King Alfred (871 to 899) had a Master of the Horse, named Ecquef, and the existence of such an office indicates that the Royal stables were ordered on a scale of considerable magnitude.
King Athelstan (925-940) is entitled to special mention, for it was he who passed the first of a long series of laws by which the export of horses was forbidden. Athelstan’s law assigns no reason for this step; but the only possible motive for such a law must have been to check the trade which the high qualities of English-bred horses had brought into existence. At no period of our history have we possessed more horses than would supply our requirements, and Athelstan’s prohibition of the export of horses beyond sea, unless they were sent as gifts, was undoubtedly due to a growing demand which threatened to produce scarcity. This king saw no objection to the importation of horses: he accepted several as gifts from Continental Sovereigns, and evidently attached much value to them, for in his will he made certain bequests of white horses and others which had been given him by Saxon friends.
[WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR (1066-1087).]
William the Conqueror brought with him many horses from Normandy when he invaded England. Many of these were Spanish horses, if we may apply to the famous Bayeux tapestry the test of comparison. William himself, at Hastings, rode a Spanish horse, which had been presented to him by his friend, Alfonso of Spain, and the riders on horseback on the tapestry show that the Norman knights rode horses similar in all respects to that of their leader. They are small, probably not exceeding 14 hands, and of course all stallions. Berenger[2] describes these horses as of a class adapted to the “purposes of war and the exhibition of public assemblies.”
There is nothing to tell us when horses were first used in agriculture in England; the earliest mention of such, some considerable research has revealed, is the reference to “four draught horses” owned by the proprietor of an Essex manor in the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042-1066). Under the Norman and Plantagenet kings the plough appears to have been adapted for draught by either oxen or horses. The former undoubtedly were the more generally used, and continued in use until comparatively recent times in some parts of the country.
One of the pieces of tapestry worked in Bayonne in 1066 shows the figure of a man driving a horse harnessed to a harrow. This is the earliest pictorial evidence we possess of the employment of the horse in field labour.
The Conqueror and his followers came from a country in which agriculture was in a more advanced state than it was in England, and it cannot be doubted that the Normans did much to promote the interests of English husbandry.