. We'd have to add that to whether there were finds, what period they were from, where, etc . . .
At this point, you'll either be banging your head on a wall or starting to enjoy yourself! I think it is possible to write quite a detailed history, actually, depending on how much evidence is available.
How are you doing, Varkie? (I have an image of you swooshing across a field in a long trench coat, Michael Wood style, going, "Here, on the site of one of the most important equestrian finds since . . . ")!
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : varkie
Date : 02.08.05 10:31:00 AM
That did make me laugh Finn! As I'm not very tall, I'd probably look quite daft in a trench coat though!!!
I think that you're both right JS & Finn, and its definitely something I'm going to have to bear in mind.
I'm going through all the sources I've found so far, though not prepared to report just yet! This started out as just an idle query, but I have a feeling its going to turn into a much bigger search. Problem with me is that once I get an idea in my head, I like to follow it to conclusion. At the moment, I'm following internet leads. I'm going to start researching in books later, and museums/digs after that.
I already have Xenophons book, so thats a start, albeit a small one!
I think this is actually going to turn out to be really interesting!
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : Finn
Date : 02.08.05 1:04:00 PM
Good luck!
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : JS
Date : 02.08.05 2:09:00 PM
Yes, the best of luck.
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : Jill
Date : 02.08.05 3:39:00 PM
very interesting thread
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : karen
Date : 02.08.05 4:14:00 PM
scholar.chem.nyu.edu/tekpages/horseshoes.html
found this hope it works!
KX
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From :
Date : 02.08.05 4:46:00 PM
Hickmans farriery puts the date of the first shoe as 400BC which seems an extraordinarily long time ago.
Subject : Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : varkie
Date : 30.07.05 9:30:00 PM
All my own horses are barefoot, so I often read barefoot threads with interest.
What I have noticed is that many pro barefoot people will argue against shoes, saying that shoes are quite recent because they were only started to be used at 'x' time by 'x' people for 'x' reasons. Thing is, I've heard quite a few different versions by now, and they can't all be true!
So what I'd like to know is when did people begin to use shoes on horses & why. I don't want hearsay though, I want hard documented evidence - does anyone actually have any references for this - ideally either of the time or archaelogical findings?
I intend to start to do a little research on this myself too, but thought I'd ask here as well!
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From :
Date : 30.07.05 9:45:00 PM
the romans used shoes on their horses..strapped on not nailed
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : varkie
Date : 31.07.05 10:09:00 AM
Thanks for that - but do we know why they used them, and do we have any references written by Romans which say this?
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : carol
Date : 31.07.05 11:17:00 AM
If you go to www.horseshoes.com there's a fair bit of historical stuff.
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : Francis Burton
Date : 31.07.05 12:21:00 AM
Ann Hyland wrote a book called "Equus: the horse in the Roman world". She probably discusses horseshoes, though what she says might be coloured by traditional assumptions about shoeing.
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : varkie
Date : 31.07.05 1:06:00 PM
Thanks to both of you. I'll follow both of those up. I'll bear in mind the possible bias also.
Although my own horses are barefoot, I want to come at this totally impartially - not interested in turning it into a pro or anti barefoot - just want to know the historical reasons why people began to shoe horses - and I'm after hard facts, not hearsay!
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : JS
Date : 31.07.05 9:00:00 PM
A very good thing too!
I wonder if Dr. Deb might know something?
www.equinestudies.org - an email address is given there. You could also put a query on the forum section. It is an american site, so their "history of shoeing" is not as long as Europe's, but someone might be able to direct you in the right way.
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : JackieJATaylor
Date : 01.08.05 0:57:00 AM
I'd love to know HOW the Romans managed to design a strap-on shoe that worked - I'd love to have access to a strap on plastic shoe. If anyone find a picture.......
Jackie
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : carol
Date : 01.08.05 6:33:00 AM
www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/9/9/14990/14990-h/14990-h.htm#art16
Not sure if the above link will work, but there are some extremely weird and wacky illustrations in the article.
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : carol
Date : 01.08.05 6:34:00 AM
Yep, it works, just tried it...
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From :
Date : 01.08.05 7:00:00 AM
I think the romans used shoes because they made stoned roads and marched many miles every day, so probably wore the hooves down a lot.
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : Finn
Date : 01.08.05 10:37:00 AM
Well, there's also a school of thought that suggests horses travelled alongside the road, off the cobbles--and that only animals (horses and oxen) with damaged feet were fitted with hipposandals. There's a pic of one at www.romansinsussex.co.uk. Apparently modern re-enactors have found that hipposandals come off at more than walking pace, so I suppose they'd be more useful on pack animals. See www.unrv.com/culture/roman-road-construction.php, and also scholar.chem.nyu.edu/tekpages/horseshoes.html.
There's a copy of Xenophon's Art of Horsemanship on the Project Gutenberg site, where he talks about barefoot condtioning on gravel.
Some good stuff also on the Normans at wmich.edu/medieval/mip/index.html while www.horsehoes.com/learning/henry/henry.txt is a documented potted history of shoes.
The Bayeux tapestry is an interesting source too--many of the horses are obviously shod, some not. Other discontinuities in the tapestry (the famous vanishing Saxon moustaches, for example) probably suggest that details were very much at the whim of the embroiders, so we can't assume that it was normal to shoe some horses not others.
Sutton Hoo might be another good source if you can get your hands on the archaelogical reports of the grave of the young prince and his horse. Haven't the info to hand, but I'm pretty sure there were no horseshoes, even though there was a full set of tack otherwise.
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : Pen
Date : 01.08.05 1:27:00 PM
Jackie, have you seen dallmer clogs? They are to all intents and purposes strap on shoes. A friend has used them successfully for 2 years. - www.hufshop-online.de/acrobat/dallmer_anleit.pdf-
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : Jackie
Date : 01.08.05 5:45:00 PM
Ah, never seen a good pic of them - thanks.
Jackie
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : Francis Burton
Date : 01.08.05 10:23:00 PM
Well, I had a look in Ann Hyland's book on Roman horses and she doesn't appear to discuss shoes at all!
However, I found another book, a slim volume called OLD HORSESHOES by Ivan G. Sparkes. This has a short first chapter on "Roman and Romano-British shoes and hippo-sandals". The Romans called them "solea ferrea" and they didn't have holes. Several designs are pictured, including a sketch of home the sandal would be fixed in place with leather straps.
Here's a quote from the book:
"The first specific reference to nailed horseshoes is probably that quoted in the Tactica of the Emperor Leo VI (AD 886-911) where, amongst a list of items essential to the cavalryman, are included 'lunar or crescent-shaped iron shoes and their nails'. It is certain that nailed shoes were in use as early as the fifth century AD, and some writers postulate their existence within iron-age communities, with the terms 'Romano-British' and 'Celtic' shoes frequently applied to them. Unfortunately there is no prominent change of style or of detail which allows us to identify these early shoes and separate them from those of the early Norman period, nor does archeological evidence place them firmly in chronological sequence."
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : JS
Date : 01.08.05 10:45:00 PM
Well this is going to be a problem because any shoe from any past age is going to look more or less the same.
I picked up a shoe in one of our fields which is very broad and I have been told by various "experts" from the County Council that it is an oxen shoe or a horse shoe from the Civil War (which is could be as the field was supposed to be used as a camp site) - so who is right? It is rusting away in the corner of a cupboard at the moment.
I think you have a long search Varkie, becuase you really want to be going back to original sources, not what someone has written in a book which may be wrong.
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : Finn
Date : 02.08.05 9:33:00 AM
But of course a proper archaeologial dig will place an artefact in context, thus allowing it to be identified and (roughly) dated. Isolated items are quite tricky.
But.... given the incomplete archaeological record, does absence of shoes, farriery tools etc indicate lack of shoeing? No, arguably that we just haven't found *evidence* for shoeing. And yes, JS, historians can be wrong and some historians are bad, so secondary sources have to be approached critically. But original sources are also problematic. For a start with shoeing, we're dealing partly with pre-history, times in which there are no written records at all, let alone ones to do with shoeing. When there are written sources, they're in foreign or old languages--Latin, Greek, Old Norse, Middle English for starters. So most people have to rely on a translation, which is a bad compromise at the best of times and may be misleading. Then there's the problem that those who could write weren't those doing the shoeing--which might appear say in household accounts, but was too everday to mention otherwise (which might lead the unwary to conclude there was no shoeing at all). And of course, suppose you have a written source--Xenophon on barefoot, for example. Can you assume from what he says that *all* of Athens kept their horses barefoot? All of Greece, over the X years of its heyday? Well, no. We'd have to add that to whether there were finds, what period they were from, where, etc . . .
At this point, you'll either be banging your head on a wall or starting to enjoy yourself! I think it is possible to write quite a detailed history, actually, depending on how much evidence is available.
How are you doing, Varkie? (I have an image of you swooshing across a field in a long trench coat, Michael Wood style, going, "Here, on the site of one of the most important equestrian finds since . . . ")!
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : varkie
Date : 02.08.05 10:31:00 AM
That did make me laugh Finn! As I'm not very tall, I'd probably look quite daft in a trench coat though!!!
I think that you're both right JS & Finn, and its definitely something I'm going to have to bear in mind.
I'm going through all the sources I've found so far, though not prepared to report just yet! This started out as just an idle query, but I have a feeling its going to turn into a much bigger search. Problem with me is that once I get an idea in my head, I like to follow it to conclusion. At the moment, I'm following internet leads. I'm going to start researching in books later, and museums/digs after that.
I already have Xenophons book, so thats a start, albeit a small one!
I think this is actually going to turn out to be really interesting!
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : Finn
Date : 02.08.05 1:04:00 PM
Good luck!
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : JS
Date : 02.08.05 2:09:00 PM
Yes, the best of luck.
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : Jill
Date : 02.08.05 3:39:00 PM
very interesting thread
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From : karen
Date : 02.08.05 4:14:00 PM
scholar.chem.nyu.edu/tekpages/horseshoes.html
found this hope it works!
KX
Subject : re:- Documented History Of Shoeing?
From :
Date : 02.08.05 4:46:00 PM
Hickmans farriery puts the date of the first shoe as 400BC which seems an extraordinarily long time ago.
