[1410] The words ὑποδήματα and soleæ.
[1411] Leonis Tactica, v. 4. p. 51.—In the passage where he names every thing belonging to the equipage of a horseman, he says, πέδικλα σελιναῖα σιδηρὰ μετὰ καρφίων αὐτῶν. I shall here first remark, that after πέδικλα there ought to be a comma, for by that word is meant the ropes with which saddled horses were fastened. Du Cange says πεδικλοῦν signifies to bind. See likewise Scheffer’s Annotations on Mauricii Ars Militaris, p. 395. The translator also has improperly said, “Pedicla, id est calceos lunatos ferreos cum ipsis carphiis.” Κάρφια means nails, as Du Cange has proved by several instances, and here horse-shoe nails. The word may be found for the second time in the tenth century, in the Tactica of the Emperor Constantine, where the whole passage, however, is taken from Leo without the least variation; so that we may suppose Constantine understood it in the same sense as Leo. It is used, for the third time, by the same emperor, twice in his book on the Ceremonial of his own court. In p. 265, where he speaks of the horses (τὰ ἱππάρια) which were to be procured for the imperial stable; these, he says, were to be provided with every thing necessary, and to have also σελιναῖα. In page 267 it is said further, that a certain number of pounds of iron should be given out from the imperial stores to make σελιναῖα, and other horse-furniture. The same word is used a fourth time by Eustathius, who wrote in the twelfth century, in his commentary on Homer, Χαλκὸν δὲ νῦν λέγει τὰ σελιναῖα ὑπὸ τοῖς ποσὶ τῶν ἵππων, οἷς διακόπτονται εἰς πλέον τὰ πατούμενα. See Iliad. lib. xi. 152. Though I do not believe that Homer had the least idea of horse-shoes, I am fully convinced that Eustathius alludes to them by that word. This commentator has explained very properly various passages of the like kind in Homer; but he seems here, as was the case sometimes with his poet himself, to have been asleep or slumbering.
When one considers that the σελιναῖα, or σεληναῖα, belonged to horse-furniture; that they were made of iron; that, as Eustathius says, they were placed under the hoofs of the horses; that the word seems to show its derivation from the moon-like form of shoes, such as those used at present; and lastly, that nails were necessary to these σελιναῖα; I think we may venture to conclude, without any fear of erring, that this word was employed to signify horse-shoes of the same kind as ours, and that they were known, if not earlier, at least in the ninth century.
[1412] This life of Matilda may be found in Leibnitii Scriptores Brunsvicenses, vol. i. p. 629; but the fullest and most correct edition is in Muratori Rerum Italicarum Scriptores. Mediolani 1724, fol. vol. v. p. 353.
[1413] Histoire de France, vol. i. p. 566. The author here speaks of the cavalry of Louis le Débonnaire.
[1414] Dugd. Bar. i. 58. ex Chron. Bromtoni, p. 974, 975, Blount’s Tenures, p. 50.
[1415] Brook’s Discovery of Errors in the Catalogue of the Nobility, p. 198.
[1416] Beckmann in Beschreibung der Mark Brandenburg, Berlin, 1751, 2 vols. fol. i. p. 401, mentions an old shoe found in a grave, the holdfasts of which did not project downwards but upwards. Arnkul in his Heidnischen Alterthümern speaks also of a horse-shoe found near Kiel.