The Horse-furniture presents some new features; especially in the arming of the steed in chain-mail, a practice which appears to have originated towards the close of the twelfth century. Wace indeed tells us that William Fitz-Osbert, at the field of Hastings, rode a steed thus accoutred:--
"Vint Willame li filz Osber, Son cheval tot covert de fer."--_Line_ 12,627.
But we may well believe that it was rather the necessity of a rhyme to "Osber" than the usage of the period, that gives us this iron horse at so early a date. Wace, writing in the second half of the twelfth century, appears merely to have availed himself of the usual license of middle-age authorities: to depict a past generation in the lineaments of his own. The practice of arming the horse does not seem to have become general till towards the close of the thirteenth century. A pictorial example of the trapper of chain-mail will be found in our woodcut, No. 86. The Saddle had a high pommel and cantle, as may be seen in our engravings of the royal seals of this period. In many examples of the Bayeux tapestry they form volutes, (viewed laterally,) exactly like the sides of an Ionic capital. The saddle-cloth does not appear in this tapestry, but it is found on the second seal of Henry I., on the seal of King Stephen, and on that of Louis VII. of France. In these examples it is quite plain; but later it acquires an ornamental character, as in the seal of Conan, duke of Britanny, c. 1165, (woodcut 41). It is of a more enriched pattern in the Great Seal of Henry II., here given.
[Illustration: SECOND SEAL OF KING HENRY II.
From Wace we learn that the girths and breastplate were named, in the "Romance" of that day, _cingles_ and _poitrail_:--
"Li peitral del cheval rompi, E li dui cengles altresi."--_Rom. de Rou_, l. 14,674.
This poitrail has generally, in the period under examination, pendants attached to it, in the form of rounds,--perhaps grelots. See woodcuts 1, 25, 28 and 29.
Roman monuments offer similar examples, as in Trajan's Column, the Pillar of Antonine, and other remains, where the pendants are bells, crescents, trefoils, rounds, and guttæ. Such collars are found also in the paintings of the Ajunta Caves, where bells and rounds alternate. This monument is assigned to the first century of our era. In the curious Spanish manuscript, dated 1109, in the British Museum, Addit. MSS., 11,695, the circular pendants occur, attached not only to the poitrail, but to the saddle (fol. 223). The Bits used for the war-horse have long cheeks, which are often of an ogee form. The rein is generally quite plain, though sometimes ornamented with studs, as in examples in the manuscript last cited.