Gone Medieval - How Horses Ran the Medieval World

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

How integral were horses to warfare, agriculture and travel in the Middle Ages? What did your horse say about your status? How can knowing more about horses unlock a deeper understanding of medieval society itself?Matt Lewis is joined by equestrian historian Dr. Anastasija Ropa to understand the way horses powered the Middle Ages.MOREFantastic Beasts of the Middle AgesListen on AppleListen on SpotifyDragons: From Eden to Middle EarthListen on AppleListen to SpotifyGone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, the producers are Rob Weinberg and Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the crusades. We cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, aliens, plots and murders to find the stories big and small that tell us how we got here.

Find out who we really were. We've gone medieval. You're standing at a medieval crossroads on a bustling spring morning. Here comes a monk bouncing uncomfortably atop a threadbare mule whose ears flick back and forth with each determined step. The monk's robes flap in the breeze as he clutches his saddle with white knuckles. Just behind him, a more impressive procession approaches. A knight in gleaming armour rides proudly upon a spirited courser, while his young squire struggles to control both his own rauncy and the imposing warhorse he leads by the reins.

Bread for strength rather than towering height, the warhorse snorts impatiently, armour clanking with each powerful step. Meanwhile, a lady of noble birth passes by on her elegant pulfering, Sitting sideways in her specialised saddle, her ambler provides a comfortable ride that doesn't disturb her elaborate headdress or trailing sleeves. And just beyond the road, humble working horses strained to pull plows through thick soil, while rippling cart horses haul goods towards the market square. Horses in the Middle Ages weren't just for transportation.

An entire economic and social system was built on their backs. In fact, mules were sometimes worth more than horses because they could carry heavier loads on rough terrain while eating less food. Medieval people understood something about horses that we sometimes forget today. We often treat horses like living machines, but medieval handlers recognise them as partners who could either help or hinder human goals. Today, we're going to gallop our way through history to explore how horses, mules and donkeys shaped. medieval society, from battlefields to wheat fields, from royal processions to pilgrims' paths. We'll discover why understanding these magnificent animals is key to understanding the medieval world itself. Joining me is Dr Anastasia Roper, who lectures at the Latvian Academy of Sport Education and has

owned and trained horses for many years. Her new book, The Medieval Horse, has just been published by Reaction Books. Welcome to Gone Medieval Anastasia. It's fantastic. Fantastic to have you with us. Thank you, Matt. And I'm very glad we will be here, too. Thank you for inviting me. No, it's a pleasure. I think this should be a really fascinating topic

that's kind of disappeared under our radar because I think when people think about the medieval period, you will often have a horse in there. It's a knight on a horse, or it's a field with a horse pulling a plow or something like that. Just how significant and important would you say horses, mules and donkeys are to the Middle Ages? Okay, so horses, mules and donkeys, as you rightly pointed out, they are basically everywhere,

just like we have cars today. And just like today, not everybody who knows what a car is would be an expert driver or knows how a car functions. So in the middle ages, people were very much aware of horses of their presence. But there is a misunderstanding. A lot of people think that all medieval people, they knew everything about horses. Not everybody knew everything about horses, even if they used horses, mules and donkeys, all the time. Yeah, yeah. So if we consider horses and mules and donkeys to be sort of central, integral to medieval society,

could you talk us through a little bit of the different types of horses in particular, I guess, and what they were used for? Okay. As you said that the iconic image of the Middle Ages is, a knight on horseback. And the horse he's riding, iconically, it's a war horse or that's three years. But war horses, elite horses, and just like elite cars today, they would be like at best 5% of all horse mule and donkey population in any given country.

Knights could also ride corsers. So, corsor is a horse which is a little bit less expensive. expensive, faster, maybe not as heavily built, lighter build, like a track and field athlete who is doing a marathon, but also quite expensive and quite well trained. You could also have a pole free. That's a horse which is pleasant to ride, which is nice to travel on. Horses have different kind of gates, and some horses are just not easy to ride on. There could be wonderful animals with all kinds of great qualities, but if you want to ride all day. You want a horse that's easy to sit on.

So both race, some of them could amble. That's a gate where the horse lifts both of its left on the same side of the body. That's very comfortable to sit too. So that's super horse for traveling. But all these elite horses, they were much rather than working horses. So pulling carts, plowing the fields, doing all kinds of work, also working as pack animals. Mules, depending on the region, they could be used by nights for traveling, for example, in Iberia, because mules are much better for traveling around mountains.

They could also be used by servants, by the clergy, by women. But, yeah, there were these hybrid animals. And dants were used by the poor people for riding, for caring, work. for also doing kind of harness work. In England, I think there weren't that many donkeys because climate in this northern wetter kind of regions of Europe, it wasn't very conducive to keeping dants, but more to the south, donkeys were quite present,

and that's another overlooked animal. I like the comparison to a car today. So if we saw someone in the medieval period riding a horse or a mule down the road, we would be able to get some idea of their social status and their wealth maybe from the type of animal that they're riding? Yeah, so that was the case even in the early modern period and I guess up to the 19th century,

if you remember the three musketeers, then there is D'Artagnan, she's a yellow horse. Everybody is laughing at this yellow galen who is a bit old, actually not that old, but Dumas is making a case that you see the horse and you realize that's a poor guy who is sort of noble but not so noble, gentle, doesn't have much money, but still riding something. So in the Middle Orleans we see quite a lot of instances where people instantly can tell, oh, that's a warhorse, or that's a coer.

that's a very poor scruffing view so people can recognise immediately just like today we can recognise different brands of cars people could recognise different types of horses yeah fascinating you talk in the book about the myth that has kind of been debunked about the idea that knights horses in particular the destrias that you mentioned before

were these sort of huge tall thundering war horses. I wonder if you could talk us through a little bit of the evidence that we have for what sinus size they really were and how we know that they weren't quite what we thought they were. Okay. So we can look at different sources. One of them is horse bones from the middle ages. Those are these artistic evidence. Then we can have surviving horse equipment, which can be measured. And we can look at literature. So in literature, what we see is they're often talking about great horses or big horses when they're talking about knights. So it's quite natural that you get the impression that the knight has a big horse,

but big is a relative thing. Big relative to what? Today's big horses, like shires, you cannot see over their backs, right? In the middle east, if you look at images, people can quite easily look over the back of the horse. They can also maybe touch the horse on the other side. So even if these are big horses, by today's standard, they are very moderately-sized horses. And recently there was quite a lot of research into horse bones, and all evidence points out that until the end of the 15th century, there are no horse bones in Europe, which would indicate

horses over 16 hands, or much over 16 hands. That's very moderate today. and overage horse population, there would be 13 to 14 hands. So today these are ponies, according to classification. So depending on the period, the region, and of course each particular owner or breeder, you would have from a big pony to a small horse. And we can suggest that possibly, because they were called great horses, these war horses could have been quite big by medieval standards,

but by today's standards, they're kind of very moderately sized. They don't even make the standard for the police horse, most of them. That's fascinating, and amazing that we've kind of held on to this idea that they were somehow huge by our standards today, rather than putting in the context of the time. But these kind of myths around horses are quite important, I think. they find their way into romance literature. What part do horses play in sort of romance stories of the medieval period too?

Okay, so there are some romances which actually have horses play a role almost big there, at least very actively, and participating in the narrative, like the magical horse Bayar carrying people or in the Middle Ages people liked the romance of Alexander are great, and we have Busefales, who is this great horse who needs taming, and who acts in a very particular way. So these horses are almost heroes in their own right. On the other hand, in most romances, horses don't have names, but they act as the knight's alter ego, kind of part of the knight's identity.

So if you are riding a good horse, you're all kind of doing well. on the hierarchy of romances. But if you're in a poor horse, then there is something wrong between your kind of status as a knight and your current situation. For example, Sir Percival as a young knight, he wants to become a knight,

but he doesn't know what horses are. So depending on the version of the romance, he either chooses a courser, which is fine. But in the Middle English romance, he actually doesn't know what horses are, so he chooses wild pregnant mare and rides you home without any equipment,

which is a big blunder, of course. But yeah, so everybody who sees him are laughing, the readers are laughing, because that's not the kind of horse a knight will be riding. And I guess treating them as an extension of the personality of the knight of the hero of the story,

either for good or for ill, is a great way of positioning the horse as a core part of what a knight is doing of talking about that really close relationship that must have existed between a horse and its rider? Yes, definitely. Of course, not every knight would enjoy a very close relationship with every horse.

Sometimes a horse is just like a vehicle to get you from one point to the other horse. Just not your rental car. On the other hand, we know that some people have a very close relationship with their cars and with the horses who can have a mind a personality, a character of their own, who are not always acting as you want them to act. On the other hand, who can act in a way that can help you,

who can do something for you which yourself wouldn't be able to do. So you are definitely going to form a relationship if you are having a particular horse for a longer time. Again, we know about these horses who have a very, very close relationship. Alexander the Great and Bustafal, this timeless myth, which shows how the riders find understanding of the horses' needs, it just pays back because the horse who is untamable, where all accounts just becomes the best friend of the rider. There are some knights who have horses which are named,

and you can clearly see that they love the mount. For example, Sir Gawain, he has at least two horses which are mentioned in romances, and the lesser known is Griesel, but in the Middle English romance of adventures of King Arthur, Gawain has Griselle killed under him during a judicial duel, and he's just burst into crying, as if his fellow knight had been killed.

He's just, oh, my fellow, Hello, Griselle is killed. There is no other horse like him. He doesn't want to have a replacement horse. He wants to continue fighting on foot and avenge his horse, and he does that. So you can see that this relationship could be very close. It could be even a reciprocal when a horse wants to follow the rider and doesn't want to have any other rider on his back.

That's what medieval best. I say that some horses will not accept any other rider. but their owner. And we've been talking a lot about kind of knights and their horses, but I guess we need to acknowledge that the vast majority of medieval horses would have been working animals. Do we get any sense of what life was like for a working horse? Okay, so just like with peasants and working people,

there is less evidence for what life would have been like for working equites, horses, donkeys, but some evidence is there. And first of all, any animal could kind of progress or go down on this social ladder from being a war horse to being even a working horse when they retired or were made unfit for war service. Or maybe they rather realize that this horse doesn't really work as a warhorse. So maybe it should be my servant's riding horse and that's it. Most of we are talking about stallions, not mares,

because merch were used for breeding or for breeding and working on the farm. But in some cases, in Europe, merce could be ridden as well. It just doesn't get into the record so often because riding a mare looks like it's a big shame. Certainly in the east, we can see that people, the nomads in the Arabic Peninsula, they could be riding anything. Maers, Gellings and Stallions, but there would be a difference for them because it would depend on the work to be done, so to say. As for working horses, just going back to working horses, and in particular working mares, there are some accounts which indicate that working mares had two jobs, first of all to breed new falls and second to work. But for the horse to do both works quite well, it needs to be balanced, first of all.

And second, depending on how well you care for the horse, its productivity and its life spend won't depend on that. So today, horses could live 30 years and longer in the Middle Ages. Their lives seems to have been shorter. Although some authors mention that if you take good care of a horse, it would serve you for 20 years, which is amazing. Today, not all riding horses have a useful lifespan of 20 years. Some of them die will have to be retired much early. It's kind of ideal.

You mentioned there that there was a slight difference in attitudes to horses in the east and the west. Is that marked? Are horses treated differently in the east and the west? Yes. Well, first of all, there is mental attitude. On the other hand, it depends on the conditions and the work in which horses are used. So if we look at nomadic society, they're traveling with their horses. So the horses have a very, very close connection all the time with the people.

And even if when this nomadic people get settled, they still retain this close connection conceptually. For example, in the Mamlu Cairo, they would have a stable palace. So horses are at the bottom, the ground floor, so to say, and the rest of it is on the top floors, and they would also have hippodromes, draining grounds, within a city, within medieval chiral. In the Middle Ages, the connection could have been less clothes, for example, on the manner, reasoned horses would, and working horses would be kept slightly apart.

Okay, definitely no medieval roller would put stables on the ground floor. could be for all kinds of reasons, also practical reasons. Horses are quite smelly. On the other hand, as we go later into the Middle Ages into Renaissance Italy, we get almost the same phenomenon when rulers magnates erecting stables which look like palaces. Okay, they don't live there really, but their stables are so magnificent. Some of them have even life-size portraits of these horses on the walls that we get an impression that there must be some cultural exchange

when this attitude of taking pride in horses just gets transferred between Italy and the Near East. Yeah, and we've talked a bit about working horses. I wonder, are there during this period, are there wild horses? and are they kind of managed in any way? Yes, so wild horses is another kind of area where not much research has been done because most sources, they keep silent on wild horses. However, I've been doing some new research which focused on wild horses in particular.

Actually, they were not really wild in the sense that wild has never domesticated. The horses which are referred to as wild, in the sources they are quite often, in the late in the late, they are called forest horses. So basically, this is either feral horses, so domestic horses which have gone wild, or more often, they are horses which are bred in the wild. So when Percival grabs the wild mare, it's most likely one of his mother's breeding horses, which is out there, and that's why it's with whole, and that's why it's a mare. And basically, they are managed. They are one way how to breed horses with less costs. In the UK, we still have a new forest horse. Also, in some parts of Europe, there are programs where populations of small horses,

you can call them ponies, left in natural reserves in wild parks. And then they regularly remove young male horses, colds, because if there are too many horses, not enough females, they just start fighting, and also the population will grow out of control. So basically, in this case, that's the same paradigm as we had in the Middle Ages. We have a herd which is breeding. Either they have a few stelians out there all the time, or they introduce the stelians during the breeding season,

and then you remove the excess stelians. And that's why in the Middle Ages, most knights would be riding stealth, not just because it's male pride or whatever, but because mares are quite valuable as breeding stock. If they get killed or injured, or if they're working on campaigns, they cannot produce remounts. So it's practical rather than gendered this way. Yeah.

And it sounds like lots of these horses that aren't recorded are the ones that are really kind of quietly, vital to the medieval world that, you know, we don't necessarily have records of what they were doing all day every day like we might have with knights horses kind of charging into battle. But medieval society just wouldn't have functioned without these horses quietly performing that role. Yes, exactly. And as I said, horses can change their role.

At the end of the romance of the four sons of Eamon, where you have Bayard, whom Charlemagne tries to drown, but the horse escapes, and she runs. into the forest. So he actually becomes a wild stallion breeding probably with wild nirs, which is really cool. You can have the whole Arden forest now full of the falls of my yard. Who knows? Yeah, yeah. And I mean, this maybe is getting to the end of horses' lives. But what do people in the medieval world think about horse meat? Are horses ever used for food or is that a last resort when it's gone beyond its useful years. Okay, so that's a very, very interesting question.

In Christian countries, there was a prohibition on eating horse meat. So theoretically, shouldn't be eating it. There is evidence that in some cases under siege, for example, crusaders, they're eating horses. At some point, again, Bayard should have been eaten because everybody is starving and they're kind of eating all the horses except for Bayard and at some point they escape, so he doesn't get eaten. But normally horses wouldn't be eaten, while the feral horses wouldn't be hunted for food in Europe,

with some exception. Of course, if Zealand is not Christian yet, they might be hunting. For example, we have in the private Chronicle of Ruth, there is an instance, well, one of the princes who is not Christian yet, who is a savage, he's said that he's eating horse meat. So probably not his horses, probably the ones which are roaming the stepper, which he's hunting on the way.

In Europe, there are some instances where horse meat is referenced. For example, she'll the guard of Bingen writes about horse meat. She says it's clean, but it's tough, so you shouldn't really eat it. She's not evoking this religious prohibition. she says it's like not fit for human consumption. And there is one blessing from St. Gaul in Switzerland, which mentions horse meat. You bless horse meat before you eat it.

But apparently there were no horses at that point in Switzerland. So it might happen they just recorded it from a previous source, but it doesn't seem that they consumed horse meat or donkey meat, which Christians shouldn't be doing. where there's a Mongol also doing that, but not Christian folks. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting that distinction between, we shouldn't do it for religious reasons, but also they don't taste very good. They can be really tough to eat as an excuse not to eat them as well.

You talk in the book as well about the different types of horses and the riding styles that Chaucer talks about in his Canterbury tales, and it seems that the different characters are, to some extent, defined by the horse, the mount that they're riding, the way that they're riding it. Can you tell us a little bit more about that, please? Yes. So Chaucer's Canterbury Burtails is just the best example because he has people coming from different social strata, different genders, different occupations, and he also mentions the horses they're riding. So the only mare which appears is the Plowman's Mayor. He's the only

one who is riding a mare. Presumably all the other horses are male horses. And the wife of Busses, my favorite because she's riding an ambler, that's an expensive horse, a comfortable

horse to ride so she knows what she's doing, and she also has spurs on her feet, which indicates

she's riding a stride, which was okay in the Middle Ages. A lot of women traveled riding like men when they

had a long way to go, but it's like that she's got spurs means that she knows what she is doing

or at least she pretends she knows and she's kind of this very willful woman who wants to be in control, who wants to ride her emblem, the way she wrote your husband. There is this sexual metaphor going on.

And of course, your story is also about women having a choice, women having a say in governing the kingdom of men or the household and then controlling the horse. And we have, for example, the knight, who is not well-dressed, but she's got a warhorse. And in the Elsemeier manuscript, there is an elimination which shows that this horse has a brand mark, which might indicate that the knight has been on this particular horse on crusade, on campaign.

And it's mentioned he's been no crusading. And the horse may have been branded there when he was starting his service. So there is this partnership. the knight who is experienced and the war horse who is also experienced. Then there is his son who doesn't have a war horse because he's not really a warrior, he's a courtier. So he's got a horse which is fine stepping but not a war horse. What else?

So all of these horses, all of these animals, they are part of their rider's social status, the way these people are and the way they want to be. seen. They're not necessarily the more practical beast for traveling. An embleer is definitely a good choice, but a war horse for traveling may not be such a good choice. And the working wear, a plumber is just a beast you have, because the plowman doesn't have any other riding horse, but they're part of the rider's personality in some way. Yeah, yeah. So almost you can say that the horse that they're riding and the way that they're riding it, their style of horsemanship

becomes a kind of social performance that Chaucer is connecting the horse that they ride and the way that they ride to a part of their personality and their status. Yes, definitely. So these are status indicators. In real life, a knight wouldn't always be riding his warhorse. A warhorse could be led from a different horse to save it from the stress. Of course, if it's a poor knight, he's got just one mound. That's a war horse.

But, yeah, so it's a status indicator. It could also be indicator of the person's kind of moral character in some way. For example, we have the Romans, the quest of the Holy Grail. And at one point there, Sir Percival is losing his horse. It gets killed. He requisitions, so to say, around from a servant who is passing through the forest and who is looking for his master's horse. So Perseful just gets this round, rides it,

promising to get the war horse back to the servant, and the rounds as well. And the rounder gets killed. So Percival is extremely unlucky at some point. And then he spends the night in the forest utterly despairing. And then in the morning a beautiful lady appears leading a huge black horse to him. And you would question,

why in the middle of a wild forest there is a lady with a black horse? Of course he is not questioning. He's promising to do anything the lady would ask just give him the horse. The horse turns out to be the devil which nearly kills Persephone and lands him on a desert island.

So basically, this writing of this black horse it's a metaphor of the way his soul is. It's in confusion. that's why he gets a horse which is going to get to lend him into more trouble and confusion. So it could be both social status indicator and could also be indicator of this moral process, of characterizing the person in different ways. Yeah, it's really interesting. So we've talked about horses in war.

We've talked about them at work. We've talked about them in terms of social status indicators. and measures. I wonder if you could talk to us a little bit about horses as kind of political tools, because you quite often see them being given as gifts to kings or to lords who want to try and impress each other with the quality of their horses. Do we have examples of where they're used for political ends like that? Yes, definitely. So horses could be used as gifts, and they were used as gifts, not just in Europe. They were used as gifts in Asia.

We have examples from the Tangut Empire, which was a neighbor to medieval China, and the Tangut Empire during its existence was famous for breeding good horses. Some of these horses ended up as diplomatic gifts to China where they were apparently lacking good horses. Another thing is that sometimes good horses could be found in unexpected places. So, for example, we don't necessarily think of Scotland

as being prominent as the land of wood horses. But there is evidence that some Scottish horses known as Gallowin necks or Scottish trotting horses, they were presented to Italy to magnate there as diplomatic gifts. So they were quite priced, even if we don't really know much about them, right? Because along the way some of these horses were also rebranded as English horses. But one of my colleagues, Miriam Bibi, she's done a whole monograph and looked into evidence. And she's found that Scottish horses were quite priced. And they were often regarded as suitable diplomatic gifts for rulers on the continent.

I'm sure there's plenty of Scottish people who will have something to say about the English stealing good Scottish horses and rebranding them as English. And what do we know about if horses are now being used as these kind of political gifts and statements, what do we know about the kind of accessories that go with those horses? So bridles, saddles, stirrups, do they have a relationship to prestige and status too where people keen to have a really good saddle because it's comfortable or because it makes you look more important than you are? A well-made saddle is definitely more comfortable.

I can tell you that as a rider, it makes a difference. And it also makes a difference in terms of safety because a well-mite saddle is less likely to break as a crucial point, which was, of course, very important to people in the Middle Ages. You can't just go to the store and get another one. But also the look of this equipment could have been one of the factors which determined the wealth of the value of the horse, right? For example, in Bear Wolf, we see Rodger presenting horses which have ornate bridles and saddles.

So you know that these are good horses, not just because they look good, but because they also have all this royal equipment on them. In another early English source in Anglo-Saxon, the saint's life of Bishop Idan, he gets a present from the king of a royal horse with a saddle and bridle. And of course, being a bishop and a settlement, he immediately presents it to someone else, a burger on the street, which makes the king angry, but the bishop has an explanation to that. You are just wondering what the burger is going to do with the royal horse,

but then a bishop doesn't have much more use for a royal horse size. So equipment was also. increasing the horses value, I would say. I have a suspicion that it was one of the ways how people could value horses and put them into categories, not just the way the horse looked and moved, but also the way it was presented. Yeah, we like shiny, blinking things. And also talking about expensive saddles, there are some examples of saddles which could look really cool and expensive, but which we were uncomfortable and may not have been used as

riding equipment at all. These are bone saddles which appear quite late. 15th century, there are just a handful of these saddles remain from Europe. They're made entirely of bone which is carved with all kinds of intricate designs and showing romantic adventures. And it's been supposed that these are gifts for bride of ceremonies. So the bride might have been written in it during the procession or the horse might just have been led

with the saddle. Then the saddle will remain in the newlyweds couple's house, but it's not a it's not a saddle for writing. It will be extremely uncomfortable and there is no evidence that these saddles were written in

because all the decoration will be gone. Yeah, fascinating that they can have this performative, element to them that doesn't require them to have any practical purpose whatsoever. We tend to think of horses being these practical things, but it sounds like there was so much more to them and that they could be ways to shout your status, ways to improve relations with other nobles and things like that. So the saddles and the bridles and the bits that go along with that don't necessarily

have to have that functional element to them too. They can be entirely for display? Yes, definitely. And also some horses could be used as, as you say, as a diplomatic gift as part of display and riding as well. So processions on horseback was one way to show off your wealth, to show off the way you ride and manage a horse, which was important for the nobility. And also today we tend to think that women were riding side saddle or sideways in the Middle Ages. Actually, most women throughout most of the Middle Ages were riding just the same way as men.

But in processions, women would have been riding on the side. And it seems that towards the end of the Middle Ages, it would have gradually becoming more and more acceptable way for women to ride on the side and with their beautiful dress flowing. down, but up to the end of the 15th century, it was okay to ride both ways. Just if you want to be seen, if you want your dress to be seen, you would ride in finery without any hurry with your dress flowing beautifully down. And for men, presenting a good figure on horseback is something which is also very important,

in particular towards the end of the Middle Ages, when having good writing skills could be seen as a social asset, for example, Don Duarte, the king of Portugal, she had a whole treatise written about the art of writing, and she says that a knight should look well on the saddle. It's one way how you can advance socially, and he has a whole series of advice, what you do to stay elegant, how to adjust your clothing, if your horse is backing or misbehaving, how you stay there in the saddle and pretend that,

It's the way it should have been. You just wanted it to bark and just showing off your skills. It's not like you're keeping barely in the saddle. So it's very interesting as well. Yeah, how to style out the mistakes. As someone who works with horses, do you see a legacy of medieval horses today? Is there an equivalence in horsemanship, in modern equestrian sports, in cultural attitudes to horses,

where we can see those things left over from the medieval period today? Yes, well, first of all, we have a rebirth of interest in medieval horsemanship, for example, tournaments or jousting. Jowasting became a new sport. There are several styles how you can joust. And just like it was a sport towards the end of the Middle Ages with rules, with special equipment, with specially trained horse. So today it's also a sport not quite the same as in the Middle Ages and obviously there

is more emphasis on safety. You definitely don't want to be killed or injured. But it's hugely popular. It's international sport. Another medieval sport which was reborn is horseback archery. It's quite popular all around Asia, in Japan, in Iran, and in Europe it's been experienced a kind of rebirth, which started in Hungary, where enthusiasts just recreated the Hungarian saddle the bow. And again, it's another freeborn sport which now has international associations

and championships, which is incredible. But also on a daily level when working with horses, I have looked at medieval training venues, especially one by Jordanians. And basically most of the advice he's making there is applicable today. And I have even trained two horses using his advice. Actually, not all of it because some of it for different reasons wasn't applicable in my circumstances. But the main idea is that you should take care of your horse treated ethical, treated gently. Don't scare it.

Don't shout it, don't hit it, especially if it's a young horse, because you won't trust. And that's timeless advice which would be useful in any sport to any rider. You want a horse who is your companion. You don't want to hit it. You don't want it to be scared. Truth is very sophisticated here. He's saying that if your horse gets scared from something and you start hitting it, then it will associate the thing which scared it.

with the pain and with the additional stress which you added. And eventually it will be even more scared of this. And when they're a person who's been living in this 13th century, and he already knew this things which today you can have horse statologists and horse behaviors, and they're still talking about the same thing. So basically, good horsemanship is timeless. Yeah, yeah, it's something that we learned a long, long time ago, which I guess again talks to the close connection that's always existed between humans and their horses, whatever that horse might happen to be used for. I wonder to finish on, if there is ever a horse that you've come across in any of your research that has made you think, I wish I'd met that horse, I wish I got to ride that horse or work with that horse.

Okay, so I think Busephalus is not, I wish I had met this horse, but I've met several horses and work with them which are very similar because at the beginning Busephalus is afraid of his shadow and Alexander notices it and hovers its head. And I actually met horses which are afraid of their own shadows, not many, just two of them and they can be quite easily retrained. but also the very fact that it's a difficult horse from the start. Nobody can handle it. I've worked with horses which are very difficult to start with, and eventually they make the best horses ever. So if I ever met a horse who is hard to start with, I always say, okay, this will be best horse if you handle it,

carefully, gently, go through every step many, many times. This will be definitely your... horse. And so in medieval romance, there are lots of horses which are modeled on Busefalo's, which are presented as being somewhat difficult, but also once you find a way to treat them, they will be the best companions you have ever had. And also Busefalo starts off as a wild horse. The wild horse, which becomes your friend. Yeah. I wish there could be more horses like this. Yeah, yeah, that must be a really rewarding experience for you too when you find a horse that is difficult to work with, is scared or anything like that. And then you manage to work with it to free it from that fear and become really, really close to the horse.

That must be so rewarding for you. Yes, definitely. So I work with horses on an everyday basis. And when I started reading medieval romance and other texts, Hippatic treatises, a lot of things I've found. found there, it just matched what I, as a horse trainer, as a horse practitioner, have encountered in my life, I was just amazed how much of this new research into horses and new discoveries, they actually match what people in the Middle Ages knew about it. In particular, I wanted to mention the books by Anne Highland, who was a horse historian, but also a horse trainer.

and one of her books about training your young horse from birth to the age of five, a lot of things there seem to have been informed by medieval material, so I'm wondering. And as Anne Hyland was actually a historian, she might have been influenced, not what she learned as a horse trainer, but also what she learned from medieval sources. So, of course, we cannot know this. The only way would be to ask her,

but it's very interesting how these things they are repeated. Yeah, yeah, fascinating. Well, it's been wonderful to get a little bit closer to these magnificent animals and the close bond that they always seem to have had with humans and the way that they have worked together over the centuries and perhaps millennia to the benefit of human beings. It's been fascinating to get it to learn a little bit more about them. Thank you very much for joining us, Anastasia.

Thank you very much. It was a pleasure and an honour speaking with you about it. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. If you'd like to learn more about the research about medieval warhorses, you can find an episode in our back catalogue detailing the findings of that and why war horses aren't quite what we've been led to believe they were. There are new installments of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please come back and join Eleanor and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history.

Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can sign up to History Hit to access hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week and also get all of History Hits podcasts ad free. Head over to history hit.com forward slash subscribe right now. Right now. Anyway, I'd better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with History Hits.