Raepsaet/Rommelaere & Roman Horse Harness
JudyW1917
There has been some discussion over the size of the horses of Roman period.
"It seems likely that horses were little bigger than ponies and may have been
unreliable in many hauling situations." This quotation is from Brancards et
Transport Attele entre Seine et Rhine de L'Antiquite au Moyen Age (1993).p. 117
- hereafter to be cited as Brancards et Transport - also in the same
publication see p 35.
One of the sources for this is Hyland's book Equus (1990) which deals with the
Roman horse. She states that the military horses were between 13hh and 15hh.
(p. 68). Horses used in hauling were not much bigger (Raepsaet, Archeologie,
1985, p. 1430)
Since the horses of the period were not much bigger ponies the question of
their
inability to haul heavy loads due to inadequate "horse choking" harness is
irrelevant.
I have only just started reading this execellent book - and I notice that one
of the topics in the book is the importance of the double shafts as a bigger
technological advance than the horse collar.
Judy
PS -Paul since I had no trouble getting this book, I am sure that NYU will
order
it for you.
Paul J. Gans
> Judy
I'd only note that the medieval horse used in farm work and for
haulage was, I believe, about the same size. Langdon (cited
below) says some medieval horses seem to have ranged "up to
15 hands in height, still of pony size but somewhat larger
than Anglo-Saxon horses, which seem to have reached only
13 or 14 hands." Yet these horses were used for haulage.
Arguments about which technological advance was "better" or
"more important" are futile. Societies are organic wholes
and things work together.
I'm glad that you are interested in finding out more about
classical and early medieval harnessing methods. Having spent
too much time chasing chimera and finding only that the horse
collar is confirmed by all sources NOT to be a Roman invention
and further finding that the much-touted breast strap may well
also be post Roman (Langdon, _Horses, Oxen, and Technical
Innovation_, p. 9) and thus NOT have been used by the Romans,
I find that what many folks have told me about horse-harnessing,
(and somewhat impolitely at that ) turns out to be false.
What remains is the fact that there is today some argument
about the "strangulation" issue. The weight of opinion is
still on the side of des Noettes.
Much heat, little light, not much gained.
------ Paul J. Gans [ga...@panix.com]
JudyW1917
>m glad that you are interested in finding out more about
classical and early
>medieval harnessing methods. Having spent
too much time chasing chimera and
>finding only that the horse
collar is confirmed by all sources NOT to be a
>Roman invention
and further finding that the much-touted breast strap may
>well
also be post Roman (Langdon, _Horses, Oxen, and Technical
Innovation_,
>p. 9) and thus NOT have been used by the Romans,
I find that what many folks
>have told me about horse-harnessing,
(and somewhat impolitely at that ) turns
>out to be false.
What remains is the fact that there is today some
>argument
about the "strangulation" issue. The weight of opinion is
still on
>the side of des Noettes.
I think it is you who need to be interested in finding out more about Roman
and early medieval horse harness - not I.
I am reading now the latest material on the subject. All the authorities to a
man
say the LdN is WRONG.
Horses were not strangled and choked in their harness. The harness was
sufficient for the tasks at hand.
There is now evidence suggesting the breast strap was used as early as the
beginning of the 2nd Century AD - see Brancards et Transport p. 69
Harness fittings have been found ( i.e. the jouguet de Wange) which allows
archaeologist to reconstruct more accurately early horse harness.
And scholars who specialize in Transport are now saying that they do NOT
believe that the horse collar was the quantum technological leap forward as
claimed by LdN -- there are other that in the balance are more important.
Please Paul, do try and reason some of the latest material on the subject
instead
of harping about an experiment done in 1910 and published in 1931. As a person
teaching the subject you owe it to your students to stay current with the
research in the field -- something I have seen any evidence you have done on
this topic.
Judy
Paul J. Gans
> Judy
Judy, I wish you'd keep up on this thread. We've been reading
everything we can get our hands on. Spruytte (YOUR reference)
says no Roman horsecollars. He also seems to back des Noyettes
on everything but the total weight pulled, which he finds to be
somewhat more than des Noyettes says. I've been told that
Raepsaet (YOUR reference) is more-or-less in agreement. Bert
Hall, through Laura, supplied John Langdon as a reference. I
posted his findings in the post you quoted. And yes, he cites
Spruytte to the point that the choking "could have been minimized
or even avoided altogether by sensible positioning of the straps,..."
But nothing about horsecollars or breast-straps, which Langdon
claims are post-Roman.
Then you posted something about Roman horses being small. I
cited Langdon to show that medieval horses (up to the 12th
century) were no bigger.
NOW you want me to go haring off after another reference. Why?
I *strongly* doubt that it is going to claim horse collars and
breast straps as Roman.
Why do you say that I need to find out more? Clearly you
are convinced, without evidence, that I am wrong about
something and won't stop until you find something that I
am wrong about. I'm not wrong about horsecollars. Choking
is in dispute, with nobody yet ready to say it did not happen,
and as for agricultural advances, there were many of them during
the Middle Ages and I've never said that the horse collar was
the only one or the single-most important one. des Noyettes
is NOT cited as a source for anything to do with agricultural
advances. There are a large number of books available on that
subject. I've cited (and quoted from some here) as has
Curt. I'll be glad to dig up those posts for you if you've
missed them.
I'm not obscessed with horses or horse-collars. You are.
I've done my homework and listed my sources, page numbers,
long quoted extracts and all. Now it is your turn. When
you find something interesting, give us relevent quotations
and a citation to the source. I'll be glad to go look at it
then.
Curt Emanuel
JudyW1917 wrote:
>
> There has been some discussion over the size of the horses of Roman period.
>
> "It seems likely that horses were little bigger than ponies and may have been
> unreliable in many hauling situations." This quotation is from Brancards et
> Transport Attele entre Seine et Rhine de L'Antiquite au Moyen Age (1993).p. 117
> - hereafter to be cited as Brancards et Transport - also in the same
> publication see p 35.
>
> One of the sources for this is Hyland's book Equus (1990) which deals with the
> Roman horse. She states that the military horses were between 13hh and 15hh.
> (p. 68). Horses used in hauling were not much bigger (Raepsaet, Archeologie,
> 1985, p. 1430)
>
And in Hyland's book, _The Medieval Warhorse_, she states that the
horses used for the Norman invasion were from 14.2-15h and weighed from
800-1000 lbs. About the same size.
Why is it that they were suitable for use as draft animals?
Curt Emanuel
McLean1382
In article <19980127194...@ladder03.news.aol.com>, judy...@aol.com
(JudyW1917) writes:
>Horses were not strangled and choked in their harness. The harness
>was
sufficient for the tasks at hand.
Sounds like circular reasoning to me. Sort of like saying:
The Romans didn't need stirrups. What they had was sufficient to the task at
hand because they didn't charge with couched lance.
The Romans didn't need longships. What they had was sufficient to the task at
hand becauser they didn't try to sail to North America and back.
The Romans didn't need cranks. What they had was sufficient to the task at hand
because their machinery didn't use cranks.
Will McLean
Laura Blanchard
I understand that Raepsaet has an essay in a collection edited by John
Langdon and published by Brill in 1997. This may be more accessible than
the 1993 conference proceedings and has the additional virtue (for me at
least) of being written in English.
I have to wonder, too, if the proceedings of the 1993 conference are so
easy to acquire, why more major research libraries don't have it.
Regards,
Laura Blanchard
lbla...@pobox.upenn.edu
JudyW1917
In article <34CF28...@pobox.upenn.edu>, Laura Blanchard
<lbla...@pobox.upenn.edu> writes:
>
I have to wonder, too, if the proceedings of the 1993 conference are so
easy
>to acquire, why more major research libraries don't have it.
Maybe they haven't ordered it -- For some material I believe a request has to
be put in by a professor and then the book will be ordered. That was the way it
worked
at Columbia University.
Judy
JudyW1917
In article <19980128020...@ladder02.news.aol.com>, mclea...@aol.com
(McLean1382) writes:
>
>Horses were not strangled and choked in their harness. The
>harness
>was
sufficient for the tasks at hand.
Sounds like circular
>reasoning to me. Sort of like saying:
Not at all -- Horses were small and not able to pull the heavy loads that
oxen could pullt. The harness that the Roman used worked well for their horses
and was used into the early middle ages in many places.
Judy
JudyW1917
> wrong about. I'm not wrong about horsecollars. Choking
is in dispute, with
>nobody yet ready to say it did not happen,
and as for agricultural advances,
>there were many of them during
the Middle Ages and I've never said that the
>horse collar was
the only one or the single-most important on
Paul - I have given you a reference. But you are choosing to ignore it.
Brancards et Transport Attele entre Seine et Rhine de L'Antiquite au Moyen Age
(1993). by Raepsaet and Rommelaere -- I don't see you making any effort
to obtain it and/or read it. While most of the articles are in French - there
are 2 in English so you could at least read those as it appears that you do not
read French.
Most historians always keep an open mind to new ideas, but you seem extremely
unreceptive to any new thinking at all. But then you are really a chemist and
history is merely a hobby - not so?
Judy
JudyW1917
>
And in Hyland's book, _The Medieval Warhorse_, she states that the
horses
>used for the Norman invasion were from 14.2-15h and weighed from
800-1000
>lbs. About the same size.
Why is it that they were suitable for use as
>draft animals?
Well as it is stated in Brancards at Transport - some technological
developments in other areas emerged. One is the double shaft for wagons - They
have a long list of parallel technological improvements that make the horse
more useful. I suggest
you order Brancards et Transport for the latest info.
Judy
Laura Blanchard
So who invented the double shafts and came up with the other
technological improvements? I don't think I'm out of order in asking for
a little reciprocal exchange of information exchange here.
Regards,
Laura Blanchard
lbla...@pobox.upenn.edu
Paul J. Gans
I've put three of Judy's articles together here to save
space and not be repetitious.
JudyW1917 had written:
>>Horses were not strangled and choked in their harness. The
>>harness was sufficient for the tasks at hand.
McLean1382 wrote:
>Sounds like circular
>>reasoning to me. Sort of like saying:
JudyW1917 replied:
>Not at all -- Horses were small and not able to pull the heavy loads that
>oxen could pullt. The harness that the Roman used worked well for their horses
>and was used into the early middle ages in many places.
This is, of course, WRONG, as has been pointed out here
continually. Why you keep relying on wrong information
is beyond me. We've given you references.
Let me state it again in simple terms: horses of the 13th century
and earlier were THE SAME SIZE as Roman horses. They pulled
heavy loads in 1100 and could have pulled the same loads in 300.
Your reasoning is circular.
In another post Curt Emanual wrote:
>> And in Hyland's book, _The Medieval Warhorse_, she states that the
>> horses used for the Norman invasion were from 14.2-15h and weighed from
>> 800-1000 lbs. About the same size.
>> Why is it that they were suitable for use as draft animals?
To which JudyW1917 replied:
> Well as it is stated in Brancards at Transport - some
> technological developments in other areas emerged. One
> is the double shaft for wagons - They have a long list
> of parallel technological improvements that make the horse
> more useful. I suggest you order Brancards et Transport for
> the latest info.
So again you reject the information that medieval horses
were just as small as Roman horses. I posted a reference
to that as well, a *different* reference.
To avoid dealing with that you fall back on some tenuous
reference to a book none of us can get. It is true that
other developments made horses more useful, but that's
not what we are talking about. The *crucial* development
for heavy haulage was the horse collar. The Romans did
not develop it, the medievals did.
In another post I had written:
>> wrong about. I'm not wrong about horsecollars. Choking is in
>> dispute, with nobody yet ready to say it did not happen,
>> and as for agricultural advances, there were many of them during
>> the Middle Ages and I've never said that the horse collar was
>> the only one or the single-most important on
To which JudyW1917 replied:
> Paul - I have given you a reference. But you are choosing to ignore it.
> Brancards et Transport Attele entre Seine et Rhine de L'Antiquite au
> Moyen Age (1993). by Raepsaet and Rommelaere -- I don't see you making
> any effort to obtain it and/or read it. While most of the articles are
> in French - there are 2 in English so you could at least read those as
> it appears that you do not read French.
> Most historians always keep an open mind to new ideas, but you
> seem extremely unreceptive to any new thinking at all. But then
> you are really a chemist and history is merely a hobby - not so?
These are very very nasty comments. Shame on you. But since
you mimic the accusations of The Great Paragraph Numberer, I
shall reply in kind.
1) The book you "recommend" is not available. Got that, NOT
AVAILABLE. For whatever reason, U.S. libraries have not
seen fit to order it.
2) Have you read this volume? If so, perhaps you could tell
us what it has to say about the Roman invention of the
horsecollar? If not, perhaps you shouldn't tout it so
loudly.
3) Raepsaet does have a paper in a LATER compendium edited
by two persons, one of whom is John Langdon. Thus it
appears that John Langdon has *some* reputation. And I've
posted what he's written on the subject.
4) I understand from those who have read the Raepsaet has
written in the later compendium that he has little that
is revolutionary to say.
5) I have made two points that you have objected to: the
first was that the Romans did NOT have the horse collar.
You have neither agreed with this nor provided any
documentation to the contrary. The second was that
des Noettes stated that the Roman collar tended to
strangle the horses. It is incontrovertable that
des Noettes said this. But is it true? You and others
have claimed that it is not. So far, I have found only
one writer, Spruytte, who claims that it is not so. Others
admit some controversy but are not yet ready to claim that
it is not so.
I am not a fool and I am as professional as I can be. I
do NOT take the word of folks posting in newsgroups who
say that something well-reported in the literature is wrong.
I want written evidence in peer-reviewed journals and books.
That's *exactly* what a professional would do. Your constant
urging of me to do something non-professional is irritating
to say the least.
Enough of that. As I've told you before, YOU are the one
contesting the literature, not me. It is up to YOU to read
the new literature and post here *exactly* what it says,
in French, Latin, or Mandarin. And post the reference.
I'm bored with this. As I would tell you if you were
my student: don't come to me with your wishes and your
hopes. Come with the hard evidence and then we'll see
where it leads.
And do not, I repeat, do not, keep going on the insult trail.
My PhD is not the question here. Titles don't matter one
bit. If you want to check out my medieval credentials, I
can arrange that. But then, you'd not believe anybody,
would you?
And please stop saying that Roman horses were smaller than
those medieval Europe put horsecollars on. It has gotten
tiresome.
Paul J. Gans
Laura Blanchard (lbla...@pobox.upenn.edu) wrote:
>JudyW1917 wrote:
>>
>> In article <34CE8A...@accs.net>, Curt Emanuel <cema...@accs.net> writes:
>>
>> >
>> horses
>> >used for the Norman invasion were from 14.2-15h and weighed from
>> 800-1000
>> >lbs. About the same size.
>>
>> Why is it that they were suitable for use as
>> >draft animals?
>>
>> developments in other areas emerged. One is the double shaft for wagons - They
>> have a long list of parallel technological improvements that make the horse
>> more useful. I suggest
>> you order Brancards et Transport for the latest info.
>>
>So who invented the double shafts and came up with the other
>technological improvements? I don't think I'm out of order in asking for
>a little reciprocal exchange of information exchange here.
Will it hurt if I give you a clue? It wasn't the Romans.
Landon gives eight developments. These are (1) the modern
horse harness, (2) horse shoes, (3) harnessing in file,
(4) whippletrees, (5) traces, (6) changes in vehicle design
(Langdon includes the double shaft here), (7) changes in
plough design, and (8) the ever-popular miscellaneous developments.
I quote Langdon (p 16) "When taken together, the innovations
and inventions listed above considerably increased the effectiveness
of animal power in the Middle Ages. The point here is not to
look at any one development, such as the modern collar harness,
as being crucial. Rather there was a while series of
improvements, some of them known in Roman times and before,
which gradually coalesced into a new system or systems of
traction. These improvements were especially beneficial to
horse traction, where harnessing for all types of work had
attained considerable sophistication by the medieval era,..."
I can't restrain myself from noting that one may conclude
from the above that Roman harnessing methods are thought
by Langdon NOT to have attained considerable sophistication.
Michael L. Siemon
In article <6aonmi$3...@news1.newsguy.com>, wis...@norwich.net (Dick Wisan)
wrote:
+But the reason the Romans made no such improvements is that they had
+no need of them.
That is the most question-begging bit of nonsense I have read in a long
while.
--
Michael L. Siemon m...@panix.com
"Green is the night, green kindled and apparelled.
It is she that walks among astronomers."
-- Wallace Stevens
Laura Blanchard
Paul Gans writes:
[lots of good stuff snipped]
>
> I quote Langdon (p 16) "When taken together, the innovations
> and inventions listed above considerably increased the effectiveness
> of animal power in the Middle Ages. The point here is not to
> look at any one development, such as the modern collar harness,
> as being crucial. Rather there was a while series of
> improvements, some of them known in Roman times and before,
> which gradually coalesced into a new system or systems of
> traction. These improvements were especially beneficial to
> horse traction, where harnessing for all types of work had
> attained considerable sophistication by the medieval era,..."
>
I note the reference to the Romans in the preceding paragraph. It sounds
to me as though the Roman contribution cannot be totally discounted, but
that it was the combination of factors as exploited by the medievals
that brought the horse into the agricultural picture. Possibly we can
now all claim victory, slap each other on the backs and have a party?
As an aside, I mentioned our horsie controversy at the latest DVMA
meeting, and got some commentary from Betsy Bowden at Rutgers. Betsy
does literature, not history, but she's certainly a horse enthusiast,
and one of her claims to fame is that she's been on horseback on six of
the seven continents. A couple years back, Kelly DeVries was lecturing
us on gunpowder weaponry in the later middle ages. Betsy was bouncing up
and down in her seat, and at the first opportunity for questions her
hand shot up. "But what about the horses?" -- Betsy wanted to know. How
did they react to something-or-other.
Without my saying any more about the issue than the fact that it was
under discussion, Betsy guessed that we were debating the efficacy of
the breast strap and came down emphatically on the side of those who
believe it doesn't do much for a horse's breathing when it's under load.
I hope to get the later Langdon book some time this week, the one
published by Brill in 1997 with the Raepsaet essay; if I do, I'll post
the short form. Going by publication date alone, it's certainly "the
last word."
Regards,
Laura Blanchard
lbla...@pobox.upenn.edu
Curt Emanuel
JudyW1917 wrote:
>
> In article <34CE8A...@accs.net>, Curt Emanuel <cema...@accs.net> writes:
>
> >
> And in Hyland's book, _The Medieval Warhorse_, she states that the
> horses
> >used for the Norman invasion were from 14.2-15h and weighed from
> 800-1000
> >lbs. About the same size.
>
> Why is it that they were suitable for use as
> >draft animals?
>
> Well as it is stated in Brancards at Transport - some technological
> developments in other areas emerged. One is the double shaft for wagons - They
> have a long list of parallel technological improvements that make the horse
> more useful.
In other words, you're saying that medieval technological advances made
the horse more useful as a draft and cart animal?
Why in the world have we been arguing about this for two months?
> I suggest
> you order Brancards et Transport for the latest info.
Sure. What's the ordering information? Of course you recently
recommended Spruytte who also agrees that the Romans used an inefficient
harness system (though not _as_ inefficent as Lefebvre says).
But then, maybe you've actually _read_ this one?
Curt Emanuel
Dick Wisan
In article <19980128150...@ladder03.news.aol.com>,
judy...@aol.com says...
>
>In article <34CE8A...@accs.net>,
>Curt Emanuel <cema...@accs.net> writes:
>>
>And in Hyland's book, _The Medieval Warhorse_, she states that the
>horses
>>used for the Norman invasion were from 14.2-15h and weighed from
>800-1000
>>lbs. About the same size.
>
>Why is it that they were suitable for use as
>>draft animals?
>
>
>Well as it is stated in Brancards at Transport - some technological
>developments in other areas emerged. One is the double shaft for wagons
>- They have a long list of parallel technological improvements that make
But the reason the Romans made no such improvements is that they had
no need of them. So, surely the right answer to this question has to
be that they invented some new _needs_, to meet which, inventions and
stronger horses were naturally forthcoming.
--
R. N. (Dick) Wisan - Email: wis...@norwich.net
- Snail: 37 Clinton Street, Oneonta NY 13820, U.S.A.
- Just your opinion, please, ma'am: No fax.
Dick Wisan
In article <mls-280198...@mls.dialup.access.net>, m...@panix.com says...
>
>In article <6aonmi$3...@news1.newsguy.com>, wis...@norwich.net (Dick Wisan)
>wrote:
>
>+But the reason the Romans made no such improvements is that they had
>+no need of them.
>
>That is the most question-begging bit of nonsense I have read in a long
>while.
Good for you. Got it in one. But that's what the lady said, isn't it?
Sfz
> Landon gives eight developments. These are (1) the modern horse harness,
>(2) horse shoes, (3) harnessing in file, (4) whippletrees, (5) traces, (6)
>changes in vehicle design (Langdon includes the double shaft here), (7)
>changes in plough design, and (8) the ever-popular miscellaneous
>developments.
Can someone tell me or provide a reference for:
When did each of these inventions become widespread? And over what
parts of Europe?
Thanks
Steve Zeigler
JudyW1917
>
This is, of course, WRONG, as has been pointed out here
continually. Why
>you keep relying on wrong information
is beyond me. We've given you
>references.
You have the wrong references -- I am telling you that there is new evidence
--\
you are not interested in new evidence or new material -- you are only
interested
in re-itering stuffy from research done 80+ years ago by LdN. Why do you have
such a problem with reading new material on this topic?
Judy
JudyW1917
In article <34CFD3...@pobox.upenn.edu>, Laura Blanchard
<lbla...@pobox.upenn.edu> writes:
>
So who invented the double shafts and came up with the other
technological
>improvements? I don't think I'm out of order in asking for
a little
>reciprocal exchange of information exchange here.
The double shafts were in existance in Roman times -- there is iconographics
evidence for that. At least 2nd Century AD.
Judy
JudyW1917
>
I can't restrain myself from noting that one may conclude
from the above
>that Roman harnessing methods are thought
by Langdon NOT to have attained
>considerable sophistication.
And there are those such as Raepsaet, Rommelaere, Greene etc. who thing
Langdon is wrong.
Put your order in for Brancards et Transports -- it will open your mind to a
whole
group of new ideas and evidence.
Judy
JudyW1917
In article <19980129132...@ladder03.news.aol.com>, s...@aol.com (Sfz)
writes:
>an someone tell me or provide a reference for:
When did each of these
>inventions become widespread? And over what
parts of Europe?
Brancards et Transport attele etnre Seine et Rhine de L'Antiquite au Moyen Age"
It is the papers from a Symposium October 1 & 2 1993. Published by
Centre d'Histoire et de Technologies Rurales, Treignes.
Try this address to order the book: Michel....@wanadoo.fr
Judy
JudyW1917
In article <mls-280198...@mls.dialup.access.net>, m...@panix.com (Michael
L. Siemon) writes:
>
That is the most question-begging bit of nonsense I have read in a
>long
while.
--
Not sure I follow you on that one -- the transport needs where met by the
current system -- they had new developments when new needs arose. What don't
you understand about that?
Judy
JudyW1917
>
In other words, you're saying that medieval technological advances made
the
>horse more useful as a draft and cart animal?
Why in the world have we been
>arguing about this for two month
I am not saying that at all. Shafts for example are a Roman development.
Brancards et Transport also states that the harness did NOT choke the horses --
they had the
breast collar by the 2nd Century AD, There are some archaeological traces
of metal harness fittings such as the Jouguet from Wang which show some unique
developments in Horse harness. etc. etc. You should order the book.
Judy
Paul J. Gans
Michael L. Siemon (m...@panix.com) wrote:
>In article <6aonmi$3...@news1.newsguy.com>, wis...@norwich.net (Dick Wisan)
>wrote:
>+But the reason the Romans made no such improvements is that they had
>+no need of them.
>That is the most question-begging bit of nonsense I have read in a long
>while.
>--
>Michael L. Siemon m...@panix.com
But Michael, you don't understand. Rome was a lot like
Camelot. Everything was regulated, including the weather.
Heavy hauling was just *never* done. Unthinkable. Something
like going to a dance wearing a dirty toga. The heaviest
thing a Roman ever lifted was his or her partner at an orgy.
And I'll not tell you what they really did with those small
horses...
Paul J. Gans
Sfz (s...@aol.com) wrote:
>In article <6aoq8q$e...@panix2.panix.com>, ga...@panix.com (Paul J. Gans) writes:
>> Landon gives eight developments. These are (1) the modern horse harness,
>>(2) horse shoes, (3) harnessing in file, (4) whippletrees, (5) traces, (6)
>>changes in vehicle design (Langdon includes the double shaft here), (7)
>>changes in plough design, and (8) the ever-popular miscellaneous
>>developments.
>Can someone tell me or provide a reference for:
>When did each of these inventions become widespread? And over what
>parts of Europe?
>Thanks
>Steve Zeigler
Well, a number of these are dealt with on the Medieval
Technology Pages...
I've got Langdon, _Horses, Oxen and Techological Innovation_
at hand, so I'll repeat what he has to say.
(1) the modern horse harness: "Although it is not a matter of
certainty, it appears from philological evidence that the
breast-strap harness arrived in Europe at about the sixth
century A.D. From the same evidence the collar-harness
did not appear in the West until two or three centuries
later."
(2) horse shoes: "Archaeological evidence shows that the
horseshoe was known in Roman times, both as a hipposandal
and in the more modern version of a bent strip of iron
nailed to the horse's hoof. There is, however, a puzzling
haitus from the end of the Roman era, when horseshoes fail
to appear in iconographic or literary sources until the
ninth century."
(3) harnessing in file: "As has been indicated, this was
not a noted feature of traction in ancient times, particularly
for horses, for which examples of harnessing in file are
rare before the end of the Roman period. In contrast, during
the medieval period teams arranged in single or double file
were the rule almost everywhere,..." By the way, Langdon
cites des Noettes as a source for this...
(4) whippletrees: "The whipple tree may have been an invention
dating from the prehistoric era, but the point is one of
conjecture. In any case, it seems to have been unknown
in medieval Europe until it first turns up in the twelfth
century Herrad of Landsberg illustration shown in Fig. 6.
Thereafter it becomes a common feature in depictions of
medieval traction, although mainly for horse ploughing."
(5) traces: "The use of rope and leather for harnessing animals
in more complicated fashion than simple yoking became more
and more prevalent in the medieval period."
(6) changes in vehicle design: "Tandem harnessing was seemingly
little known in the ancient European world, although a few
examples of single animals harnessed between shafts do exist
from the later Roman era. However, it was not until well
into the medieval period that double-shafted vehicles and
harnessing in tandem became commonplace. Similarly, spoked
wheels, although certainly well-known in ancient times,
probably did not reach their full potential as load carriers
until the later middle ages.
(7) changes in plough design: "The most important development
here was the spread of the heavy plough in northern Europe
as a replacement for the earlier scratch plough or ard."
[Langdon gives no dates -- the accepted time frame is that
it was known in the Slavic lands in the 5th century AD and
became common in the Rhineland in the 8th. -- PJG]
(8) miscellaneous developments: Langdon mentions improvements
in reins, bits, bridles, new developments (i.e. medieval)
such as cart-saddles and postillions, etc.
It should be noted that other sources give slightly different
dates for some of these.
The important fact to remember is that the word "invention"
does not, in an ancient or medieval context, really mean
"invention". It really means "became commonly used".
Except in very rare cases, we have no idea where or when
anything was actually invented. What we are speaking of is the
time period in which the thing became accepted for general
use. Often some ancilliary technological development makes
general use possible. For instance, iron was certainly known
to the Romans as it was to the early medievals. Yet various
developments made it possible for better and better steels
to be developed and produced in larger and larger quantities.
In this sense, the common availability of iron is a medieval
"invention". This was made possible by a number of developments
such as coke, bellows improvements, water driven hammers, and
furnace design. These together produced a vast improvement
in iron production.
Paul J. Gans
JudyW1917 (judy...@aol.com) wrote:
>>
>This is, of course, WRONG, as has been pointed out here
>continually. Why
>>you keep relying on wrong information
>is beyond me. We've given you
>>references.
>You have the wrong references -- I am telling you that there is new evidence
>--\
>you are not interested in new evidence or new material -- you are only
>interested
>in re-itering stuffy from research done 80+ years ago by LdN. Why do you have
>such a problem with reading new material on this topic?
Judy: I keep giving you references with page numbers to
books OTHER than LdN. Curt has done the same. Why do
you keep talking about LdN?
----- Paul J. Gans [ga...@panix.com]
Paul J. Gans
Judy: I've posted page after page of material from my sources.
I've taken the time to type it in. Could you be prevailed upon
to do the same thing? After all, you are the one claiming
new evidence...
---- Paul J. Gans [ga...@panix.com]
Paul J. Gans
But not much used. See my recent posting. It was almost
as if the Romans did not understand what an advantage they
could be. ;-)
Paul J. Gans
JudyW1917 (judy...@aol.com) wrote:
>In article <mls-280198...@mls.dialup.access.net>, m...@panix.com (Michael
>L. Siemon) writes:
>>
>That is the most question-begging bit of nonsense I have read in a
>>long
>while.
>--
>Not sure I follow you on that one -- the transport needs where met by the
>current system -- they had new developments when new needs arose. What don't
>you understand about that?
She is right. Moving heavy stones wasn't done by the Romans.
Or, to put it better, they used helium balloons to lighten
the load to where their midget horses could handle them -- that
is, if they weren't trampled by giant oxen.
Paul J. Gans
JudyW1917 (judy...@aol.com) wrote:
>In article <19980129132...@ladder03.news.aol.com>, s...@aol.com (Sfz)
>writes:
>>an someone tell me or provide a reference for:
>When did each of these
>>inventions become widespread? And over what
>parts of Europe?
>Brancards et Transport attele etnre Seine et Rhine de L'Antiquite au Moyen Age"
>It is the papers from a Symposium October 1 & 2 1993. Published by
>Centre d'Histoire et de Technologies Rurales, Treignes.
>Try this address to order the book: Michel....@wanadoo.fr
So you CAN'T post anything from the book. I gather you've
not read it either, right?
Dick Wisan
In article <19980129163...@ladder03.news.aol.com>,
judy...@aol.com says...
>
>In article <mls-280198...@mls.dialup.access.net>, m...@panix.com (Michael
>L. Siemon) writes:
>
>>
>That is the most question-begging bit of nonsense I have read in a
>>long
>while.
>--
>
>Not sure I follow you on that one -- the transport needs where met by the
>current system -- they had new developments when new needs arose. What don't
>you understand about that?
>
See? I told you.
Michael L. Siemon
In article <6aqkuh$h...@news3.newsguy.com>, wis...@norwich.net (Dick Wisan)
wrote:
+>Not sure I follow you on that one -- the transport needs where met by the
+>current system -- they had new developments when new needs arose. What don't
+>you understand about that?
+>
+> Judy
+
+See? I told you.
Yep; I must have had my irony-filter ajar when I read your note... :-)
--
Michael L. Siemon m...@panix.com
"Green is the night, green kindled and apparelled.
Laura Blanchard
>
JudyW wrote:
> Brancards et Transport also states that the harness did NOT choke the horses --
> they had the
> breast collar by the 2nd Century AD, There are some archaeological traces
> of metal harness fittings such as the Jouguet from Wang which show some unique
> developments in Horse harness. etc. etc. You should order the book.
>
> Judy
Judy, there's a volume on medieval agriculture out that's based on later
findings than Brancards et Transport. It includes an essay by Raepsaet.
He sounds a lot more tentative in his approach than it appears by your
postings. I will post the bibliographic citation a little later.
Possibly you'd like to be reading the very latest. I found it in the
Penn library, so you probably won't have to e-mail someone in France to
get it.
Regards,
Laura Blanchard
lbla...@pobox.upenn.edu
Curt Emanuel
JudyW1917 wrote:
>
> You should order the book.
>
> Judy
And again, judging from the results of the last effort at chasing down
one of your sources, I'm not about to waste my money.
There's a simpler way - WHAT DOES RAEPSAERT SAY?????
I really don't know how to put it any plainer than that.
Curt Emanuel
Curt Emanuel
JudyW1917 wrote:
>
> In article <19980129132...@ladder03.news.aol.com>, s...@aol.com (Sfz)
> writes:
>
> >an someone tell me or provide a reference for:
> When did each of these
> >inventions become widespread? And over what
> parts of Europe?
>
> Brancards et Transport attele etnre Seine et Rhine de L'Antiquite au Moyen Age"
> It is the papers from a Symposium October 1 & 2 1993. Published by
> Centre d'Histoire et de Technologies Rurales, Treignes.
Well, let's see here. The last reference you gave us was as follows:
Subject: Re: The Myth of Roman Harnessing (Re: Use of Horses (was
Re: Roman roads(w
From: judy...@aol.com (JudyW1917)
Date: 1998/01/04
Message-ID: <19980104143...@ladder01.news.aol.com>
Newsgroups: soc.history.medieval
[More Headers]
In article <68m4iv$e...@panix2.panix.com>, ga...@panix.com (Paul J. Gans)
writes:
>
Good. Could we have a reference?
Try Spryutte 1983 --
Judy
Well, I have Spruytte. Among other things he says, "A 12th century
'document', the Bayeaux Tapestry shows what the knights' war horses were
actually like, and horseshoes from medieval battle-fields confirm the
small stature of the animals." p108
and, "It was not until later on, during the 14th and 15th centuries A.D.
that in Europe there arose an effort to emphasize, through selection and
crossing, the chunky, thick-set type of the draught horse." p111
So that's established - Medieval horses were the same size as Roman.
Spruytte also says, in discussing the weight limits defined by the
Theodosian Code that, "It is clear from reading these texts (the
Theodosian Code - CDE) that the animals were much misused, poorly fed
and overworked; 25% of the stock had annually to be replaced and
ordinary citizens were subjected frequently to extortion by agents for
the Imperial coach or by travellers of high rank.
Six ordinances (nos. 8, 17, 28, 30, 47, 48) regulate the loads of the
different vehicles, and limit to 1500 Roman pounds (492 kg) the maximum
load admissable for the largest vehicles in service (angaria)." p122
So that's established - the Romans abused their horses and the weight
limits in the Theodosian Code were placed specifically for the purpose
of preventing this.
Spruytte also goes to great lengths in describing his experiment with
the loads horses could pull. But he NEVER disputes that Roman harness
was of the girth-and-neck strap model. What he does dispute is the
weights two horses could pull, establishing a limit of 975kg (2145 lbs).
IOTW - the horses could pull their weight. Again, well below what
medieval horses could pull.
So that's established - that even though they were of the same size,
Roman horses couldn't pull as much as Medieval.
>
> Try this address to order the book: Michel....@wanadoo.fr
>
> Judy
I went to some effort to find the last reference you supplied so I could
see if there was any validity to your arguments. And you supplied a
reference that completely reinforces the idea that Romans used their
horses inefficiently. I'm sure as hell not about to waste money buying a
book only to find that it does the same thing all over again.
I will, however, be willing to make an attempt at inter-library loan
again. What's the ISBN # for this book?
Better yet, quote some passages from it. The rest of us have done that
often enough, from a wide variety of sources.
I'm not really wild about doing your work for you. Again.
Curt Emanuel
All quoted passages from:
Spruytte, J. "Early Harness Systems", London, 1983 ISBN# 0851313760
Curt Emanuel
Curt Emanuel
JudyW1917 wrote:
> Put your order in for Brancards et Transports -- it will open your mind to a
> whole
> group of new ideas and evidence.
>
> Judy
Better yet, why don't you give us some quotes from it?
Curt Emanuel
Curt Emanuel
JudyW1917 wrote:
>
> In article <6aoomd$c...@panix2.panix.com>, ga...@panix.com (Paul J. Gans) writes:
>
> >
> This is, of course, WRONG, as has been pointed out here
> continually. Why
> >you keep relying on wrong information
> is beyond me. We've given you
> >references.
>
> You have the wrong references -- I am telling you that there is new evidence
> --\
> you are not interested in new evidence or new material -- you are only
> interested
> in re-itering stuffy from research done 80+ years ago by LdN. Why do you have
> such a problem with reading new material on this topic?
>
> Judy
I doubt if anyone has any problems with it. I read Spruytte, the last
reference you told us to read. Since he basically validates everything
that's been said about the inefficient use of Roman horses, are we to
assume that this discussion is ended?
I had decided to stay out of this discussion until new information
arrived - which I thought would happen with Spruytte. Then I read it and
it completely reinforces the idea that the Roman harness was
inefficient. No new information after all.
I'm not about to waste my time chasing after one of your phantoms again.
Curt Emanuel
McLean1382
JudyW, Doesn't This Trouble You?
Judy will tell us the Romans were neat
Their technology totally fine and complete
Horsecollars weren't wanted, their horses were tiny
(A fact well confirmed in the writings of Pliny)
They'd no call for shifting big cross-country loads
When famine was local they simply ate toads
Whippletrees, traces and stirrups and such
Were not required, they didn't haul much
If they didn't have it, it just wasn't needed
Who needs Penicillin when you can be bleeded?
Will McLean
Jgissw
>From: Curt Emanuel <cema...@accs.net>
>Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 22:59:09 -0600
>Spruytte also says, in discussing the weight limits defined by the
>Theodosian Code that, "It is clear from reading these texts (the
>Theodosian Code - CDE) that the animals were much misused, poorly fed
>and overworked; 25% of the stock had annually to be replaced
>and
>ordinary citizens were subjected frequently to extortion by agents for
>the Imperial coach or by travellers of high rank.
In other words, the reasons for the poor use of horses in the Roman era
would seem to be sociological rather than technological. In a hierarchal
society which has no strong external competitors, the people at the top do not
want the hoi polloi improving relatively by more efficient production methods,
but require that social mobility be due to favor. The people doing the work
have no incentive to produce effectively, or to try to conserve, because the
people in power are likely to seize anything above subsistence level anyhow -
and maybe below, too.
Even if the medieval peasant was bad off, his lord might want to
improve production, or at least no actively oppose it. Of course, there is
always the question of whether a peasant was worse off under Diocletian, or
under, say, King John. There was not, of course, the separation of political
and economic power structures considered ideal in the nineteenth century.
In other words, we have an example of the truism that a culture will
adopt those innovations that fit into its chosen framework.
When these items were 'invented' would seem to be moot.
Cheers
John Wilson
JudyW1917
>I doubt if anyone has any problems with it. I read Spruytte, the
>last
reference you told us to read. Since he basically validates
>everything
that's been said about the inefficient use of Roman horses, are we
>to
assume that this discussion is ended?
I had decided to stay out of this
>discussion until new information
arrived - which I thought would happen with
>Spruytte. Then I read it and
it completely reinforces the idea that the Roman
>harness was
inefficient. No new information after all.
Oddly enought the scholars in the field such Raepsaet, Greene etc. do not
agree with your assessment of Spryutte.
Judy
JudyW1917
>Better yet, why don't you give us some quotes from it?
I am working now on trying to get the OCR for my scanner working.
Judy
JudyW1917
>Six ordinances (nos. 8, 17, 28, 30, 47, 48) regulate the loads of
>the
different vehicles, and limit to 1500 Roman pounds (492 kg) the
>maximum
load admissable for the largest vehicles in service (angaria)." p122
The weight limits did not just apply to horse-drawn vehicles in any
case, but to ox-carts and ridden horses too. And those laws did not just
regulate the weight of individual vehicles and animals, but the sheer
volume of traffic; that is, only a certain number of vehicles were
allowed on any given section of road at any one time.
ISBN =ISBN 0776 72 18
Judy
JudyW1917
>
So you CAN'T post anything from the book. I gather you've
not read it
>either, right?
I have read many of the articles in it - but not all. I am trying to get the
OCR
on my scanner working so I can scan text in -- all I can do now is scan in
TIF images. Also I am having other assorted hardware problems. I will try and
get something done this weekend.
Are you planning to order the book -- I mean surely you will want to read
every page of it.
Judy
JudyW1917
> got Langdon, _Horses, Oxen and Techological Innovation_
at hand, so I'll
>repeat what he has to say.
Here is what Langdon says in Brancards et Transport:
"HARNESSING: Since LdN this has been seen as a major issue in transport and
rightly so. How th animal or animals was connected to the vehicle has always
been an important determinat of how effective a particular transport system
would be. Too much has probably been said about the padded horse-collar, and
the value of jean Spruytte;s work in particular has been to emphasize how older
systems of harenss could function quite capably for horse traction, despite
being reviled by LdN and others."
"Turning to vehicles, this was arguably the greatest success in the ancient
period. The development of a great range of vehicles - carts and wagons - with
spoked wheels, often bound with iron, seems to have provided a range of vehicle
types that were sufficient for a great variety of terrains and economic needs.
The double-shafted vehicle was only of the several innovations in this area.
Altogether a range of vehicles was created that would satisfy the needs of
Eruopean society for the next 1000 years. Technically, the only major issue
left unresolved was the moveable forecarriage for 4-wheeled vehicles."
Judy
Gareth
On 30 Jan 1998, JudyW1917 wrote:
> Oddly enought the scholars in the field such Raepsaet, Greene etc. do not
> agree with your assessment of Spryutte.
I take it you mean "some of the scholars" as opposed to "the scholars" ?
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the case, to decide that just because
some people say something doesn't mean that everybody may agree with them.
____ ____
{ }------------------------------------------------{ }
{ }Gareth Marklew, G.J.M...@durham.ac.uk { }
{ } { }
{ } http://www.dur.ac.uk/~d511kx/ { }
{____}------------------------------------------------{____}
Richardweb
Steve Ziegler asks:
>
>Can someone tell me or provide a reference for:
>When did each of these inventions become widespread? And over what
>parts of Europe?
>
>
This isn't going to be so easy. Langdon, Astill and Myrdal, in their
introduction to _Medieval Farming and Technology: The Impact of Agricultural
Change in Northwest Europe_ (Brill, 1997), have this to say:
"Thus, in recent years, the problem has shifted away form the question of
whether rural societies in medieval Europe could innovate successfully--they
clearly could in certain circumstances--to one of the motivation to do so.What
would cause one area to increase productivity, while another close by would
seem content to stick resolutely to traditional means?" From the context I
infer that the "areas" referred to here are relatively small.
Raepsaet, in another essay in this volume that I cited in a post last night,
comments: "However practical and wide in its scope, our approach is faced with
numerous methodological difficulties. Documents are scattered, incomplete, and
often second-hand, and the raditional method of comparing various periods of
time is inadequate for our purposes, if only because of discrepancies in the
evidence..."
<snip sentences about the plow as an example and some comments about setting
implements in context of socio-economic structures>
"The incompleteness of oursources, especially for antiquity, means we cannot
hope for anything better than approximations and must seek to cross-check our
hypotheses. However, the situation is not hopeless: as Grenville Astill and
Janken Myrdal show in this volume, archaeology is a 'very helpful source' and
recent research also demonstrates its rich potential for the study of
antiquity. Iconography must be incorporated into our work, and the usual
distrust of illustrations must be replaced by an appropriate methodology, for
medieval church paintings or the Roman bas-reliefs in Trier possess as much
historical value as a demesne book."
I've included the Raepsaet quotation because it is such a good illustration of
the complexities of the issues we're discussing here, which makes a good deal
of our previous debate seem like a gross oversimplification. The reality of the
state of current research may present us with a lot of ambiguities now, and no
clear cut answers, but it's infinitely more interesting than deciding whether
to put a white hat or a black hat on poor old Lefebvre des Noettes.
Regards,
Laura Blanchard
richa...@aol.com
Richardweb
Judy has quoted some Langdon here and I'm interspersing some comments:
>Too much has probably been said about the padded horse-collar, and
>the value of jean Spruytte;s work in particular has been to emphasize how
>older
>systems of harenss could function quite capably for horse traction, despite
>being reviled by LdN and others."
Lefebvre des Noettes says that horses could handle light loads just fine with
the older system of harness:
"Le systeme antique peut etre appplique, and dressage prealable a n'importe
quels chevaux de trait et permet la conduite a toutes les allures, de la meme
facon que le systeme moderne <i>pour la traction de poids legers.</i> [The
ancient system can be applied,
without preparation beforehand, to any harness horse and permits driving as
fast as possible, in the same manner as modern harness, <I> for the pulling of
light weights</I>.]
Spruytte's experiments indicated that the horses could pull heavier weights
that Lefebvre's, but his too indicated that the horses experienced distress as
the weight was increased.
Raepsaet (1997) calls for a re-evaluation of ancient harness but concedes that
under traction it "imposes some constraints." He adds that this was not a
porblem for the light carts, judged to carry a maximum load of half a ton.
So we're back where we started, with th notation that Lefebvre was a little
too extreme: ancient harness caused a problem for horses hauling heavy loads,
and we've seen no evidence yet to demonstrate that Roman horses were any
smaller than medieval horses.
>
>"Turning to vehicles, this was arguably the greatest success in the ancient
>period. The development of a great range of vehicles - carts and wagons -
>with
>spoked wheels, often bound with iron, seems to have provided a range of
>vehicle
>types that were sufficient for a great variety of terrains and economic
>needs.
[good stuff snipped for brevity]
>
This is very nice but irrelevant. The issue isn't how advanced the Roman wagons
were, but what manner of beast was pulling them.
Regards,
Laura Blanchard
richa...@aol.com
D. Spencer Hines
"I've included the Raepsaet quotation because it is such a good illustration
of the complexities of the issues we're discussing here, which makes a good
deal of our previous debate seem like a gross oversimplification. The
reality of the state of current research may present us with a lot of
ambiguities now, and no clear cut answers, but it's infinitely more
interesting than deciding whether to put a white hat or a black hat on poor
old Lefebvre des Noettes."
Laura Blanchard
Yes, that's true --- as far as it goes. Unfortunately, Laura has a
clear-cut agenda and is not an unbiased source herself. Clearly, one of her
principal motives is the help her good buddy Gans out of a terrible
scholarly
swamp he has fallen into --- one largely of his own making. For example,
she wants to expunge any discussion of improvements in Roman cartage as
"irrelevant" --- thereby restricting our field of view to just those topics
in her prepackaged duffel bag.
We shall also see if Mr. Gans hung entirely too much of his argument on
Richard Lefebvre de Noettes and his book, which he appears never to have
read. Gans appears to have focused on the horse collar in a tunnel-vision
fashion and neglected other innovations in transport that were equally
important.
Laura's statement above, referring to "the reality of the state of current
research may present us with a lot of ambiguities now, and no clear cut
answers" may well be true, but Gans would not admit it. Judy Weller is
still trying to get him to move off the dime and look at new evidence. But
he refuses, gets testy again and "loses it" rather than move beyond the 1910
experiments of Lefebvre de Noettes to examine the new evidence in a spirit
of clear-minded, unbiased, no-previous-agenda Scientific and Historical
inquiry.
Perhaps the new text from Spruytte and the images that Judy is attempting
to post will finally get him to take off the horse blinders that are
severely restricting and clouding his vision and look 360 degrees to the
horizon. I hope that one can teach an old horse new tricks, but perhaps
not.
D. Spencer Hines
--
"Well, that's what I mean. You know, if all the people who are named
...deny it....That's all, I mean, I expect them to come looking into it and
interview you and everything, uh, but I just think that if everybody's on
record denying it you've got no problem.....I wonder if I'm going to be
blown out of the water with this. I don't see how they can...if they don't,
if they don't have pictures."
Governor Bill Clinton --- Telephonic Advice to Gennifer Flowers [1991]
Paul J. Gans
Jgissw (jgi...@aol.com) wrote:
: >From: Curt Emanuel <cema...@accs.net>
I fully agree with the thrust of this. The "causes" for the
acceptance of a given technological development are not well-
understood. I don't know if the Roman resistance to technological
innovation was due to hierarchy or not -- I leave that to the
Romanists. But it is historically clear that western Europe
went from essentially nowhere in 500 AD to the leading technological
power in the world by 1500 AD. In doing so they surpassed
older and more developed cultures that began 'way ahead and
stayed 'way ahead for centuries. Why this happened is not known.
But that it did happen is certain.
------ Paul J. Gans [ga...@scholar.chem.nyu.edu]
David Read
>Well, I have Spruytte. Among other things he says, "A 12th century
>'document', the Bayeaux Tapestry shows what the knights' war horses were
>actually like, and horseshoes from medieval battle-fields confirm the
>small stature of the animals." p108
>
>and, "It was not until later on, during the 14th and 15th centuries A.D.
>that in Europe there arose an effort to emphasize, through selection and
>crossing, the chunky, thick-set type of the draught horse." p111
>
>So that's established - Medieval horses were the same size as Roman.
So let's contrast the above with what Ann Hyland says in "The Medieval
Warhorse", using what appears to be the same evidence.
"An extremely rough guide to the European type is shown on the Bayeux
Tapestry - a medium-sized animal of approximately 14.2-15hh, with no
particular distinguishing features, other than hinting that it was
fairly stocky. Evidence for the size I have comes from a multitude of
Norman horseshoes.... The size of the Norman shoes indicates the horses
were not of any very great weight, as hooves of this size - rear shoes
4.5 in wide by 4.75 in long (112.8 by 119 mm); front shoes 4.5 in wide
by 5 in long (112.8 by 127mm) - would not not be up to the burden of a
heavy horse, but more akin to an animal 800 to 1,000 lb (360 - 455 kg).
Such an animal is able to carry a considerable weight." p85-86
So Spruytte says "small stature", Hyland says "medium-sized" and "fairly
stocky".
You pays yer money and you takes yer choice.
"The Medieval Warhorse" is subtitled "From Byuzantium to the Crusades",
so we cannot get Hyland's opinion of 14th-15th century horses from that
source. However, as I have posted before, Hyland is quite clear that the
archaeological record shows that breeding for _heavier conformation_
began in the ninth and tenth centuries. This is not to suggest that
horses approaching the proportions of modern Percherons or Clydesdales
were being bred this early, but that a _heavier conformation_ than had
_previously_ been valued was now being actively sought.
>
>Spruytte also says, in discussing the weight limits defined by the
>Theodosian Code that, "It is clear from reading these texts (the
>Theodosian Code - CDE) that the animals were much misused, poorly fed
>and overworked; 25% of the stock had annually to be replaced and
>ordinary citizens were subjected frequently to extortion by agents for
>the Imperial coach or by travellers of high rank.
> Six ordinances (nos. 8, 17, 28, 30, 47, 48) regulate the loads of the
>different vehicles, and limit to 1500 Roman pounds (492 kg) the maximum
>load admissable for the largest vehicles in service (angaria)." p122
>
>So that's established - the Romans abused their horses and the weight
>limits in the Theodosian Code were placed specifically for the purpose
>of preventing this.
What is established that the Romans tended to abuse _other peoples'
property_, in this case, the property of the State. Naturally the State,
through legislation, attempted to prevent this abuse. Thus, those who
would make use of the Imperial Post had to pay for the privilege, and
would try to get the most out of their money that they possibly could.
The overloading of animals did not just apply to the state-owned horses,
but the state-owned oxen.
Who would buy an ex-Hertz rental car without looking at it very
carefully ?
If the animals were indeed underfed, we can be reasonably sure it was
not deliberate State policy. But there might be very good reasons to
suppose that the animals were just as susceptible as the human
population to seasons of fast or famine, and seasons of plenty. And it
would also be reasonable to assume that the feeding of grain to the
cart-horses of the Imperial Post took second place to the limited amount
of grain produced by primitive agriculture to feed the army, the cavalry
and the civilian population at large.
And then there was the endemic corruption of increasingly poorly paid
minor officialdom to throw into the equation too.
>
>Spruytte also goes to great lengths in describing his experiment with
>the loads horses could pull. But he NEVER disputes that Roman harness
>was of the girth-and-neck strap model. What he does dispute is the
>weights two horses could pull, establishing a limit of 975kg (2145 lbs).
>
>IOTW - the horses could pull their weight. Again, well below what
>medieval horses could pull.
>
>So that's established - that even though they were of the same size,
>Roman horses couldn't pull as much as Medieval.
The same size ? Which particular breed of horse is being compared with
what ? Thick-bodied ponies used to harsh conditions and hard work ?
Pampered cavalry steeds from the Royal or Imperial studs ? Somewhere in
between ? Horses from France, horses from Spain, horses from Syria,
horses from Africa ?
Where are the tests on oxen, that show how inefficient or otherwise that
the Roman yoke was ? Do the tests provide for steep gradients, both up
and down hill, using heavy and light loads, that would have been found
on the Roman network ? Do they measure how far a given load could travel
in a day, or a week or a month ? The Roman system would involve regular
changes of teams to provide fresh animals for each leg of the journey.
Is that more, or less efficient than a long overland haul during the
Middle Ages ?
Have Spruytte or Des Noettes addressed these issues ?
cheers,
--
David Read "The French planned their campaigns just as you might make
a splendid piece of harness; it looks very well until it
gets broken and then you are done for. Now I make my
campaigns of ropes. If anything went wrong, I tied a knot
and went on."
The Duke of Wellington 1769-1852
David Read
In article <6aqksp$8...@panix2.panix.com>, "Paul J. Gans"
<ga...@panix.com> writes
>She is right. Moving heavy stones wasn't done by the Romans.
>Or, to put it better, they used helium balloons to lighten
>the load to where their midget horses could handle them -- that
>is, if they weren't trampled by giant oxen.
Actually, the way they moved heavy stones by land was ingenious, if not
quite as imaginative as the, umm, Swiftian or Munchausen method
described above.
David Read
In article <6aqk13$6...@panix2.panix.com>, "Paul J. Gans"
<ga...@panix.com> writes
<interesting stuff snipped>
>The important fact to remember is that the word "invention"
>does not, in an ancient or medieval context, really mean
>"invention". It really means "became commonly used".
>Except in very rare cases, we have no idea where or when
>anything was actually invented. What we are speaking of is the
>time period in which the thing became accepted for general
>use.
I just love the above. Is it your "invention" or is it in the sources ?
It appears to be a great get-out clause for almost everything dicussed
so far, and actually I have a great deal of sympathy with the idea. Even
if any of us _do_ accept that the heavy horse-collar, or the double
shaft, or the breast-strap or the Y-strap were known in the ancient
world, the fact remains that they are all greatly under-represented in
the (mostly pictorial or sculptural) record.
We might be able to put put all or some of them down to over-imaginative
interpretations of what is actually being shown, but than that would
also apply to descriptions of the by now surely infamous 800 A.D. Trier
illumination as a "horse-collar", or ancient chariot-horses with bulging
eyes as being throttled.
The question for me is, if any or all of the above items existed in
Roman times, why are they so rarely found in comparison with the more
usual pictures of neck and girth straps, with yoke ? I'm particularly
intrigued by the horse-collar of Trier of 146 A.D. This sculpture seems
to be the key pointer to the fact that instead of comparing what was
going on in medieval northern Europe with the entire Roman Empire,
medieval northern Europe can only be compared with what was going on in
Roman northern Europe. The Roman horse-collar of Trier perhaps only then
assumes its real significance.
cheers,
David Read
In article <19980128150...@ladder02.news.aol.com>, JudyW1917
<judy...@aol.com> writes
>Not at all -- Horses were small and not able to pull the heavy loads that
>oxen could pullt. The harness that the Roman used worked well for their horses
>and was used into the early middle ages in many places.
Which horses were small ? There were all sort of variations then, during
the Middle Ages and now.
David Read
In article <6aoq8q$e...@panix2.panix.com>, "Paul J. Gans"
<ga...@panix.com> writes
>Landon gives eight developments. These are (1) the modern
>horse harness, (2) horse shoes, (3) harnessing in file,
>(4) whippletrees, (5) traces, (6) changes in vehicle design
>(Langdon includes the double shaft here), (7) changes in
>plough design, and (8) the ever-popular miscellaneous developments.
>
>I quote Langdon (p 16) "When taken together, the innovations
>and inventions listed above considerably increased the effectiveness
>of animal power in the Middle Ages. The point here is not to
>look at any one development, such as the modern collar harness,
>as being crucial. Rather there was a while series of
>improvements, some of them known in Roman times and before,
>which gradually coalesced into a new system or systems of
>traction. These improvements were especially beneficial to
>horse traction, where harnessing for all types of work had
>attained considerable sophistication by the medieval era,..."
>
>I can't restrain myself from noting that one may conclude
>from the above that Roman harnessing methods are thought
>by Langdon NOT to have attained considerable sophistication.
Quite right. At least Langdon doesn't seem to want to describe it as a
"Revolution."
Paul J. Gans
JudyW1917 (judy...@aol.com) wrote:
: In article <6aqk13$6...@panix2.panix.com>, ga...@panix.com (Paul J. Gans) writes:
:
: > got Langdon, _Horses, Oxen and Techological Innovation_
: at hand, so I'll
: >repeat what he has to say.
:
:
: Here is what Langdon says in Brancards et Transport:
:
: "HARNESSING: Since LdN this has been seen as a major issue in transport and
: rightly so. How th animal or animals was connected to the vehicle has always
: been an important determinat of how effective a particular transport system
: the value of jean Spruytte;s work in particular has been to emphasize how older
: systems of harenss could function quite capably for horse traction, despite
: being reviled by LdN and others."
: "Turning to vehicles, this was arguably the greatest success in the ancient
: period. The development of a great range of vehicles - carts and wagons - with
: types that were sufficient for a great variety of terrains and economic needs.
: Altogether a range of vehicles was created that would satisfy the needs of
: Eruopean society for the next 1000 years. Technically, the only major issue
: left unresolved was the moveable forecarriage for 4-wheeled vehicles."
:
: Judy
I think this a bit misleading. Langdon, Raepsaet, and others
have emphasized development was continuous during the period
after the Roman Empire. But that the full utilization of the
horse in haulage did not come until a number of things had
been developed, including the horse collar.
Assuming that you agree that this is what is being said, I
think that you will agree that if full utilization came *later*,
earlier utilization was not FULL.
I'm still waiting for my copy of Spruytte, but from what
others have said (including Langdon), he finds that horses
harnessed with the sort of harness LdN used were capable
of hauling more of a load.
That's fine and I'll accept it, though we cannot know what
horses were used. If, to put it in the extreme, Spruytte
used a percheron, I'd say the dice were loaded. Now, don't
get hot and bothered, I know he didn't use a percheron. But
did he use one of those small Roman horses you are always
talking about?
------- Paul J. Gans [ga...@panix.com]
Curt Emanuel
I'm not sure there's _anything_ to be gained from wondering what
Spruytte meant by "small-statured" as compared to Hyland's
"medium-sized."
>
> "The Medieval Warhorse" is subtitled "From Byuzantium to the Crusades",
> so we cannot get Hyland's opinion of 14th-15th century horses from that
> source. However, as I have posted before, Hyland is quite clear that the
> archaeological record shows that breeding for _heavier conformation_
> began in the ninth and tenth centuries. This is not to suggest that
> horses approaching the proportions of modern Percherons or Clydesdales
> were being bred this early, but that a _heavier conformation_ than had
> _previously_ been valued was now being actively sought.
Hyland is also quite clear when she says, "The European warhorse had not
yet developed into the increasingly heavy destrier of the later medieval
era." p85
At least it's clear to me that she's saying that horses had not begun to
increase in size or, if they had, that the increase was minimal.
She also says, speaking of early European stock, "This makes sense when
one takes into consideration other evidence, including finds of bone,
literary allusions, grave goods, and cave paintings which show a refined
animal of considerable size. Occasionally a historian or general passed
a comment which was recorded: Julius Caesar had an adverse opinion of
Germanic horses, which he considered inferior and ill-favoured, but
commented favorably on the Gauls' delight in draught horses. These
sidelights are useful in confirming certain features, especially as we
know that the Romans admired size in their animals. The Germans,
although good horsemen, rode small horses; Caesar's 'inferior' can be
accepted as meaning of small stature, because 'ill-favoured' obviously
meant of poor conformation. The Gallic draught horses denote a larger,
heavier breed. Throughout the Roman era, horses were frequently acquired
from conquered and annexed territories where ethnic cavalry units were
raised. The countries featuring most strongly after Gaul itself were
Spain, Thrace and Pannonia, all with strong equestrian backgrounds . .
." p3
From the above, it appears to me that the Romans had little difficulty
in finding horses of substantial size, and that there is absolutely no
evidence that Roman horses were any smaller than Early or High Medieval
horses.
It's also interesting to note that she says, "According to
archaeologists using bone deposits from Avar, Magyr and Germanic
burials, it was among the Germanic and also some Avar peoples that
selective breeding for heavier conformation began in the ninth and tenth
centuries." p58
These Germanic horses were the same ones the Romans found inferior due
to their small stature. I don't think the fact that breeding the
smallest horses in Europe (small by Roman standards) to become larger
can be taken as evidence that horses as a whole became larger - just
that the Germans were smart enough to try to catch up to everyone else.
>
>
> >
> >Spruytte also says, in discussing the weight limits defined by the
> >Theodosian Code that, "It is clear from reading these texts (the
> >Theodosian Code - CDE) that the animals were much misused, poorly fed
> >and overworked; 25% of the stock had annually to be replaced and
> >ordinary citizens were subjected frequently to extortion by agents for
> >the Imperial coach or by travellers of high rank.
> > Six ordinances (nos. 8, 17, 28, 30, 47, 48) regulate the loads of the
> >different vehicles, and limit to 1500 Roman pounds (492 kg) the maximum
> >load admissable for the largest vehicles in service (angaria)." p122
> >
> >So that's established - the Romans abused their horses and the weight
> >limits in the Theodosian Code were placed specifically for the purpose
> >of preventing this.
>
> What is established that the Romans tended to abuse _other peoples'
> property_, in this case, the property of the State. Naturally the State,
> through legislation, attempted to prevent this abuse. Thus, those who
> would make use of the Imperial Post had to pay for the privilege, and
> would try to get the most out of their money that they possibly could.
> The overloading of animals did not just apply to the state-owned horses,
> but the state-owned oxen.
OK, so the Romans abused their oxen as well.
> >
> >Spruytte also goes to great lengths in describing his experiment with
> >the loads horses could pull. But he NEVER disputes that Roman harness
> >was of the girth-and-neck strap model. What he does dispute is the
> >weights two horses could pull, establishing a limit of 975kg (2145 lbs).
> >
> >IOTW - the horses could pull their weight. Again, well below what
> >medieval horses could pull.
> >
> >So that's established - that even though they were of the same size,
> >Roman horses couldn't pull as much as Medieval.
>
> The same size ? Which particular breed of horse is being compared with
> what ? Thick-bodied ponies used to harsh conditions and hard work ?
> Pampered cavalry steeds from the Royal or Imperial studs ? Somewhere in
> between ? Horses from France, horses from Spain, horses from Syria,
> horses from Africa ?
<Deep sigh> It's very possible that Spruytte used much larger horses
than Lefebvre and this is why his experiment yielded the difference in
weight pulled rather than any fault of Lefebvre. That's impossible to
say as neither of them listed the weight of their horses. So yes, the
Roman harness may be as inefficient as Lefebvre said.
>
> Where are the tests on oxen, that show how inefficient or otherwise that
> the Roman yoke was ?
I really don't think we want to get into medieval improvements in the ox
yoke.
> Do the tests provide for steep gradients, both up
> and down hill, using heavy and light loads, that would have been found
> on the Roman network ? Do they measure how far a given load could travel
> in a day, or a week or a month ? The Roman system would involve regular
> changes of teams to provide fresh animals for each leg of the journey.
> Is that more, or less efficient than a long overland haul during the
> Middle Ages ?
>
> Have Spruytte or Des Noettes addressed these issues ?
Not all. Who does? If you're saying that the Roman harness was
inefficient, but that they could make up for it through superior
organization, then yes, I agree with you.
Curt Emanuel
Laura Blanchard
David Read wrote:
> However, as I have posted before, Hyland is quite clear that the
> archaeological record shows that breeding for _heavier conformation_
> began in the ninth and tenth centuries. This is not to suggest that
> horses approaching the proportions of modern Percherons or Clydesdales
> were being bred this early, but that a _heavier conformation_ than had
> _previously_ been valued was now being actively sought.
>
Hyland may indeed say this. I just posted (last night) a lengthy excerpt
from an essay from another scholar suggesting that such breeding did not
begin until the fourteenth century or after. It's on the Raepsaet thread
that doesn't say anything about Rommelare -- I forget what I titled it.
Regards,
Laura Blanchard
lbla...@pobox.upenn.edu
Laura Blanchard
Paul Gans wrote:
> Langdon, Raepsaet, and others
> have emphasized development was continuous during the period
> after the Roman Empire. But that the full utilization of the
> horse in haulage did not come until a number of things had
> been developed, including the horse collar.
>
In the case of Raepsaet, or at least in the case of the essay from the
1997 volume, which so far as I know is the latest word in book form, I'm
not sure what he's arguing. As he states in the second paragraph, "The
aim [of this paper, I suspect--LB] is not to claim continuity where
breaks had previously existed, or to replace revolutions by periods of
gradual transition, but to establish a number of technological facts in
both a synchronic and diachronic perspective. As the essays in this
collection demonstrate, there are innumerable technological improvements
and variants according to period, geographical location, and context."
He goes on to say that the traditional model can be deconstructed but
that there is no new paradigm (or even several paradigms) to replace it.
I suspect his position makes good sense: that researchers should be
entering into a period where they worry less about what the paradigm is
than how they can collect additional data -- and then how it can be
evaluated.
Regards,
Laura Blanchard
lbla...@pobox.upenn.edu
Curt Emanuel
JudyW1917 wrote:
>
> In article <34D160...@accs.net>, Curt Emanuel <cema...@accs.net> writes:
>
> >I doubt if anyone has any problems with it. I read Spruytte, the
> >last
> reference you told us to read. Since he basically validates
> >everything
> that's been said about the inefficient use of Roman horses, are we
> >to
> assume that this discussion is ended?
>
> I had decided to stay out of this
> >discussion until new information
> arrived - which I thought would happen with
> >Spruytte. Then I read it and
> >harness was
> inefficient. No new information after all.
>
> agree with your assessment of Spryutte.
>
And what, exactly do they say that he brings to the table regarding
harness that wasn't there before? (other than the strangulation issue)
And then there are the following quotes from Spruytte which have me
absolutely flummoxed:
"The first conclusion to be drawn is that a harness of this type,
although less appropriate than modern horizontal breast-collar harness
with traces, is in no way a hindrance to traction." p99
In the same sentence he says that the modern harness is better, but it
makes no difference in hauling. An impeccably logical conclusion.
And then there's this little gem: "It is, moreover, only towards the
10th an 11th centuries A.D. that users of draught animals began to feel
that pulling power depended upon the weight of the animal, since it is
only from this period that illustrated documents show big collars and
heavy harness designed to augment the weight of the animals
artificially." p105
Now, I have no problem with him saying that people thought larger
animals could pull heavier loads than small ones. But according to
Spruytte, the sole reason for heavy harness was to weigh the animals
down so they could work more efficiently as they would have suddenly
become larger "artificially."
No, I'm not making this up.
I think people in the medieval period knew that carrying weight was
harder than not, and that doing so would make an animal's job harder,
not easier. It doesn't seem to be such a difficult concept that we had
to await Fermi and Einstein, or even Newton to figure it out.
Of course maybe there was a widespread incidence of Down's Syndrome
during the 10th and 11th century, or perhaps the medievals liked to
enjoy tasty desserts of the chips from lead-based paint, but I don't
know anyone who would otherwise follow this amazing bit of logic.
Why not just hang hundred-pound bags of sand over the animal's withers?
It's a lot easier, to say nothing of cheaper.
Well, it's certainly "new information."
Curt Emanuel
Curt Emanuel
David Read wrote:
(Much snipped)
>
> The question for me is, if any or all of the above items existed in
> Roman times, why are they so rarely found in comparison with the more
> usual pictures of neck and girth straps, with yoke ? I'm particularly
> intrigued by the horse-collar of Trier of 146 A.D. This sculpture seems
> to be the key pointer to the fact that instead of comparing what was
> going on in medieval northern Europe with the entire Roman Empire,
> medieval northern Europe can only be compared with what was going on in
> Roman northern Europe. The Roman horse-collar of Trier perhaps only then
> assumes its real significance.
Is this the same one as SENECA has on his web pages? If so, then
Spruytte has at least cleared that up for me. I have to admit that it
looked like a horse-collar to me, but the position was all wrong.
Spruytte shows the same picture, but it is much clearer, to where I can
see the cart shafts. There are two other pictures of similar harness
systems.
In fact, what is shown is a neck collar, which is depicted in the
correct position, to which the shafts of a two-shaft wheeled vehicle are
directly attached. It is, by design, nothing like the horse-collar and
would place pressure directly on the animal's neck and throat. However
it appears to have been adequate for light hauling.
The pictures are on pages 128-129(plate 35).
Now if that's not the sculpture you're referring to, then I've just
wasted a bunch of electrons for nothing :-).
Curt Emanuel
Curt Emanuel
Curt Emanuel wrote:
>
> Hyland is also quite clear when she says, "The European warhorse had not
> yet developed into the increasingly heavy destrier of the later medieval
> era." p85
My apologies - I should have mentioned that all of my quotes in the
previous post come from Ann Hyland's _The Medieval Warhorse_.
Curt Emanuel
Paul J. Gans
David Read (da...@dreadful.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>In article <6aqksp$8...@panix2.panix.com>, "Paul J. Gans"
><ga...@panix.com> writes
>>She is right. Moving heavy stones wasn't done by the Romans.
>>Or, to put it better, they used helium balloons to lighten
>>the load to where their midget horses could handle them -- that
>>is, if they weren't trampled by giant oxen.
>Actually, the way they moved heavy stones by land was ingenious, if not
>quite as imaginative as the, umm, Swiftian or Munchausen method
>described above.
Thanks David. Are you intent on being as non-substantive
as some others? Or just teasing.
We all know they had the slaves carry them. :-)
------ Paul J. Gans [ga...@panix.com]
Paul J. Gans
David Read (da...@dreadful.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>In article <6aqk13$6...@panix2.panix.com>, "Paul J. Gans"
><ga...@panix.com> writes
><interesting stuff snipped>
>>The important fact to remember is that the word "invention"
>>does not, in an ancient or medieval context, really mean
>>"invention". It really means "became commonly used".
>>Except in very rare cases, we have no idea where or when
>>anything was actually invented. What we are speaking of is the
>>time period in which the thing became accepted for general
>>use.
>I just love the above. Is it your "invention" or is it in the sources ?
I guess you are having fun baiting me. And I've been fool enough
to rise to it. If I ever used the term "invented the horse
collar", I apologize. I certainly did not use it often. It
does not occur on my infamous web page devoted to the horse
collar. I wrote the above because some folks have assumed
that I've been talking about invention.
>It appears to be a great get-out clause for almost everything dicussed
>so far, and actually I have a great deal of sympathy with the idea.
No kidding. We have essentially no dates for the actual
invention of anything prior to the 14th century and darned
few even then. As I've said before, by the time something
shows up in written or iconographic material, it has
possibly been around for a while.
>Even
>if any of us _do_ accept that the heavy horse-collar, or the double
>shaft, or the breast-strap or the Y-strap were known in the ancient
>world, the fact remains that they are all greatly under-represented in
>the (mostly pictorial or sculptural) record.
Gee David, I guess you are finally getting the point. Yes,
they are under-represented. And the representations that
exist, if any, are ambiguous, at least for the horse collar and the
breast strap. Thus is is quite possible that they were
not known then. Certainly were not in common use.
>We might be able to put put all or some of them down to over-imaginative
>interpretations of what is actually being shown, but than that would
>also apply to descriptions of the by now surely infamous 800 A.D. Trier
>illumination as a "horse-collar", or ancient chariot-horses with bulging
>eyes as being throttled.
>The question for me is, if any or all of the above items existed in
>Roman times, why are they so rarely found in comparison with the more
>usual pictures of neck and girth straps, with yoke ? I'm particularly
>intrigued by the horse-collar of Trier of 146 A.D. This sculpture seems
>to be the key pointer to the fact that instead of comparing what was
>going on in medieval northern Europe with the entire Roman Empire,
>medieval northern Europe can only be compared with what was going on in
>Roman northern Europe. The Roman horse-collar of Trier perhaps only then
>assumes its real significance.
You've dropped the point again. Things are invented all
the time. Often, they do not catch on and are not used.
Or sometimes there are economic reasons. The fact
remains that the horsecollar evidence is considered by all
of Judy's references (and mine) to be not good before 800
or so AD. Now it isn't my job to explain this. I have
no problem with it -- I bow to the experts on the issue.
Don't *ever* assume that because something was used somewhere
at one time, that it must therefore have been used everywhere.
This simply isn't true.
Paul J. Gans
David Read (da...@dreadful.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>In article <6aoq8q$e...@panix2.panix.com>, "Paul J. Gans"
><ga...@panix.com> writes
>>Landon gives eight developments. These are (1) the modern
>>horse harness, (2) horse shoes, (3) harnessing in file,
>>(4) whippletrees, (5) traces, (6) changes in vehicle design
>>(Langdon includes the double shaft here), (7) changes in
>>plough design, and (8) the ever-popular miscellaneous developments.
>>
>>I quote Langdon (p 16) "When taken together, the innovations
>>and inventions listed above considerably increased the effectiveness
>>of animal power in the Middle Ages. The point here is not to
>>look at any one development, such as the modern collar harness,
>>as being crucial. Rather there was a while series of
>>improvements, some of them known in Roman times and before,
>>which gradually coalesced into a new system or systems of
>>traction. These improvements were especially beneficial to
>>horse traction, where harnessing for all types of work had
>>attained considerable sophistication by the medieval era,..."
>>
>>I can't restrain myself from noting that one may conclude
>>from the above that Roman harnessing methods are thought
>>by Langdon NOT to have attained considerable sophistication.
>Quite right. At least Langdon doesn't seem to want to describe it as a
>"Revolution."
Did *I* ever describe it as a revolution? Or are you
having fun inventing things to knock down?
Baiting again?
-------- Paul J. Gans [ga...@panix.com]
Paul J. Gans
David, you are baiting again...
David Read (da...@dreadful.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>In article <34D277...@accs.net>, Curt Emanuel <cema...@accs.net>
>writes
>>
>>I'm not sure there's _anything_ to be gained from wondering what
>>Spruytte meant by "small-statured" as compared to Hyland's
>>"medium-sized."
>In which case there was no need to post the extract from Spruytte
>claiming that Norman horses were of "small stature" in the first place,
>other than to show that Medieval horses were no larger than Roman ones,
>(whatever that means). The quote from Hyland throws is for balance;
>whether these are subjective assessments by Hyland or Spruytte I have no
>idea.
Right. Bait away. This thread exists in a vacuum and the
possibility that there are others here who have made claims
about what Spruytte said have not occured to you, right?
>>Hyland is also quite clear when she says, "The European warhorse had not
>>yet developed into the increasingly heavy destrier of the later medieval
>>era." p85
>Indeed.
>>At least it's clear to me that she's saying that horses had not begun to
>>increase in size or, if they had, that the increase was minimal.
>I'm not so sure. She also says how a heavier conformation in horses was
>an important consideration in the development of shock-cavalry, that is
>knights using the couched lance. How important the spillover from
>military studs into producing animals with heavier conformation for
>agricultural work is not clear, (although we know it was part of the
>Carolingian system), but it would seem to be a part of a process that
>developed with the growing importance in warfare of the mounted knight.
Right. You have, of course, not seen any of the other
evidence posted in this thread about horse size, right?
Or you have seen it and just want to provoke another
argument. Shock cavalary, in all likelyhood, comes
MUCH too late to count here. The horsecollar arrived
in the West several hundred years BEFORE lances were
regularly couched.
>>She also says, speaking of early European stock, "This makes sense when
>>one takes into consideration other evidence, including finds of bone,
>>literary allusions, grave goods, and cave paintings which show a refined
>>animal of considerable size.
>> Occasionally a historian or general passed
>>a comment which was recorded: Julius Caesar had an adverse opinion of
>>Germanic horses, which he considered inferior and ill-favoured, but
>>commented favorably on the Gauls' delight in draught horses. These
>>sidelights are useful in confirming certain features, especially as we
>>know that the Romans admired size in their animals. The Germans,
>>although good horsemen, rode small horses; Caesar's 'inferior' can be
>>accepted as meaning of small stature, because 'ill-favoured' obviously
>>meant of poor conformation. The Gallic draught horses denote a larger,
>>heavier breed. Throughout the Roman era, horses were frequently acquired
>>from conquered and annexed territories where ethnic cavalry units were
>>raised. The countries featuring most strongly after Gaul itself were
>>Spain, Thrace and Pannonia, all with strong equestrian backgrounds . .
>>." p3
>>
>>From the above, it appears to me that the Romans had little difficulty
>>in finding horses of substantial size, and that there is absolutely no
>>evidence that Roman horses were any smaller than Early or High Medieval
>>horses.
>The especially suited draught animals have been noted by Caesar as
>coming from Gaul; Caesar travelled and campaigned throughout the Roman
>world and would have been familiar with all the variations in horse-
>stock, yet it is the Gallic horses that attract his particular attention
>as good draught animals. Now, what was it that made the Celtic horses of
>north-west Europe so particularly suited to draught work ? Could it have
>been a particular abundance of the right kind of fodder was produced by
>Gallic agricultural methods, particularly suited to the climatic and
>geographical peculiarities of the region ?
Nothing makes Gaulish horses special. Other evidence
posted here from Judy's sources (you *do* read Judy,
don't you) show that Roman horses ranged in size from
as large as any in Europe to rather small. Romans
raised horses and prized them. As a rich Empire, they
would have had no trouble feeding horses in Italy
anything they wanted.
You *did* know that, didn't you? Or are you just
baiting?
>>It's also interesting to note that she says, "According to
>>archaeologists using bone deposits from Avar, Magyr and Germanic
>>burials, it was among the Germanic and also some Avar peoples that
>>selective breeding for heavier conformation began in the ninth and tenth
>>centuries." p58
>>
>>These Germanic horses were the same ones the Romans found inferior due
>>to their small stature. I don't think the fact that breeding the
>>smallest horses in Europe (small by Roman standards) to become larger
>>can be taken as evidence that horses as a whole became larger - just
>>that the Germans were smart enough to try to catch up to everyone else.
>But that would imply that the Merovingians and the Carolingians had not
>already been putting great effort into improving their own horse-stock.
>Or are we to infer that the great horse-breeding programs of Charlemagne
>et al were not improving the native horse-stock that had been familiar
>to the Gallo-Romans ?
What great horse breeding program of Charlemagne? What great
efforts of the Merovingians? Neither used shock cavalry.
And in any event, 12th century horses used by cavalry were
not notably large. Far from it. Indeed, this is talked
about by Spruytte, a quote from whom you say Curt should
not have bothered posting (at the top of this.) One
can only conclude that you didn't READ the quote, in
which case you wouldn't be writing what you wrote here,
OR one could conclude that you only want to make trouble.
>>OK, so the Romans abused their oxen as well.
>Possibly - but the Theodosian Code suggests that the Romans abused the
>state's oxen, not their own. In any case, it would be a mistake to apply
>modern western standards of animal welfare to either the Romans or the
>Medievals. Even with the regulations in place in many countries today,
>high standards are not always lived up to, and many cultures do not
>attach the same sentiments to animals that others do.
It is interesting to me that the notion that only the state's
animals were being talked of is NOT mentioned by des Noettes,
Spruytte, Raepsaet, White, or any other writer I've seen.
If you were interested in furthering things, you might
give us an appropriate quotation (with citation) to
prove your point. Curt, Walter, Laura, I, and others
have spent a fair amount of time typing in quotes.
Why do I feel forced to conclude that you are again
baiting.
>><Deep sigh> It's very possible that Spruytte used much larger horses
>>than Lefebvre and this is why his experiment yielded the difference in
>>weight pulled rather than any fault of Lefebvre. That's impossible to
>>say as neither of them listed the weight of their horses. So yes, the
>>Roman harness may be as inefficient as Lefebvre said.
>Indeed. Does one actually have to read either of these two writers to
>realise that their experiments are deeply flawed ?
You posted this bit of wisdom the moment Judy claimed that
Spruytte would set us all right? Or you don't understand
that your comment above destroys her position entirely?
Or you don't really care as long as you can get a rise
out of somebody?
>>I really don't think we want to get into medieval improvements in the
>>ox yoke.
>If the Theodosian Code continues to be cited as part of the evidence for
>how bad Roman horse management was, part of the control testing for that
>hypothesis should be to do the same with oxen, as their load limits were
>included in the Theodosian Code too.
What testing? What experiment? YOU are the one suggesting
that the sources are wrong. You do the experiments.
Or are you just baiting again?
>>Not all. Who does? If you're saying that the Roman harness was
>>inefficient, but that they could make up for it through superior
>>organization, then yes, I agree with you.
>OK, but that "efficiency" can only be measured by taking all the factors
>into consideration. Mere comparison of the horse-collar with any other
>kind of haulage harness may be an interesting practical exercise in its
>own right, but proves very little in terms of the value that a horse-
>collar may or may not have had to the Roman Empire as a whole.
You win. The Empire's helium balloons clearly were
the most efficient way of moving things. There just
wasn't a thing that needed heavy fast haulage during
Imperial times. The stagnation was so bad that even
folks in a hurry walked slowly. Many patriotic Romans
only breathed 30 times a minute -- more was seen as
unseemly haste. And the Romans invented airplanes,
but were so slow in gathering the raw materials that
it was 1910 before they got one put together.
Or are you just baiting again.
Well, I've risen to it. Happy now?
D. Spencer Hines
Brian M. Scott wrote in message <34d2aaf2...@news.csuohio.edu>...
>On Fri, 30 Jan 1998 09:02:35 -1000, "D. Spencer Hines"
><shi...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>I've deleted most of the previous post, which demonstrates its
>author's failure to follow the discussion and identify the actual
>views of the participants.
Wrong. Igor II has deleted my post because he has no substantive response
to it. He's treading water.
GLLB members have decided that the best way to prosecute their attack is to
establish a division of labor. Igor II has been designated as PFC in
Charge of Red Herrings and Wise Cracks.
Here's my post again. Right on point and providing substance rather than
Igor II's song and dance. Do the East River Pontificator [ERP] and the Gans
Lickspittle Lackey Brigade [GLLB] have the courage to respond to it? And
whatever happened to the sorry little socialist schoolteacher who accused me
of the capital crime of "disrupting the newsgroup?" An Orwellian
accusation, to be sure. He seems to have retreated in abject and total
confusion:
"I've included the Raepsaet quotation because it is such a good illustration
of the complexities of the issues we're discussing here, which makes a good
deal of our previous debate seem like a gross oversimplification. The
reality of the state of current research may present us with a lot of
ambiguities now, and no clear cut answers, but it's infinitely more
interesting than deciding whether to put a white hat or a black hat on poor
old Lefebvre des Noettes."
Laura Blanchard
Yes, that's true --- as far as it goes. Unfortunately, Laura has a
clear-cut agenda and is not an unbiased source herself. Clearly, one of her
principal motives is the help her good buddy Gans out of a terrible
scholarly swamp he has fallen into --- one largely of his own making. For
example, she wants to expunge any discussion of improvements in Roman
cartage as "irrelevant" --- thereby restricting our field of view to just
those topics in her prepackaged duffel bag.
We shall also see if Mr. Gans hung entirely too much of his argument on
Richard Lefebvre de Noettes and his book, which he appears **never to have
read.** Gans appears to have focused on the horse collar in a tunnel-vision
fashion and neglected other innovations in transport that were equally
important.
Laura's statement above, referring to "the reality of the state of current
research may present us with a lot of ambiguities now, and no clear cut
answers" may well be true, but Gans would not admit it. Judy Weller is
still trying to get him off the dime and to look at new evidence. But
he refuses, gets testy again and "loses it" rather than move beyond the 1910
experiments of Lefebvre de Noettes to examine the new evidence in a spirit
of clear-minded, unbiased, no-previous-agenda Scientific and Historical
inquiry.
Perhaps the new text from Spruytte and the images that Judy is attempting
to post will finally get him to take off the horse blinders that are
severely restricting and clouding his vision and look 360 degrees to the
horizon. I hope that one can teach an old horse new tricks, but perhaps
not.
As we are seeing, you have to parse the language of Gans and his brood as
closely as one of Bill Clinton's circumlocutions. "Medieval inventions"
indeed.
One of ERP's continuing and massive problems is that he can't remember what
he wrote a month ago much less six months ago, when his *ex cathedra*
pronouncements were even more asinine and egregiously incorrect.
ERP is suffering from "Mayfly Memory Deficit Disorder" [MMDD] as well as
selective amnesia--- as he himself has confessed on several occasions.
David Read
In article <34D277...@accs.net>, Curt Emanuel <cema...@accs.net>
writes
>
>I'm not sure there's _anything_ to be gained from wondering what
>Spruytte meant by "small-statured" as compared to Hyland's
>"medium-sized."
In which case there was no need to post the extract from Spruytte
claiming that Norman horses were of "small stature" in the first place,
other than to show that Medieval horses were no larger than Roman ones,
(whatever that means). The quote from Hyland throws is for balance;
whether these are subjective assessments by Hyland or Spruytte I have no
idea.
>Hyland is also quite clear when she says, "The European warhorse had not
>yet developed into the increasingly heavy destrier of the later medieval
>era." p85
Indeed.
>
>At least it's clear to me that she's saying that horses had not begun to
>increase in size or, if they had, that the increase was minimal.
I'm not so sure. She also says how a heavier conformation in horses was
an important consideration in the development of shock-cavalry, that is
knights using the couched lance. How important the spillover from
military studs into producing animals with heavier conformation for
agricultural work is not clear, (although we know it was part of the
Carolingian system), but it would seem to be a part of a process that
developed with the growing importance in warfare of the mounted knight.
>
>
>She also says, speaking of early European stock, "This makes sense when
>one takes into consideration other evidence, including finds of bone,
>literary allusions, grave goods, and cave paintings which show a refined
>animal of considerable size.
> Occasionally a historian or general passed
>a comment which was recorded: Julius Caesar had an adverse opinion of
>Germanic horses, which he considered inferior and ill-favoured, but
>commented favorably on the Gauls' delight in draught horses. These
>sidelights are useful in confirming certain features, especially as we
>know that the Romans admired size in their animals. The Germans,
>although good horsemen, rode small horses; Caesar's 'inferior' can be
>accepted as meaning of small stature, because 'ill-favoured' obviously
>meant of poor conformation. The Gallic draught horses denote a larger,
>heavier breed. Throughout the Roman era, horses were frequently acquired
>from conquered and annexed territories where ethnic cavalry units were
>raised. The countries featuring most strongly after Gaul itself were
>Spain, Thrace and Pannonia, all with strong equestrian backgrounds . .
>." p3
>
>From the above, it appears to me that the Romans had little difficulty
>in finding horses of substantial size, and that there is absolutely no
>evidence that Roman horses were any smaller than Early or High Medieval
>horses.
The especially suited draught animals have been noted by Caesar as
coming from Gaul; Caesar travelled and campaigned throughout the Roman
world and would have been familiar with all the variations in horse-
stock, yet it is the Gallic horses that attract his particular attention
as good draught animals. Now, what was it that made the Celtic horses of
north-west Europe so particularly suited to draught work ? Could it have
been a particular abundance of the right kind of fodder was produced by
Gallic agricultural methods, particularly suited to the climatic and
geographical peculiarities of the region ?
>It's also interesting to note that she says, "According to
>archaeologists using bone deposits from Avar, Magyr and Germanic
>burials, it was among the Germanic and also some Avar peoples that
>selective breeding for heavier conformation began in the ninth and tenth
>centuries." p58
>
>These Germanic horses were the same ones the Romans found inferior due
>to their small stature. I don't think the fact that breeding the
>smallest horses in Europe (small by Roman standards) to become larger
>can be taken as evidence that horses as a whole became larger - just
>that the Germans were smart enough to try to catch up to everyone else.
But that would imply that the Merovingians and the Carolingians had not
already been putting great effort into improving their own horse-stock.
Or are we to infer that the great horse-breeding programs of Charlemagne
et al were not improving the native horse-stock that had been familiar
to the Gallo-Romans ?
>OK, so the Romans abused their oxen as well.
Possibly - but the Theodosian Code suggests that the Romans abused the
state's oxen, not their own. In any case, it would be a mistake to apply
modern western standards of animal welfare to either the Romans or the
Medievals. Even with the regulations in place in many countries today,
high standards are not always lived up to, and many cultures do not
attach the same sentiments to animals that others do.
><Deep sigh> It's very possible that Spruytte used much larger horses
>than Lefebvre and this is why his experiment yielded the difference in
>weight pulled rather than any fault of Lefebvre. That's impossible to
>say as neither of them listed the weight of their horses. So yes, the
>Roman harness may be as inefficient as Lefebvre said.
Indeed. Does one actually have to read either of these two writers to
realise that their experiments are deeply flawed ?
>I really don't think we want to get into medieval improvements in the
>ox yoke.
If the Theodosian Code continues to be cited as part of the evidence for
how bad Roman horse management was, part of the control testing for that
hypothesis should be to do the same with oxen, as their load limits were
included in the Theodosian Code too.
>Not all. Who does? If you're saying that the Roman harness was
>inefficient, but that they could make up for it through superior
>organization, then yes, I agree with you.
OK, but that "efficiency" can only be measured by taking all the factors
into consideration. Mere comparison of the horse-collar with any other
kind of haulage harness may be an interesting practical exercise in its
own right, but proves very little in terms of the value that a horse-
collar may or may not have had to the Roman Empire as a whole.
cheers,
Warren B. Hapke
JudyW1917 (judy...@aol.com) wrote:
:
: Brancards et Transport attele etnre Seine et Rhine de L'Antiquite au Moyen Age"
: It is the papers from a Symposium October 1 & 2 1993. Published by
: Centre d'Histoire et de Technologies Rurales, Treignes.
Judy, how wide a distribution do these scholars claim for the material
they discuss? Both Spruytte and Raepsaet (1997, in the Langdon and
Astill volume) say that these harnessing innovations were Gallo-Roman.
What LdN looked as was mediterranean Roman evidence.
The last time I checked, the Tiber didn't flow "entre Seine et Rhine."
The other thing is that Spruytte (as I noted once before) shows lots
of neck collars, most of which look like flat straps. Now, my 40
lb. Pointer can exert a surprising amount of traction on a plain
Conway safety collar, but it will choke her eventually. I don't
think anyone would argue that something like a dog collar makes
a good horse harness.
:
: Try this address to order the book: Michel....@wanadoo.fr
:
: Judy
Can you give us an ISBN number? I've been involved in the development of
NCSC evaluated secure computer systems; I have a lot of problems with
sending out financial information to a plain email address on the
Internet.
Warren B. Hapke
wbh...@prairienet.org
David Read
In article <6au6tt$1...@panix2.panix.com>, "Paul J. Gans"
<ga...@panix.com> writes
>Thanks David. Are you intent on being as non-substantive
>as some others? Or just teasing.
Just teasing, to get a response. :) You want the quote ?
"Moreover, it is not even a digression to describe an ingenious device
of Chersiphron. For when he wished to bring down the shafts of the
columns from the quarries to the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, he tried
the following method since he had no confidence in his two-wheeled
wagons; he was afraid that their wheels would bog down on account of the
huge size of the loads and the field-like softness of the roads. So he
framed and enclosed the columns using four timbers that were four
_unciae_ square, two of them being placed transversely that were as long
as the column, and then on the ends of the columns he fastened iron
pivots with lead, like dowels, and fixed sockets in the wood to
encompass the pivots.
Next he bound the ends with wood slats so that the pivots were enclosed
in the sockets and turned freely. Thus when the yoked oxen pulled, the
columns rolled by turning on their pivots and sockets without hindrance.
Then after they had transported all the shafts in this manner and it
was time to transport the architraves, Metagenes, the son of
Chersiphron, transferred the method of moving the shafts to the bringing
down of the architraves. For he made wheels 12 feet in diameter and
enclosed the ends of the architraves in the middle of the wheels. In the
same way he fixed the sockets and the pivots in the ends. Thus when the
4-unciae frames were drawn by the oxen, the pivots that were enclosed in
the sockets turned the wheels, while the architraves being enclosed like
axles in the wheels reached the building without delay in the same
manner as the shafts."
Vitruvius, _On Architecture_ 10.2.11-12
The above taken from "Greek and Roman Tecnology" by Humphrey, Oleson
and Sherwood. Routledge 1998.
>
>We all know they had the slaves carry them. :-)
Not that old canard again.... :)
Anyway, non-substantial ? Moi ?
Insomniacally yours,
--
David Read
David Read
In article <6au7o9$4...@panix2.panix.com>, "Paul J. Gans"
<ga...@panix.com> writes
>Did *I* ever describe it as a revolution? Or are you
>having fun inventing things to knock down?
Tut-tut, you force me to quote you. This was not meant to be a bait, so
much as a wry observation. However, this is what you wrote on the 2nd
January.
"When I first wrote of the inability of the Romans to
suitably harness horses for heavy traction and haulage,
the horse-collar being a medieval invention, I was
totally unprepared for the rather large cry of protest
that arose, objecting to my "opinions" in the matter.
What I wrote was not my "opinion", it was (and still is)
the essentially universal opinion of all who have written
on the subject in the last 50 years.
While I originally intended to simply post a bibliography,
I quickly realized that most of these references had been
posted before. None of the objectors seem to have consulted
them. I can understand that -- these books are not all readily
available outside of university libraries. Besides, it soon
became clear that it was what those books said and not their
titles that was important. So I decided to post what they
said.
The following long extracts are in no particular order.
And they do not even *begin* to cover the evidence
available or the number of books discussing the matter.
The invention of the horse-collar had a direct bearing
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
on the agricultural revolution of the Middle Ages
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^, which
itself is an interesting and complex event about which
much has been written. So this is not an obscure and
little noted subject."
>
>Baiting again?
Only if you want to read it that way.
cheers,
--
David Read
David Read
In article <6au7lt$4...@panix2.panix.com>, "Paul J. Gans"
<ga...@panix.com> writes
>I guess you are having fun baiting me.
Not at all. It was meant in all seriousness. I think you have made a
most pertinent observation about the nature of invention. And I asked in
all seriousness whether the observation came from a published source.
>And I've been fool enough
>to rise to it.
Ah, well, I can't help that.
> If I ever used the term "invented the horse
>collar", I apologize. I certainly did not use it often. It
>does not occur on my infamous web page devoted to the horse
>collar. I wrote the above because some folks have assumed
>that I've been talking about invention.
And now you have clarified your position. Good.
>No kidding. We have essentially no dates for the actual
>invention of anything prior to the 14th century and darned
>few even then. As I've said before, by the time something
>shows up in written or iconographic material, it has
>possibly been around for a while.
Indeed.
>Gee David, I guess you are finally getting the point.
Not at all. Again, if you had read my posts carefully enough you would
have realised that it is a point I have made frequently throughout this
debate.
> Yes,
>they are under-represented. And the representations that
>exist, if any, are ambiguous, at least for the horse collar and the
>breast strap. Thus is is quite possible that they were
>not known then. Certainly were not in common use.
Agreed, as ever, on these points.
>You've dropped the point again.
Wrong. One of the points is that if dodgy pictorial evidence is used to
support the idea of a horse-collar existing in 800 A.D, then it can be
used to support the idea of a horse-collar existing in 146 A.D. The
evidence is slight in both cases, and is open to differing
interpretations. The possibility exists that either or both may be right
or wrong.
>Things are invented all
>the time. Often, they do not catch on and are not used.
Indeed, and the interesting question is why.
>Or sometimes there are economic reasons.
Yup.
> The fact
>remains that the horsecollar evidence is considered by all
>of Judy's references (and mine) to be not good before 800
>or so AD. Now it isn't my job to explain this. I have
>no problem with it -- I bow to the experts on the issue.
OK. But I've yet to see a convincing explanation that either of the
Trier pictures are what either of their supporters or detractors claim
them to be. Both leave room for doubt either way.
>
>Don't *ever* assume that because something was used somewhere
>at one time, that it must therefore have been used everywhere.
>This simply isn't true.
Indeed.
cheers,
--
David Read
Brian M. Scott
I've deleted most of the previous post, which demonstrates its
author's failure to follow the discussion and identify the actual
views of the participants. (Perhaps his collar is too tight and is
interfering with the flow of blood to his head. Or perhaps he's
wearing blinkers. Or maybe he's too small to see the monitor clearly.
Wait! I have it: he's dizzy from pulling that confounded vacuum
cleaner!)
>Perhaps the new text from Spruytte and the images that Judy is attempting
>to post will finally get him to take off the horse blinders that are
>severely restricting and clouding his vision and look 360 degrees to the
>horizon.
It's pretty obvious from what we've already seen that Spruytte adds
little to LdN and that both experiments are seriously flawed.
> I hope that one can teach an old horse new tricks, but perhaps
>not.
Doubtful, O eque mi; I know the Hines-end of a horse when I see it.
Brian M. Scott
Curt Emanuel
David Read wrote:
>
> In article <34D277...@accs.net>, Curt Emanuel <cema...@accs.net>
> writes
> >
> >I'm not sure there's _anything_ to be gained from wondering what
> >Spruytte meant by "small-statured" as compared to Hyland's
> >"medium-sized."
>
> In which case there was no need to post the extract from Spruytte
> claiming that Norman horses were of "small stature" in the first place,
> other than to show that Medieval horses were no larger than Roman ones,
> (whatever that means). The quote from Hyland throws is for balance;
> whether these are subjective assessments by Hyland or Spruytte I have no
> idea.
Well, that was exactly my purpose - to show that there is absolutely no
evidence that medieval horses were any larger (or smaller) than Roman
ones. All we've had has been unsubstantiated posts stating that Roman
horses couldn't be used for heavy cartage because they were two small.
And the two references she's supplied (which I've gone to the effort to
get) both refute this.
>
> >Hyland is also quite clear when she says, "The European warhorse had not
> >yet developed into the increasingly heavy destrier of the later medieval
> >era." p85
>
> Indeed.
> >
> >At least it's clear to me that she's saying that horses had not begun to
> >increase in size or, if they had, that the increase was minimal.
>
> I'm not so sure. She also says how a heavier conformation in horses was
> an important consideration in the development of shock-cavalry, that is
> knights using the couched lance.
See the above quote. The heavy horse was, by and large, more useful for
tournaments than actual warfare. They didn't really gain much in size
until the 14th century or so.
> How important the spillover from
> military studs into producing animals with heavier conformation for
> agricultural work is not clear, (although we know it was part of the
> Carolingian system), but it would seem to be a part of a process that
> developed with the growing importance in warfare of the mounted knight.
I'm not certain what this means. I've offered several quotes, including
Hyland and Spruytte, that directly refute this (the heavier
conformation). Furthermore, the heavy horse wasn't found until plate
armor became common.
> >From the above, it appears to me that the Romans had little difficulty
> >in finding horses of substantial size, and that there is absolutely no
> >evidence that Roman horses were any smaller than Early or High Medieval
> >horses.
>
> The especially suited draught animals have been noted by Caesar as
> coming from Gaul; Caesar travelled and campaigned throughout the Roman
> world and would have been familiar with all the variations in horse-
> stock, yet it is the Gallic horses that attract his particular attention
> as good draught animals. Now, what was it that made the Celtic horses of
> north-west Europe so particularly suited to draught work ? Could it have
> been a particular abundance of the right kind of fodder was produced by
> Gallic agricultural methods, particularly suited to the climatic and
> geographical peculiarities of the region ?
Well, Hyland states that the Byzantine horses were of larger stock than
Western European horses. Why the Gauls may have produced larger horses
is unknown to me. It _could_ have been just about anything - any of
which would be pure conjecture.
>
> >It's also interesting to note that she says, "According to
> >archaeologists using bone deposits from Avar, Magyr and Germanic
> >burials, it was among the Germanic and also some Avar peoples that
> >selective breeding for heavier conformation began in the ninth and tenth
> >centuries." p58
> >
> >These Germanic horses were the same ones the Romans found inferior due
> >to their small stature. I don't think the fact that breeding the
> >smallest horses in Europe (small by Roman standards) to become larger
> >can be taken as evidence that horses as a whole became larger - just
> >that the Germans were smart enough to try to catch up to everyone else.
>
> But that would imply that the Merovingians and the Carolingians had not
> already been putting great effort into improving their own horse-stock.
> Or are we to infer that the great horse-breeding programs of Charlemagne
> et al were not improving the native horse-stock that had been familiar
> to the Gallo-Romans ?
Sure, and Charlemagne went to great lengths to procure horses from Islam
to do so. Whether this made them larger is another thing altogether. I'd
imagine that the nobles liked riding big horses, but they were a
hindrance on a long campaign. Medieval armies had enough trouble finding
fodder without having to feed animals that were another 400 lbs in
weight.
>
> >OK, so the Romans abused their oxen as well.
>
> Possibly - but the Theodosian Code suggests that the Romans abused the
> state's oxen, not their own. In any case, it would be a mistake to apply
> modern western standards of animal welfare to either the Romans or the
> Medievals. Even with the regulations in place in many countries today,
> high standards are not always lived up to, and many cultures do not
> attach the same sentiments to animals that others do.
Sure - but Spruytte is very clear on this, that reading the Code, it's
apparent that it was enacted for the welfare of the animals as well as
(as you've said) to reduce traffic on the roads.
As far as that goes, Medieval folks may have been equally as abusive,
though I'd doubt it in the case of someone who used them in farming -
the animal's health was too important to their being able to farm.
Certainly there are many documented cases of forced military marches
where horses fell by the wayside because of the pace.
>
> ><Deep sigh> It's very possible that Spruytte used much larger horses
> >than Lefebvre and this is why his experiment yielded the difference in
> >weight pulled rather than any fault of Lefebvre. That's impossible to
> >say as neither of them listed the weight of their horses. So yes, the
> >Roman harness may be as inefficient as Lefebvre said.
>
> Indeed. Does one actually have to read either of these two writers to
> realise that their experiments are deeply flawed ?
No - you're right, they're both pretty weak. Spruytte does have some
interesting things to say on wagons, but I've stayed away from it since
this thread's on harness. The real point is that Lefebvre probably
exaggerrated and that the Roman harness was perfectly fine for light and
medium hauling, but not for the heavy work that the horse-collar
allowed.
The real way to test opposing sets of harness would be to take fifty
horses, put one set of harness on them one day, measure how much they
could work, blood oxygen and lactic acid levels, as well as regularly
taking TPR measurements. Then, the next day, take the same fifty horses
and do the same thing with a different harness. Repeat this several
times under varying conditions, loads, etc.
Between the horses and harness reconstruction I'd figure the cost at
well over $100,000, maybe closer to half a million. I doubt if anyone'll
fork over that kind of cash for something with no practical value or
benefit.
>
> >I really don't think we want to get into medieval improvements in the
> >ox yoke.
>
> If the Theodosian Code continues to be cited as part of the evidence for
> how bad Roman horse management was, part of the control testing for that
> hypothesis should be to do the same with oxen, as their load limits were
> included in the Theodosian Code too.
Well, if you insist. But be warned - I'm at the same stage with ox
harness systems as I was with horses 2 months ago - I know little more
than the secondary sources tell me.
"An improved harness for harnessing in tandem (one animal behind the
other) facilitated the use of multiple-ox teams to pull the heavy plow
in attacking new ground." Gies and Gies, _Cathedral, Forge and
Waterwheel_ They don't give a specific date, but from the context, it
appears that this occurred somewhere between the 6th and 8th centuries.
There were some other references(I'm not going to look for them right
now) but they were very general - something along the line of, ". . . an
improved ox harness increased their efficiency as well." The same level
of importance hasn't been attached to it as to the horse collar.
>
> >Not all. Who does? If you're saying that the Roman harness was
> >inefficient, but that they could make up for it through superior
> >organization, then yes, I agree with you.
>
> OK, but that "efficiency" can only be measured by taking all the factors
> into consideration. Mere comparison of the horse-collar with any other
> kind of haulage harness may be an interesting practical exercise in its
> own right, but proves very little in terms of the value that a horse-
> collar may or may not have had to the Roman Empire as a whole.
Absolutely right to a point. To say they couldn't have used it seems a
little naive. At the same time, how much were they hurt by this lack?
They had to import a great deal of food from Egypt, but was this a real
problem? It was their system and was perfectly right for them.
I would think the bigger problem would have been being able to ship
large quantities of supplies quickly for military use. But it's
impossible to quantify this.
Curt Emanuel
Curt Emanuel
David Read wrote:
>
> OK. But I've yet to see a convincing explanation that either of the
> Trier pictures are what either of their supporters or detractors claim
> them to be. Both leave room for doubt either way.
> >
There's a much clearer picture in Spruytte (assuming, again, that this
is the same picture from Seneca's web page that I'm thinking of). It
clearly shows cart-shafts that run straight up to a neck collar of some
type. This doesn't appear to be a misplacement of a horse-collar as
there are three other pictures showing a similar system. The pressure of
this system would have been on the neck and throat.
Curt Emanuel
David Read
In article <34D2BE...@accs.net>, Curt Emanuel <cema...@accs.net>
writes
>
>Well, that was exactly my purpose - to show that there is absolutely no
>evidence that medieval horses were any larger (or smaller) than Roman
>ones. All we've had has been unsubstantiated posts stating that Roman
>horses couldn't be used for heavy cartage because they were two small.
>And the two references she's supplied (which I've gone to the effort to
>get) both refute this.
OK, so we have Hyland and Spruytte seemingly at odds on the size and/or
conformation of the Norman horse. I'm not arguing the point that "Roman
horses were too small"; it's an irrelevance. I have never made the
contention that Roman horses were too small. The different breeds of
horses known to the Romans had different qualities just as they had to
the medivals and have for us today.
>See the above quote. The heavy horse was, by and large, more useful for
>tournaments than actual warfare. They didn't really gain much in size
>until the 14th century or so.
I know this - assuming you are talking about destrier type horses. But I
urge you to go back and read pp 57-58 of "The Medieval Warhorse." I have
posted this particular passage before.
>I'm not certain what this means. I've offered several quotes, including
>Hyland and Spruytte, that directly refute this (the heavier
>conformation). Furthermore, the heavy horse wasn't found until plate
>armor became common.
Hyland says there was a heavier conformation. Re-read the pages I
quoted. Not a heavy conformation, but heavier than before.
>Well, Hyland states that the Byzantine horses were of larger stock than
>Western European horses. Why the Gauls may have produced larger horses
>is unknown to me. It _could_ have been just about anything - any of
>which would be pure conjecture.
But we're not just talking about size in terms of height, but also of
conformation and temper, (and doubtless other qualities besides), most
suited to making a good draught animal. Some breeds will make good
compromises; others are more specialist. The vast cavalry armies of the
Byzantines meant that they were breeding a particular kind of horse to
do a particular job. At the same time, those horses would require good
quality feed to keep them in prime condition. In the climatic zone that
the Byzantine Empire was centred on, oxen and asses generally remained
more economical to use than horses as beasts of burden.
>Sure, and Charlemagne went to great lengths to procure horses from Islam
>to do so.
Agreed.
> Whether this made them larger is another thing altogether. I'd
>imagine that the nobles liked riding big horses, but they were a
>hindrance on a long campaign.
Then your argument is with Hyland, or the definition of "big". Hyland
says bigger in relation to what had been used before as the favoured
war-mount of the High Medieval knight. This is particularly true of the
horse's conformation as opposed to its height. But of course, big or
bigger horses are more difficult to maintain during the hard work of a
military campaign.
>Medieval armies had enough trouble finding
>fodder without having to feed animals that were another 400 lbs in
>weight.
Indeed.
>Sure - but Spruytte is very clear on this, that reading the Code, it's
>apparent that it was enacted for the welfare of the animals as well as
>(as you've said) to reduce traffic on the roads.
That is, the animals owned by the state, is it not ?
>
>As far as that goes, Medieval folks may have been equally as abusive,
>though I'd doubt it in the case of someone who used them in farming -
>the animal's health was too important to their being able to farm.
Agreed. The same reasoning would equally apply to the Late Roman
smallholder farming his own or rented plot of land.
>Certainly there are many documented cases of forced military marches
>where horses fell by the wayside because of the pace.
Indeed.
>No - you're right, they're both pretty weak. Spruytte does have some
>interesting things to say on wagons, but I've stayed away from it since
>this thread's on harness. The real point is that Lefebvre probably
>exaggerrated and that the Roman harness was perfectly fine for light and
>medium hauling, but not for the heavy work that the horse-collar
>allowed.
OK.
>
>The real way to test opposing sets of harness would be to take fifty
>horses, put one set of harness on them one day, measure how much they
>could work, blood oxygen and lactic acid levels, as well as regularly
>taking TPR measurements. Then, the next day, take the same fifty horses
>and do the same thing with a different harness. Repeat this several
>times under varying conditions, loads, etc.
>
>Between the horses and harness reconstruction I'd figure the cost at
>well over $100,000, maybe closer to half a million. I doubt if anyone'll
>fork over that kind of cash for something with no practical value or
>benefit.
Indeed. Although, re-enactors with sufficient knowledge, time and
application might get round to doing it one day. Who knows ?
>Well, if you insist. But be warned - I'm at the same stage with ox
>harness systems as I was with horses 2 months ago - I know little more
>than the secondary sources tell me.
OK- my remark was not directed at you or anyone other than authors who
cite the Theodosian Code as material evidence to support their
arguments. In some cases that will fall on dead, as well as deaf ears.
>
>"An improved harness for harnessing in tandem (one animal behind the
>other) facilitated the use of multiple-ox teams to pull the heavy plow
>in attacking new ground." Gies and Gies, _Cathedral, Forge and
>Waterwheel_ They don't give a specific date, but from the context, it
>appears that this occurred somewhere between the 6th and 8th centuries.
>There were some other references(I'm not going to look for them right
>now) but they were very general - something along the line of, ". . . an
>improved ox harness increased their efficiency as well." The same level
>of importance hasn't been attached to it as to the horse collar.
And of course, it should have had a greater level of importance attached
to it. Just as the harnessing of horses in tandem is a more significant
development as well.
>Absolutely right to a point. To say they couldn't have used it seems a
>little naive. At the same time, how much were they hurt by this lack?
Not much in my opinion.
>They had to import a great deal of food from Egypt, but was this a real
>problem? It was their system and was perfectly right for them.
Agreed.
>
>I would think the bigger problem would have been being able to ship
>large quantities of supplies quickly for military use. But it's
>impossible to quantify this.
OK
David Read
In article <19980130164...@ladder02.news.aol.com>, JudyW1917
<judy...@aol.com> writes
>The weight limits did not just apply to horse-drawn vehicles in any
>case, but to ox-carts and ridden horses too. And those laws did not just
>regulate the weight of individual vehicles and animals, but the sheer
>volume of traffic; that is, only a certain number of vehicles were
>allowed on any given section of road at any one time.
You appear to be quoting me direct. An acknowledgement would have been
nice.
cheers,
--
David Read
David Read
In article <6aub2v$8...@panix2.panix.com>, "Paul J. Gans"
<ga...@panix.com> writes
>
>David, you are baiting again...
Oh.
>Right. Bait away. This thread exists in a vacuum and the
>possibility that there are others here who have made claims
>about what Spruytte said have not occured to you, right?
No.
>
>Right. You have, of course, not seen any of the other
>evidence posted in this thread about horse size, right?
>Or you have seen it and just want to provoke another
>argument. Shock cavalary, in all likelyhood, comes
>MUCH too late to count here. The horsecollar arrived
>in the West several hundred years BEFORE lances were
>regularly couched.
Indeed. So ?
Curt Emanuel has previously posted the following, which I hope he won't
mind me borrowing. I'm sure he will be quick to point out if I have
quoted him out of context:-
" in places over half the cattle herds died and horses replaced them at
plow in the 1315-1320 period. However that has little to do with the
11th and 12th centuries when the use of horses as draft animals seems to
have reached an early peak."
I have previously pointed out how the horse did not generally replace
the ox in England, Bavaria or Burgundy until the thirteenth century.
I never expected horse-collars and larger horses to appear
simultaneously. But it seems apparent that the horse with matching
collar as most-favoured draught animal in northern Europe became
fashionable around the same time as the mounted knight was realising his
greatest importance.
>
>Nothing makes Gaulish horses special.
What an extraordinary statement, backed by no facts whatsoever. Julius
Caesar said so; who is your authority that says they were not ?
>Other evidence
>posted here from Judy's sources (you *do* read Judy,
>don't you) show that Roman horses ranged in size from
>as large as any in Europe to rather small. Romans
>raised horses and prized them. As a rich Empire, they
>would have had no trouble feeding horses in Italy
>anything they wanted.
I'll agree that they went to a great deal of trouble to breed and feed
expensive cavalry horses of military strategic importance to the Empire.
But why waste expensively produced grain on draught horses when one has
the ox to do the, umm, donkey-work ? I'm well aware of the different
sizes of horses and the breeds familiar to the Romans, and I haven't had
to read the sources posted by Judy or anyone else to know this.
>
>You *did* know that, didn't you? Or are you just
>baiting?
How sad.
>What great horse breeding program of Charlemagne?
You mean you are not aware of the _de Villis_ capitulary ?
> What great
>efforts of the Merovingians?
You've never heard of how the Franks admired the Spanish/Berber horses
of the Moors and that after Poitiers in 732 the Franks began to improve
and increase their cavalry ?
>
>Neither used shock cavalry.
>And in any event, 12th century horses used by cavalry were
>not notably large. Far from it. Indeed, this is talked
>about by Spruytte, a quote from whom you say Curt should
>not have bothered posting (at the top of this.) One
>can only conclude that you didn't READ the quote, in
>which case you wouldn't be writing what you wrote here,
>OR one could conclude that you only want to make trouble.
Shame on you again. You might have remembered that _I_ posted that
Hyland drew different conclusions from the same evidence as Spruytte.
I'm _glad_ that Curt posted the quote from Spruytte; it provided the
opportunity to correct the balance with Hyland. You seem to have a
problem with Hyland. Perhaps it is because she manages to write about
both Roman and Medieval cavalry without prejudice.
>It is interesting to me that the notion that only the state's
>animals were being talked of is NOT mentioned by des Noettes,
>Spruytte, Raepsaet, White, or any other writer I've seen.
I'm referring specifically here to the Theodosian Code. If there is any
other evidence that the Romans routinely mistreated privately owned
animals to any significant extent, or that the Theodosian Code refers to
privately owned animals I would be pleased to hear it.
>
>If you were interested in furthering things, you might
>give us an appropriate quotation (with citation) to
>prove your point. Curt, Walter, Laura, I, and others
>have spent a fair amount of time typing in quotes.
So have I but as ever you appear to have paid scant attention. The
reference, I have posted *TWICE* in the last several months comes from
Jones. That you choose to ignore it is your problem.
>Why do I feel forced to conclude that you are again
>baiting.
Beats the hell out of me.
>You posted this bit of wisdom the moment Judy claimed that
>Spruytte would set us all right? Or you don't understand
>that your comment above destroys her position entirely?
Very possibly. You appear to imagine that Judy and I are in some sort of
unholy alliance.
>Or you don't really care as long as you can get a rise
>out of somebody?
Another asinine remark.
>What testing? What experiment? YOU are the one suggesting
>that the sources are wrong. You do the experiments.
>Or are you just baiting again?
Idiotic.
>You win. The Empire's helium balloons clearly were
>the most efficient way of moving things. There just
>wasn't a thing that needed heavy fast haulage during
>Imperial times. The stagnation was so bad that even
>folks in a hurry walked slowly. Many patriotic Romans
>only breathed 30 times a minute -- more was seen as
>unseemly haste. And the Romans invented airplanes,
>but were so slow in gathering the raw materials that
>it was 1910 before they got one put together.
>
>Or are you just baiting again.
>
>Well, I've risen to it. Happy now?
Please put me in your kill-file if that's the best you can come up with.
David Read
In article <34D2C3...@accs.net>, Curt Emanuel <cema...@accs.net>
writes
>There's a much clearer picture in Spruytte (assuming, again, that this
>is the same picture from Seneca's web page that I'm thinking of). It
>clearly shows cart-shafts that run straight up to a neck collar of some
>type. This doesn't appear to be a misplacement of a horse-collar as
>there are three other pictures showing a similar system. The pressure of
>this system would have been on the neck and throat.
Whatever the system is (and I would tentatively suggest that the cart-
shafts may be a combination of shaft and traces), it is clearly not the
common or garden haulage system used by the Romans. That is, a neckstrap
with girth, where the point of attachment of the traces to a yoke above
the withers. How this particular neckcollar would have remained in so
high a position seems problematic. It must also be noted that we seem to
be looking at a very light-weight vehicle here.
The coin sample on Seneca's page is perhaps close in appearance to a
horse-collar as is commonly understood, but by no means conclusive.
cheers,
--
David Read
Laura Blanchard
(Posted to soc.history.medieval and e-mailed to some of the participants
in the horse harness discussion)
My comments on the interesting complexities of the transmission of
agricultural technology across Europe during the time of the later Roman
empire and the middle ages have spawned some irrelevant discussion.
I'd like to return us to the issues. The publication of Joseph and
Frances Gies's _Cathedral, Forge and Waterwheel_ in 1994 marked a
significant milestone in popular awareness of the many vital
technological advances made in the Middle Ages. It was a seminal work in
many respects -- not the least of which is the degree to which it
provided a counterweight to the myth that the middle ages represented a
millenium of technological stagnation.
As it happens, a revolution of sorts in the way scholars approach
agricultural technology of that period has been finding its way into
print just after the publication of Gies's work. Several posters to
soc.history.medieval have cited works representative of this emerging
trend.
Only recently has this work been emerging from fairly obscure journals
[obscure, I might clarify with apologies to our European colleagues, to
U.S. scholars] into symposium proceedings and collections of essays. I
have the good fortune to work at one of the top twenty research
libraries in the United States. Because I've always found technology
fascinating -- and because I find this thread a welcome change from the
interminable discussions of hairy men doing vile things to each other
with sharp pointy objects -- I've pursued this topic as part of my
personal research agenda, using the resources the University of
Pennsylvania Library has to offer.
Thus, I write this posting with Lefebvre des Noettes by my side (flaking
paper falling on my lap every time I open it, alas), as well as the two
very interesting collections of essays I've cited earlier. When I can
spare the time to walk over to the University Museum library (which
hasn't happened since I've been on deadline on my book), I expect to add
Spruytte to the deskside collection.
I am reminded by all of this of the point at which I discovered that
learning about the later fifteenth century in England was a lot more
complex and satisfying than fussing over two little boys who may or may
not have been murdered by persons unknown (although we all have our
rather boring theories). At this point, I don't much care whether the
horse collar was invented by Hildegard von Bingen or whether it showed
up in pockets of Gallic Rome in the first century A.D. I *am* interested
in looking at the evidence I can find and in following Raepsaet in his
exhortation that we quit looking for and arguing over the paradigm and
spend some time looking for data and developing methodologies to
evaluate the data.
I am hopeful that further discussion of the horse harness, cartage and
plowing technology issue can be conducted in the spirit of sharing data
and evaluations of that data. If it appears that the discussion cannot
be carried out on soc.history.medieval because of the noise level, we
can always take it to MEDIEV-L, a list to which many of us also
subscribe. Alternatively, I am prepared to invite those parties
interested in the kind of discussion I have outlined to continue the
discussion via an e-mail distribution list. I have the facilities to set
up such an entity on the Richard III Society web server if enough folks
are interested and the need becomes apparent.
Regards,
Laura Blanchard
JudyW1917
>
"The first conclusion to be drawn is that a harness of this type,
although
>less appropriate than modern horizontal breast-collar harness
with traces, is
>in no way a hindrance to traction." p99
In the same sentence he says that
>the modern harness is better, but it
makes no difference in hauling. An
>impeccably logical conclusion.
In an article I was just translating by Raepsaet - he says that the carts
used were capable of holding as much a load as Medieval carts ( I believe
he specifically has in mind the early Middle ages) - that the burden on the
animal pulling the load did not increase dramatically from late antiquity to
Early Middle ages and that the harness used enabled the animal to pull the load
without undue difficulty. Part of the issue of the harness is also tied up with
an understanding of the wagons used and the technology of the wagons.
Judy
JudyW1917
In article <Pine.GSO.3.95-960729.98...@vega.dur.ac.uk>,
Gareth <G.J.M...@durham.ac.uk> writes:
>
I take it you mean "some of the scholars" as opposed to "the scholars"
>?
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the case, to decide that just
>because
some people say something doesn't mean that everybody may agree with
>them.
I am referring to the scholars who specialty is Roman Transport in all its
ramifications.
Judy
JudyW1917
In article <6atg82$okt$2...@news.nyu.edu>, ga...@scholar.nyu.edu (Paul J. Gans)
writes:
>
Assuming that you agree that this is what is being said, I
think that you
>will agree that if full utilization came *later*,
earlier utilization was not
>FULL.
My issue has ALWAYS been that the ROMAN harness did NOT strangle horses
and that the information on Horse Harness on your web page is wrong and
you need to update your web page with more modern information. -- something you
seem unwilling to do. Th epicture you show as evidence of "strangulation" are
nothing more than aritics reprsentation that do no bear any evidence to the
reality of the situation.
As for "FULL" utilization - who gets to decide what Full utilizaiton is. Do we
define
about Roman Standards, Northern Gaul Standars, Early Medieval standards, or
your standards. Dr. Kevin Greene makes a point of stressing that we should
evaluate a society in their own terms - and that by applying our standards to
them
we fail to correctly interpret the archaeological evidence we find.
Judy
JudyW1917
In article <19980130184...@ladder02.news.aol.com>, richa...@aol.com
(Richardweb) writes:
>
Raepsaet (1997) calls for a re-evaluation of ancient harness but concedes
>that
under traction it "imposes some constraints." He adds that this was not
>a
porblem for the light carts, judged to carry a maximum load of half a ton.
Althought the book was published in 1997 what is the real date of the articles
- usually in these collection a previous published article is translated and
used
-- what is the date of the article that you are quoting.
Judy
JudyW1917
In article <19980130183...@ladder03.news.aol.com>, richa...@aol.com
(Richardweb) writes:
>
This isn't going to be so easy. Langdon, Astill and Myrdal, in
>their
introduction to _Medieval Farming and Technology: The Impact of
>Agricultural
Change in Northwest Europe_ (Brill, 1997), have this to say:
I priced this book at AMAZON.COM - $107.
Judy
JudyW1917
In article <6au8bn$n4q$1...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, wbh...@prairienet.org (Warren B.
Hapke) writes:
>
Can you give us an ISBN number? I've been involved in the development
>of
NCSC evaluated secure computer systems; I have a lot of problems
>with
sending out financial information to a plain email address on
>the
Internet.
ISBN=0776-72 18
Apparently a very advanced Transport system existed in NOrthern Gaul - but
some of the articles address Rome and the iconography of the Middle ages,
and there is an aticle on the physics of Traction and the traction point as it
applies to various types of horse harness and shafts. But remember Gaul is a
part of
the Roman Empire and the word Roman applies to its empire as well as to the 7
Hills. They do discuss LdN's iconography as well.
Judy
Curt Emanuel
David Read wrote:
>
> In article <34D2BE...@accs.net>, Curt Emanuel <cema...@accs.net>
> writes
> >
> >Well, that was exactly my purpose - to show that there is absolutely no
> >evidence that medieval horses were any larger (or smaller) than Roman
> >ones. All we've had has been unsubstantiated posts stating that Roman
> >horses couldn't be used for heavy cartage because they were two small.
> >And the two references she's supplied (which I've gone to the effort to
> >get) both refute this.
>
> OK, so we have Hyland and Spruytte seemingly at odds on the size and/or
> conformation of the Norman horse. I'm not arguing the point that "Roman
> horses were too small"; it's an irrelevance. I have never made the
> contention that Roman horses were too small. The different breeds of
> horses known to the Romans had different qualities just as they had to
> the medivals and have for us today.
Fine. You'll note that my original post was not in response to you.
>
> >See the above quote. The heavy horse was, by and large, more useful for
> >tournaments than actual warfare. They didn't really gain much in size
> >until the 14th century or so.
>
> I know this - assuming you are talking about destrier type horses. But I
> urge you to go back and read pp 57-58 of "The Medieval Warhorse." I have
> posted this particular passage before.
I've read it. There's nothing at all specific with regards to date. She
has mounted combat in the typical medieval battle as being, " . . . the
impact of two heavy lances, one delivered by a knight on a horse
travelling at, say, a moderate and controlled 20 miles (32 km) per hour,
the other by his opponent travelling at a similar speed, created a
powerful shock which a horse needed great strength to withstand."
I'm no medieval military expert, but I've never read an account of a
battle where it consisted of two mounted companies of knights lining up
and charging at each other (unless we consider The Battle of the Thirty
in 1351). That particular method of combat seems to have been reserved
for tournaments, or individual combat. And even the tournaments didn't
regularly include jousting until the 14th century.
The use of traditional mounted shock combat (against infantry) didn't
really take hold across Europe until the 12th century. Using this as an
argument that horses became larger should be reserved for the late
middle ages.
>
> >I'm not certain what this means. I've offered several quotes, including
> >Hyland and Spruytte, that directly refute this (the heavier
> >conformation). Furthermore, the heavy horse wasn't found until plate
> >armor became common.
>
> Hyland says there was a heavier conformation. Re-read the pages I
> quoted. Not a heavy conformation, but heavier than before.
I have. Nothing of dates and an erroneous view of medieval warfare - at
least if we're talking from Carolingian times.
> Then your argument is with Hyland, or the definition of "big". Hyland
> says bigger in relation to what had been used before as the favoured
> war-mount of the High Medieval knight. This is particularly true of the
> horse's conformation as opposed to its height. But of course, big or
> bigger horses are more difficult to maintain during the hard work of a
> military campaign.
My argument's actually with all of these sources that state that
something actually happened without offering any concrete proof that it
did. Basically, they're saying that horses became larger, simply because
it seems that they should have. Well, the size of horses carrying plate
armor has been fairly well established, but before this? What I've read
indicates that the movement toward larger horses didn't really take
place until the 14th century.
The most convincing argument is the bone deposits from Germany which
you've quoted. And even that can't be equated with the rest of Europe.
> >Sure - but Spruytte is very clear on this, that reading the Code, it's
> >apparent that it was enacted for the welfare of the animals as well as
> >(as you've said) to reduce traffic on the roads.
>
> That is, the animals owned by the state, is it not ?
Spruytte doesn't address this but I'll take your word for it.
> >
> >As far as that goes, Medieval folks may have been equally as abusive,
> >though I'd doubt it in the case of someone who used them in farming -
> >the animal's health was too important to their being able to farm.
>
> Agreed. The same reasoning would equally apply to the Late Roman
> smallholder farming his own or rented plot of land.
Yes.
Curt Emanuel
Gareth
On 31 Jan 1998, JudyW1917 wrote:
>
> I am referring to the scholars who specialty is Roman Transport in all its
> ramifications.
But you're not. You are referring to some of the scholars who specialise
in Roman transport - Greene and co are not the only ones. And, for that
matter, whilst Greene may wll be conducting a study of transport
technology, he's still best known as a pottery specialist above all
else...
____ ____
{ }------------------------------------------------{ }
{ }Gareth Marklew, G.J.M...@durham.ac.uk { }
{ } { }
{ } http://www.dur.ac.uk/~d511kx/ { }
{____}------------------------------------------------{____}
McLean1382
>I'm no medieval military expert, but I've never read an account of a
battle
>where it consisted of two mounted companies of knights lining up
and charging
>at each other (unless we consider The Battle of the Thirty
in 1351)
Not that one either. It was fought on foot.
Will McLean
D. Spencer Hines
Yes, precisely. The CARTAGE. This is the point [one of them] that Gans and
Blanchard refuse to acknowledge.
We must look, not only at the horse and the harness, but the entire SYSTEM
of the horse/s, harness [collar], reins and tethers, cart [or other
conveyance] and the driver.
Pretty blinking obvious, I should think. Have the verities of Systems
Management not yet penetrated the foggy corridors of Academe?
D. Spencer Hines
--
"Well, that's what I mean. You know, if all the people who are named
...deny it....That's all, I mean, I expect them to come looking into it and
interview you and everything, uh, but I just think that if everybody's on
record denying it you've got no problem.....I wonder if I'm going to be
blown out of the water with this. I don't see how they can...if they don't,
if they don't have pictures."
Governor Bill Clinton --- Telephonic Advice to Gennifer Flowers [1991]
JudyW1917 wrote in message
<19980131155...@ladder02.news.aol.com>...
D. Spencer Hines
>Oh, be quiet. The rest of us can't hear ourselves think while you're
>making all this racket.
Laura Blanchard
Well, well, well --- now there's a nice little rational response, TOTALLY
devoid of substance.
If you really believe it's "thinking" that you're doing --- your standards
are far too low.
Blanchard's two messages, one intended to go to her private coterie and the
other "sanitized" to go to SHM are noted as an example par excellence of the
hermetically sealed academic mind at work.
Look at the HORSE, CART, HARNESSING and DRIVER as a SYSTEM.
D. Spencer Hines
--
"Well, that's what I mean. You know, if all the people who are named
...deny it....That's all, I mean, I expect them to come looking into it and
interview you and everything, uh, but I just think that if everybody's on
record denying it you've got no problem.....I wonder if I'm going to be
blown out of the water with this. I don't see how they can...if they don't,
if they don't have pictures."
Governor Bill Clinton --- Telephonic Advice to Gennifer Flowers [1991]
-----Original Message-----
From: Laura Blanchard <lbla...@pobox.upenn.edu>
To: D. Spencer Hines <shi...@worldnet.att.net>
Date: Saturday, January 31, 1998 6:49 AM
Subject: Re: More on Raepsaet and more from others (long)
>Oh, be quiet. The rest of us can't hear ourselves think while you're
>making all this racket.
>
>
>D. Spencer Hines wrote:
>>
>> >We all know that Judy has been pretty unkind
>> >to Paul, that Paul has been unkind to Judy, and that D. Spencer Hines
>> >has used the disagreement as a sprinboard [sic] for his personal
paranoias.
>>
>> Laura Blanchard
Laura, it is quite amateurish and totally unscientific for you to accuse
someone of paranoia whom you have never even met.
No really qualified academic would ever make such a charge, given your
sparse data. I think you know that, which compounds the error.
I realize that you and Gans would prefer to take the "Romans stupidly choked
their horses" discussion off SHM [he now refers to it as the "horse-harness
horror"] because you need to take it underground --- it has become
entirely too embarrassing to Gans before his NYU students that he:
1. Posted his Horse Collar page citing Richard Lefebvre des Noettes' book,
which he has not even read and got caught red-handed in that primal
scholarly subterfuge and schlockmeister charade.
2. Since then he has been challenged by SENECA and Judy to look at new
evidence, post 1910. But he refuses even to go to the WWW site to look at
it, learn French and read LdN [like an honest scholar] and follow up on the
additional references which Judy has kindly provided him.
3. He uses you as his principal spokesperson and the other GLLB as
harassers but he refuses honestly and straightforwardly to face his critics
in an open-handed manner.
4. Instead, he locks his feet in concrete and acts like a small boy who has
been called out at first base in a sandlot baseball game, "I'm going to take
my ball and go home."
5. You and he continually refer to the "noise level" of your critics. No,
it's just the heat in the kitchen that you can't seem to weather.
6. Therefore, if you can't take the heat in this SHM kitchen and have no
rational response, but insist on referring to your critics as "paranoid" ---
a medical condition you are quite unqualified to diagnose --- then by all
means
flee to the safe Ivory Tower of an e-mail coterie. You mediocre academics
prefer the warm, comforting solace of the coven, don't you?
7. If you choose to do that, don't whine and moan that I drove you off SHM.
In that event, you simply demonstrated you couldn't take the heat in the
kitchen and retreated to the Ivory Tower, where you won't be embarrassed in
front of your students and colleagues. Let's call a spade a spade.
JudyW1917
In article <34D26E...@pobox.upenn.edu>, Laura Blanchard
<lbla...@pobox.upenn.edu> writes:
>
Hyland may indeed say this. I just posted (last night) a lengthy
>excerpt
from an essay from another scholar suggesting that such breeding did
>not
begin until the fourteenth century or after. It's on the Raepsaet
>thread
that doesn't say anything about Rommelare -- I forget what I titled
>it.
On the subject of the size of the Horses here is Raepsaet on the subject.
A l'époque romaine, on observe une variété assez grande d'équidés (115-155 cm)
que l'on peut néanmoins diviser, semble-t-il, en deux groupes majeurs: grands
chevaux (140-150 cm), que G. Nobis compare morphologiquement aux actuels
chevaux de fjords, et petits chevaux (130 cm et moins), assez proches des
poneys d'Islande. Les premiers, de type assez fin, serviraient à des usages
militaires (selle) et pourraient être produits par les élevages romains qui
assuraient la remonte ou, plus probablement selon G. Nobis, obtenus par
sélection dans les élevages indigènes. Les petits chevaux seraient directement
dérivés des races indigènes originelles et serviraient, comme les asiniens,
pour le trait ou le bât . Mules et ânes ont été rarement mis en évidence dans
les recherches ostéo-archéologiques jusqu'ici.
Judy
Paul J. Gans
David Read (da...@dreadful.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>In article <6au7o9$4...@panix2.panix.com>, "Paul J. Gans"
><ga...@panix.com> writes
>>Did *I* ever describe it as a revolution? Or are you
>>
>>Baiting again?
You are right. I did write that. Comes from relying on
my sources.
I retract.
----- Paul J. Gans [ga...@panix.com]
David Read
In article <34D34D...@accs.net>, Curt Emanuel <cema...@accs.net>
writes
>Fine. You'll note that my original post was not in response to you.
OK.
>I've read it. There's nothing at all specific with regards to date. She
>has mounted combat in the typical medieval battle as being, " . . . the
>impact of two heavy lances, one delivered by a knight on a horse
>travelling at, say, a moderate and controlled 20 miles (32 km) per hour,
>the other by his opponent travelling at a similar speed, created a
>powerful shock which a horse needed great strength to withstand."
Not unreasonably on my part, I have understood Hyland to mean the eighth
and ninth centuries. The passage is in a section called ""The Change to
Mounted Combat and the Need for a Heavier Horse" in the chapter entitled
"Western Europe in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries".
This taken in conjunction with her claim that Norman horses were of a
medium build and stocky in the next but one chapter, at least shows some
consistency in her line of reasoning.
>I'm no medieval military expert, but I've never read an account of a
>battle where it consisted of two mounted companies of knights lining up
>and charging at each other (unless we consider The Battle of the Thirty
>in 1351). That particular method of combat seems to have been reserved
>for tournaments, or individual combat. And even the tournaments didn't
>regularly include jousting until the 14th century.
I'm sure few if any medieval battles solely consisted of "two mounted
companies of knights lining up and charging at eaach other", but it
would seem odd if bodies of mounted knioghts on opposite sides of the
battle never engaged each other head-on. The tourney and the touranament
were not just idle past-times but preparations for combat on the field
of battle. In any case, Hyland is not here writing of the fourteenth
century.
>The use of traditional mounted shock combat (against infantry) didn't
>really take hold across Europe until the 12th century. Using this as an
>argument that horses became larger should be reserved for the late
>middle ages.
But the used of the couched lance begins to be evident for the first
time in Carolingian illustrations in the middle of the ninth century.
Size, or more particularly heavy conformation of horse, and tactical
technique evolved together is what Hyland is suggesting. It might also
be worth noting that some Carolingian knights were very heavily armoured
in comparison with their contemporaries.
>I have. Nothing of dates and an erroneous view of medieval warfare - at
>least if we're talking from Carolingian times.
Not necessarily so, IMHO - see above.
>My argument's actually with all of these sources that state that
>something actually happened without offering any concrete proof that it
>did. Basically, they're saying that horses became larger, simply because
>it seems that they should have.
But Hyland is _not_ saying that. When she discusses Norman horses she
goes into some detail about their horse-shoes sizes as part of the
evidence that horses weere becoming more powerful. As for looking for
concrete proof, well, we'd all be whistling up a gum tree if we believed
it actually existed for most of these matters. We can only hypothesize
from a mass of confusing and often contadictory data.
> Well, the size of horses carrying plate
>armor has been fairly well established, but before this? What I've read
>indicates that the movement toward larger horses didn't really take
>place until the 14th century.
Well, Hyland disagrees. She has the process as beginning much earlier.
>
>The most convincing argument is the bone deposits from Germany which
>you've quoted. And even that can't be equated with the rest of Europe.
Indeed, but it is another part of the jigsaw.
>Spruytte doesn't address this but I'll take your word for it.
It's not my word, its Jones.
cheers,
--
David Read
Jgissw
>From: Laura Blanchard <lbla...@pobox.upenn.edu>
>Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 10:18:03 -0500
> (snip)The publication of Joseph and
>Frances Gies's _Cathedral, Forge and Waterwheel_ in 1994 ...
>it
>provided a counterweight to the myth that the middle ages represented a
>millenium of technological stagnation.
>
>
I will remark that this myth was not universally accepted, though.
Somewhere, quite some time back ( to provide an impeccable citation) I recall
reading the statement that by the year 1000 the average NW European citizen was
better off than the Roman of the late empire. I also have seen some time ago
the comments on inventions of the middle ages, with the horse collar cited - de
Camp?. His fictional book, Lest Darkness Fall, is certainly based on the
need for technological innovation.
In an earlier post of yours, the point is also made that some of the
innovations were accepted in a spotty manner. As I've said before, I think
it is a truism of anthropology that cultures accept those innovations that seem
to fit the geist of the society, so the fragmentation of Europe might help
acceptance, and in turn these innovations affect the social structure.
.>and because I find this thread a welcome change from the
>interminable discussions of hairy men doing vile things to each other
>with sharp pointy objects...
Sure enough, though these also may call for revision of a view that the
high cost of armor forced a system of serfdom and downtrodden peasantry on
Europe, which was only reformed when guns made knights no longer invincible.
(since I don't know any facts of history, as so many of you do, I'm forced to
deal in glittering generalities, such as what are the causes of the tremendous
increase of personal freedom in the last 200 years, and that we are the
cultural heirs of the middle ages.)
Cheers
John Wilson
Paul J. Gans
David Read (da...@dreadful.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>In article <6au7lt$4...@panix2.panix.com>, "Paul J. Gans"
><ga...@panix.com> writes
>>I guess you are having fun baiting me.
>Not at all. It was meant in all seriousness. I think you have made a
>most pertinent observation about the nature of invention. And I asked in
>all seriousness whether the observation came from a published source.
I don't understand. What I wrote about invention is a
commonplace. The words are mine, the thought is, I am
sure, very old.
>>And I've been fool enough
>>to rise to it.
>Ah, well, I can't help that.
>> If I ever used the term "invented the horse
>>collar", I apologize. I certainly did not use it often. It
>>does not occur on my infamous web page devoted to the horse
>>collar. I wrote the above because some folks have assumed
>>that I've been talking about invention.
>And now you have clarified your position. Good.
My position has always been clear on that point.
>>No kidding. We have essentially no dates for the actual
>>invention of anything prior to the 14th century and darned
>>few even then. As I've said before, by the time something
>>shows up in written or iconographic material, it has
>>possibly been around for a while.
>Indeed.
>>Gee David, I guess you are finally getting the point.
>Not at all. Again, if you had read my posts carefully enough you would
>have realised that it is a point I have made frequently throughout this
>debate.
What point? That we have no actual dates for the first
invention of something in the medieval or classical worlds?
Who ever claimed otherwise?
>> Yes,
>>they are under-represented. And the representations that
>>exist, if any, are ambiguous, at least for the horse collar and the
>>breast strap. Thus is is quite possible that they were
>>not known then. Certainly were not in common use.
>Agreed, as ever, on these points.
>>You've dropped the point again.
>Wrong. One of the points is that if dodgy pictorial evidence is used to
>support the idea of a horse-collar existing in 800 A.D, then it can be
>used to support the idea of a horse-collar existing in 146 A.D. The
>evidence is slight in both cases, and is open to differing
>interpretations. The possibility exists that either or both may be right
>or wrong.
Not really. First, the dodgy evidence is used more by
other folks such as Raepsaet, who uses one picture to
establish a trend.
The evidence for the horse collar is this: there is one
picture from the 800's, several from the 900's and many
many references after that. This is exactly what one
would expect of a new device or technique spreading
throughout western Europe. The number of folks actually
using horses to plow is a false issue. The point there is
that *if* someone were to use horses to plow in the 12th
century, he would use a horse collar and NOT a Roman
harness.
Let me give you another example, this one from Raepsaet
(I'm not picking on him, he's just handy at the moment.)
He has ONE picture of a double-shafted Gallo Roman carriage.
Then there is nothing for several hundred years. Yet
Raepsaet gives this one image a major place in the development
of transport. Since there is no evidence (yet) of any
further use of this device, it could well have been
a local development that for whatever reason, was NOT
ADOPTED generally and faded out in short order.
The early horsecollar evidence is of the same order. The
images are difficult to interpret and even friends of
Roman invention have been reluctant to claim it. Even
were it true, it too could be an early invention that
never went anywhere.
>>Things are invented all
>>the time. Often, they do not catch on and are not used.
>Indeed, and the interesting question is why.
>
>>Or sometimes there are economic reasons.
>Yup.
Yes, but that's a different thread entirely. If you
want to start another on this subject, go right ahead.
I'd be glad to share ideas.
>> The fact
>>remains that the horsecollar evidence is considered by all
>>of Judy's references (and mine) to be not good before 800
>>or so AD. Now it isn't my job to explain this. I have
>>no problem with it -- I bow to the experts on the issue.
>OK. But I've yet to see a convincing explanation that either of the
>Trier pictures are what either of their supporters or detractors claim
>them to be. Both leave room for doubt either way.
Fine. 800 AD doesn't have to be a good date. We can take
900 AD, whatever. The fact remains that at approximately
that date, the knowledge of a new harnessing method spread
through western Europe. And this new method was adopted
to the point that the old harnessing methods of the Romans
stopped being used.
>>Don't *ever* assume that because something was used somewhere
>>at one time, that it must therefore have been used everywhere.
>>This simply isn't true.
>Indeed.
Indeed indeed. ;-)
------ Paul J. Gans [ga...@panix.com]
Paul J. Gans
Curt Emanuel (cema...@accs.net) wrote:
>David Read wrote:
>>
>> OK. But I've yet to see a convincing explanation that either of the
>> Trier pictures are what either of their supporters or detractors claim
>> them to be. Both leave room for doubt either way.
>> >
>There's a much clearer picture in Spruytte (assuming, again, that this
>is the same picture from Seneca's web page that I'm thinking of). It
>clearly shows cart-shafts that run straight up to a neck collar of some
>type. This doesn't appear to be a misplacement of a horse-collar as
>there are three other pictures showing a similar system. The pressure of
>this system would have been on the neck and throat.
Raepsaet ("The Development of Farming Implements between the
Seine and the Rhine from the Second to the Twelfth Centuries",
in _Medieval Farming and Technology_, edited by Astill and Langdon)
has this to say about what seems to be the same harnessing
arrangement: "The double-shafted carriage in Gaul shows a
special harness, a kind of small yoke, laid on a padded prong
saddle. When the point of power hold is located at mid-height
on the neck, as suggested by the iconography, the traction,
which is exerted on the small yoke from front to back mobilizes
the strap of support and imposes some contstraint." I read
this as saying, in many many words, that it causes breathing
difficulties in the horse, as Curt implies. This reading
is confirmed by his next sentence: "But we must point out
that, in most cases, it concerns light carts--judged to carry
a maximumu load of half a tonne -- which does not normally
generate a traction handicap." In other words, yes, it
strangles the horse if the load is too heavy, but it wasn't
used for heavy loads.
If my reading is right, then Raepsaet is really confirming
des Noettes, at least as far as heavy loads are concerned.
And this is with a double-shafted carriage. The situation
would possibly be worse with a single shaft. The iconographic
evidence mentioned (but NOT STRESSED) in Raepsaet indicates
that single-shafted carriages were far more common.
Paul J. Gans
David Read (da...@dreadful.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>In article <6aub2v$8...@panix2.panix.com>, "Paul J. Gans"
><ga...@panix.com> writes
>>
>>David, you are baiting again...
>Oh.
>>Right. Bait away. This thread exists in a vacuum and the
>>possibility that there are others here who have made claims
>>about what Spruytte said have not occured to you, right?
>No.
>>Right. You have, of course, not seen any of the other
>>evidence posted in this thread about horse size, right?
>>Or you have seen it and just want to provoke another
>>argument. Shock cavalary, in all likelyhood, comes
>>MUCH too late to count here. The horsecollar arrived
>>in the West several hundred years BEFORE lances were
>>regularly couched.
>Indeed. So ?
David, you've neatly excised your argument that it
was the development of the war horse to support
shock cavalry that led to the increase in size of
farm horses. I was just reminding you that the
use of the horse for ploughing *predates* the
development of shock cavalry. Your response
of "indeed. So?" is then baiting?
>Curt Emanuel has previously posted the following, which I hope he won't
>mind me borrowing. I'm sure he will be quick to point out if I have
>quoted him out of context:-
>" in places over half the cattle herds died and horses replaced them at
>plow in the 1315-1320 period. However that has little to do with the
>11th and 12th centuries when the use of horses as draft animals seems to
>have reached an early peak."
>I have previously pointed out how the horse did not generally replace
>the ox in England, Bavaria or Burgundy until the thirteenth century.
>I never expected horse-collars and larger horses to appear
>simultaneously. But it seems apparent that the horse with matching
>collar as most-favoured draught animal in northern Europe became
>fashionable around the same time as the mounted knight was realising his
>greatest importance.
Indeed, so? ;-)
I think you miss the point. The point is NOT that the
horse replaced the ox. The point is that *if* the horse
was used to plough, the horse was harnessed to a horse
collar and *not* with a breast strap or with the older
Roman harness. Thus we conclude that the horse collar
was an improvement over the older harness.
As far as the use of the horse vs. the use of the ox,
many factors go into this. As I've pointed out
previously, oxen were still used in the first part
of this century, both in Europe and in the U.S., even
though both horses and tractors were available. Can
I thus conclude that oxen are better than tractors?
>>
>>Nothing makes Gaulish horses special.
>What an extraordinary statement, backed by no facts whatsoever. Julius
>Caesar said so; who is your authority that says they were not ?
Are you claiming that the Gaulish horse was far better in
performance, confirmation, height, weight, etc. than
any other horse in the Roman Empire?
>>Other evidence
>>posted here from Judy's sources (you *do* read Judy,
>>don't you) show that Roman horses ranged in size from
>>as large as any in Europe to rather small. Romans
>>raised horses and prized them. As a rich Empire, they
>>would have had no trouble feeding horses in Italy
>>anything they wanted.
>I'll agree that they went to a great deal of trouble to breed and feed
>expensive cavalry horses of military strategic importance to the Empire.
>But why waste expensively produced grain on draught horses when one has
>the ox to do the, umm, donkey-work ? I'm well aware of the different
>sizes of horses and the breeds familiar to the Romans, and I haven't had
>to read the sources posted by Judy or anyone else to know this.
Well then, you ought to catch up to the rest of us. Seneca
has just written that he's got 15 more books on order from
the library. You'd better get busy. You've got a lot
of reading to do, don't you. :-)
>>
>>You *did* know that, didn't you? Or are you just
>>baiting?
>How sad.
>>What great horse breeding program of Charlemagne?
>You mean you are not aware of the _de Villis_ capitulary ?
It has been used to prove (and disprove) a large number
of things. Let's stick with horse collars. I'm not
going to change the subject.
>> What great
>>efforts of the Merovingians?
>You've never heard of how the Franks admired the Spanish/Berber horses
>of the Moors and that after Poitiers in 732 the Franks began to improve
>and increase their cavalry ?
Sure. Kind of conflicts with Caesar's admiration of the
Gaulish horse, doesn't it? Spain had been part of the
Empire in Caesar's time, right? And the Moors hadn't been
in Spain long enough for an extensive breeding program by
the early 700's.
Perhaps it was the Visigoths who developed the larger
horse.
Besides, what difference does it make?
>>
>>Neither used shock cavalry.
>>And in any event, 12th century horses used by cavalry were
>>not notably large. Far from it. Indeed, this is talked
>>about by Spruytte, a quote from whom you say Curt should
>>not have bothered posting (at the top of this.) One
>>can only conclude that you didn't READ the quote, in
>>which case you wouldn't be writing what you wrote here,
>>OR one could conclude that you only want to make trouble.
>Shame on you again. You might have remembered that _I_ posted that
>Hyland drew different conclusions from the same evidence as Spruytte.
>I'm _glad_ that Curt posted the quote from Spruytte; it provided the
>opportunity to correct the balance with Hyland. You seem to have a
>problem with Hyland. Perhaps it is because she manages to write about
>both Roman and Medieval cavalry without prejudice.
Look, the medieval war-horse has been written about by
many many people, not just Hyland. The consensus opinion
is that the pre-plate armor war horse was not large, but
rather small and agile. It is fairly clear that "not
large" meant that civilian horses were sometimes larger.
I have no problem with Hyland. I do believe that in another
Hyland book what I said above is confirmed. If indeed
Hyland is claiming large war horses in the 12th century,
there is indeed a very large problem, but it isn't with
me.
>>It is interesting to me that the notion that only the state's
>>animals were being talked of is NOT mentioned by des Noettes,
>>Spruytte, Raepsaet, White, or any other writer I've seen.
>I'm referring specifically here to the Theodosian Code. If there is any
>other evidence that the Romans routinely mistreated privately owned
>animals to any significant extent, or that the Theodosian Code refers to
>privately owned animals I would be pleased to hear it.
I repeat, it is interesting that the notion that only the
state's animals were being talked of is NOT mentioned by
des Noettes, Spruytte, Raepsaet, White, or any other writer
I've seen. Your answer is unresponsive. So far you are
the only one who says it was limited to the State's horses.
I would have thought that those authors (such as Spruytte
and Raepsaet) interested in establishing the high state
of development of Roman harness might have mentioned your
fact. Instead, if they mention the code at all, they mention
it as evidence that there were limits to what the animal
could haul.
>>
>>If you were interested in furthering things, you might
>>give us an appropriate quotation (with citation) to
>>prove your point. Curt, Walter, Laura, I, and others
>>have spent a fair amount of time typing in quotes.
>So have I but as ever you appear to have paid scant attention. The
>reference, I have posted *TWICE* in the last several months comes from
>Jones. That you choose to ignore it is your problem.
>>Why do I feel forced to conclude that you are again
>>baiting.
>Beats the hell out of me.
>>You posted this bit of wisdom the moment Judy claimed that
>>Spruytte would set us all right? Or you don't understand
>>that your comment above destroys her position entirely?
>Very possibly. You appear to imagine that Judy and I are in some sort of
>unholy alliance.
Absolutely not. But you might correct some of her more
egregious errors, right?
>>Or you don't really care as long as you can get a rise
>>out of somebody?
>Another asinine remark.
>>What testing? What experiment? YOU are the one suggesting
>>that the sources are wrong. You do the experiments.
>>Or are you just baiting again?
>Idiotic.
>>You win. The Empire's helium balloons clearly were
>>the most efficient way of moving things. There just
>>wasn't a thing that needed heavy fast haulage during
>>Imperial times. The stagnation was so bad that even
>>folks in a hurry walked slowly. Many patriotic Romans
>>only breathed 30 times a minute -- more was seen as
>>unseemly haste. And the Romans invented airplanes,
>>but were so slow in gathering the raw materials that
>>it was 1910 before they got one put together.
>>
>>Or are you just baiting again.
>>
>>Well, I've risen to it. Happy now?
>Please put me in your kill-file if that's the best you can come up with.
Actually, I thought it pretty good. On a par with the
claim that the Romans had no need of a horse collar because
they didn't move heavy loads. I know that wasn't your point,
but you've never commented on it, have you?
------- Paul J. Gans [ga...@panix.com]