sixteenth century, for the accommodation of women of the very first
rank; the men, however, thought it disgraceful to ride in them. At
that period, when the electors, and other Germanic princes, did not
choose to be present at the meeting of the States, they excused
themselves to the emperor, that their health would not permit them to
ride on horseback, which was considered as an _established point_,
that it was unbecoming to them to ride like women. What, according to
their prevailing ideas, was not permitted to princes, was much less
allowed to their servants. In A. D. 1554, when Count Wolf, of Barby,
was summoned by John Frederic, Elector of Saxony, to go to Spires, to
attend the convention of the States assembled there, he _requested
leave_, on account of ill health, to make use of a close carriage with
four horses. When the counts and nobility were invited to attend the
solemnity of the elector’s half brother, John Ernest, the invitation
was accompanied with a memorandum, that such dresses of ceremony as
they might be desirous of taking with them, should be transported in a
small waggon;--which notice would have been unnecessary, had coaches
been generally used among those nobles. The use of covered carriages
was in fact, for a long time, prohibited even to women, the consorts
of princes. About the year 1545, the wife of a certain duke obtained
from him, with great difficulty, permission to use a covered carriage
in a journey to the baths, in which permission there was this express
stipulation, that none of her attendants were to be permitted this
indulgence: though much pomp was displayed upon the occasion by the
duchess. Such is the influence of example in our superiors, who can
mould dependents and inferiors to whatever shape they please.
Notwithstanding all these ceremonious regulations, about the end of the
fifteenth century, kings and princes began to employ covered carriages
in journeys, and afterwards on public solemnities. When Richard II.,
towards the close of the fourteenth century, was compelled to fly
from his rebellious subjects, himself with all his followers, were on
horseback; but his mother, who was weak and sick, rode in a carriage.
But this became afterwards unfashionable here, for that monarch’s
queen, Anna, daughter of the King of Bohemia, showed the English
ladies how gracefully she could ride on a side-saddle; and therefore
whirlicotes (the ancient name for coaches in England), and chariots,
were disused in England, except on coronations and other public
solemnities.
In the year 1471, after the battle of Tewkesbury, which decided the
fate of Henry VI., and that of the house of Lancaster, when others flew
in different directions, the queen was found in her coach, almost dead
with sorrow.
In 1474, the Emperor Frederic III. came to Frankfort in a close
carriage; and as he remained in it on account of the wetness of the
weather, the inhabitants had no occasion to support the canopy which
was to have been held over him, while he went to the council house and
returned. In the following year, the same emperor visited that city in
a very magnificent carriage. In 1487, on occasion of the celebration of
the feast of St. George at Windsor, the third year of Henry VII., the
queen and king went in a rich chaise; they were attended by twenty-one
ladies. In the description of the splendid tournament held by the
Elector of Brandenburg, at Ruppin, in 1509, Beckmann says, he reads of
a carriage all gilt, which belonged to the Electress; of twelve other
coaches, ornamented with crimson; and of another, belonging to the
Duchess of Mecklenburgh, which was hung with red satin.
In the Northumberland household book, about this period, is an order of
the duke for the chapel stuff to be sent before in my lord’s chariot.
At the coronation of the Emperor Maximilian, 1562, the Elector of
Cologne had twelve carriages. In 1594, when John Sigismund did homage
at Warsaw, for Prussia, he had in his train thirty-six coaches, with
six horses each. Count Kevenhiller, speaking of the marriage of
Ferdinand II. with a princess of Bavaria, says, “The bride rode with
her sisters in a splendid carriage studded with gold; her maids of
honour in carriages hung with black satin, and the rest of the ladies
in neat leather carriages.”
Mary, Infanta of Spain, spouse of Ferdinand III., rode, in 1631,
in a glass carriage, in which no more than two persons could sit.
The wedding carriage of the first wife of the Emperor Leopold, who
was a Spanish princess, cost, with the harness, 38,000 florins. The
coaches used by that emperor are thus described:--“In the imperial
coaches no great magnificence was to be seen; they were covered over
with red cloth and black nails. The harness was black, and in the
whole work there was no gold. The panels were of glass, and on that
account they were called the imperial glass coaches. On festivals the
harness was ornamented with red silk fringes. The imperial coaches
were distinguished only by their having leather traces; but the ladies
in the imperial suite were obliged to be content to be conveyed in
carriages, the traces of which were made of ropes.” At the magnificent
court of Ernest Augustus, at Hanover, there were in 1681, fifty gilt
coaches, with six horses each. So early did Hanover begin to surpass
other cities in the number and splendour of its carriages.
The first time that coaches were introduced into Sweden was towards
the end of the sixteenth century, when John of Finland, among other
articles of luxury, brought one with him on his return from England.
Beckmann also informs us, that the great lords of Germany first
imagined that they could suppress the use of coaches by prohibitions.
There is still preserved an edict, in which the feudal nobility and
vassals are forbidden the use of coaches, under pain of incurring the
punishment of felony.
Philip II., Duke of Pomeranian-Stettin, reminded his vassals also,
in 1608, that they ought not to make so much use of carriages as of
horses. All these orders and admonitions, however, were of no avail,
and coaches became common all over Germany.
Persons of the first rank (ladies we presume), in France, frequently
sat behind their equerry, and the horse was often led by servants.
When Charles VI., wished to see, _incognito_, the entry of the queen,
he placed himself behind his master of the horse, with whom, however,
he was incommoded in the crowd. Private persons in France, physicians,
for instance, used no carriages in the fifteenth century. In Paris, at
all the palaces and public places, there were steps for mounting on
horseback.
Carriages, notwithstanding, appear to have been used very early in
France, as appears by an ordinance issued in 1294, for suppressing
luxury, and in which the citizens were prohibited from using carriages.
About 1550, there were at Paris, for the first time, only three
coaches; one of which belonged to the queen; another to Diana of
Poictiers, the favourite mistress of two kings, Francis I. and Henry
II.; and the third to René de Laval, a corpulent nobleman, unable
to ride on horseback. Henry IV. was assassinated in a coach; but he
usually rode through the streets of Paris on horseback. For himself
and his queen he had only one coach, as appears by a letter which he
writes to a friend, which is still preserved: “I cannot _wait_ upon you
to-day, because my wife is using my carriage.”
Roubo, in his costly treatise on joiners’ work, has furnished three
figures of carriages used in the time of Henry IV., from drawings
preserved in the King’s Library: from them it is seen those coaches
were not suspended by straps, that they had a canopy supported by
ornamental pillars, and that the whole body was surrounded by curtains
of stuff or leather, which could be drawn up. The coach in which Louis
IV. made his public entrance about the middle of the seventeenth
century, appears from a drawing in the same library to have been a
suspended carriage.
Our national chronicler, John Stowe, says coaches were first known in
England about 1580; he likewise says, they were first brought from
Germany by the Earl of Arundel, in 1589. Anderson places the period
when coaches began to be used in common here about 1605. It is remarked
of the Duke of Buckingham, that he was the first who was drawn by six
horses, in 1619. To ridicule this pomp, the Earl of Northumberland put
eight horses to his carriage.
Things are altered now when we have carriages of every description--for
the high and low, the rich and the poor. Vis-a-vis,--an open carriage
chiefly constructed for the benefit of conversation, as its name
implies. Landau, landaulets, phætons, chaises, whiskeys, cabs,
fiacres, &c., &c., are but names adapted to different purposes, and
constructed nearly upon the same principles as coaches, but some of
them close, others open, some to be opened or shut according to the
weather, or taste of the passengers, and calculated to contain an
indefinite number, from two to six persons; nay, there are the jolly
good omnibuses running in every town and village in the kingdom, the
generality of which are constructed to carry twelve inside and eight
outside passengers.
The number of hackney coaches which ply in the streets of London have
been augmented from time to time, since their first establishment in
1625, when there were only twenty. Coaches, cabs, omnibuses, &c., now
plying, amount to nearly three thousand.
To prevent imposition, the proprietors of these carriages are compelled
to have their names painted on some conspicuous place of the carriage,
and their number affixed in the inside, as well as the out. This
regulation has become absolutely necessary of late years, on account of
the numerous frauds practised by the coachmen.
We read that in Russia there are employed clumsy, but very convenient
sorts of carriages, so constructed as to be either closed or open,
and to hold a bed or couch, called _brichka_, with which persons can
travel even for two or three thousand miles without much inconvenience,
except it be over the rough stones of their towns, owing to the
superior accommodations of either lying down or sitting; this change of
position renders a journey less irksome, without which it would prove
intolerable. In Russia, from Riga to the Crimea, at least, post horses
are furnished by the government, and entrusted to subalterns in the
Russian army to provide them.
Coaches for hire were first established by public authority in France,
as early as 1671. There are employed in the streets of the capital no
fewer than three thousand hackney coaches. As early as the year 1650
Charles Villerme paid into the royal treasury fifteen thousand livres,
for the exclusive privilege of keeping and using fiacres in Paris.
Post chaises were introduced in the year 1664.
Hackney coaches were established in Edinburgh in 1673, when the number
was only twenty. Public fiacres were introduced at Warsaw in 1778. In
Amsterdam the coaches have no wheels; nor have they any at Petersburg
in the winter--they are used as sledges.
The state-coach of the city of London is a species of heir-loom, or
the hereditary property of the city; it is a very large and apparently
extremely heavy machine, but superbly decorated with large panels
of crystal glass, richly gilt, and elegantly painted with several
appropriate designs. In one of the centre panels, among a group of
figures, is one supporting a shield bearing the inscription “_Henry
Fitzalwin_, 1189,” in the old English, character; therefore we
conjecture that the coach was constructed at a period coeval with the
above date.
SADDLES, BRIDLES, AND STIRRUPS.
In the earliest ages it was customary to ride without either bridles
or saddles, if the poet be worthy of credit; for we observe Lucan,
speaking of the Massillians, says:
“Without a saddle the Massilians ride,
And with a bending switch their horses guide.”
They regulated the motion of the horses by a switch and their voice.
It has been observed, that the case was the same with the Numidians,
Getulians, Libyans, as well as most of the Grecian people. As the
reason of the thing appears to point out the superior expediency of
a bridle, they afterwards came into fashion among the Greeks, which
they called _lupi_; because it is said the bit of the bridle bore a
resemblance to the teeth of the wolf, whence Lucan says of it:--
“Nor with the sharper bits
Manage th’ unruly horse.”
In the east it would appear that bridles, at least, were used at an
early period. For we have a great number of texts in the Scripture,
which definitely express as much: in the Psalms, and likewise in
Proverbs, the name and application of the bridle is often particularly
mentioned, and more frequently alluded to. Virgil, indeed, says,
referring to very early times:
“The Lapithæ of Pelethronium rode
With bridles first,--and what their use was show’d.”
The saddle is also of ancient origin, for we read in I. Kings, xiii.,
13.,--“And he said unto his sons, _saddle_ me the ass. So they saddled
him the ass: and he rode thereon.” And before that period, in the
second generation after Noah, the Assyrian empire was established. In
its commencement, even as early as the days of Semiramis, the wife of
Ninus, the first Assyrian king, who built Ninevah, there were those
articles of horse furniture, called _packs_ and _fardles_; for in
ancient historians we find the following passage occur in this respect.
“Semiramis ascended from the plain to the top of the mountain, by
laying the packs and fardels of the beasts that followed her, one upon
another.” The same author informs us that this was Mount Bagistan, in
Medea, and that it was seventeen furlongs from the top to the bottom.
In the first ages, among the Greeks and Romans, a cloth or mattrass,
a piece of leather or raw hide, was all they used for a saddle. Such
coverings afterwards became more costly: Silius Italicus says, they
were made of costly skins.
It, however, appears, that after they were become common, it was
considered as effeminate to use them; hence the Romans despised them:
and in his old age, Varro boasts of having, when young, rode without a
covering to his horse. Xenophon reproaches the Persians, because they
put more clothes upon the backs of their horses than upon their beds.
From the aspect in which hardy people viewed this practice, the warlike
Teutones considered it most disgraceful, and despised the Roman cavalry.
In the fifth century, saddles were so magnificent, that a prohibition
was issued by Leo I., that they should not be ornamented with pearls or
precious stones. In the sixth century, the Emperor Mauritas directed
that they should have coverings of fur, of large dimensions.
From every information we have been able to collect, we believe that
the appendage of stirrups were not added to saddles before the sixth
century. It is said, that previous to the introduction of stirrups,
the young and agile used to mount their horses by vaulting upon them,
which many did in an expert and graceful manner; of course, practice
was essential to this perfection. That this should be afforded, wooden
horses were placed in the Campus Martius, where this exercise was
performed of mounting or dismounting on either side; first, without,
and next with arms. Cavalry had also, occasionally, a strap of leather,
or a metallic projection affixed to their spears, in or upon which the
foot being placed, the ascent became more practicable. Respecting the
period of this invention, Montfaucon has presumed that the invention
must have been subsequent to the use of saddles; however, opposed to
this opinion, an ingenious argument has been offered, that is possible
they might have been anterior to that invention; because, it is said,
they might have been appended to a girth round the body of the horse.
Both Hippocrates and Galen speak of a disease to which the feet and
ancles were subject, from long riding, occasioned by suspension of the
feet without a resting-place. Suetonius, the Roman, informs us that
Germanicus, the father of Caligula, was wont to ride after dinner, to
strengthen his ancles, by the action of riding affording the blood
freer circulation in the part.
The Latin names assigned them have been various, among which is
_scalæ_; in which sense Mauritius, in his treatise on the art of war,
is said to have named them. Now, this writer is supposed to have lived
in the sixth century; but we conceive it is pretty evident they had an
earlier existence in Arabia, Turkey, and Persia, as there is an alto,
as well as bas-relief of this last country, still extant, which is
believed to have been as ancient as the days of Darius, because it was
brought from the city he built, Persepolis, having this representation.
The invention and name of stirrup is supposed to have been borrowed
from the anatomy of the ear, where a band is found resembling it in
form.
HORSE-SHOES.
When we consider the vast importance of security to the feet of
that useful animal, the horse, we cannot but feel surprised that on
account of the very rough roads the ancients must occasionally had to
travel, that some metallic shoes had not been invented and introduced
previously to the period when they appeared.
That the security of the rider necessarily depended upon the safety
of the animal he rode, cannot be questioned. Hence, then, we do not
wonder to observe, that the sagacious Aristotle and Pliny should
remark upon the covering placed upon the feet of those animals of
draught and burden. From what these authors have said, however, we
dare not conclude that the feet of horses or camels were faced or
shod with iron: but it should rather seem that in time of war, or
on long journeys, the feet of both kinds of beasts were prepared
with such species of shoes as the common people wore, and which were
generally made of strong ox-leather. We are told that when the hoofs
of cattle, particularly oxen, had sustained any injury or hurt, they
were furnished with shoes made of Spanish or African broom, with which
linen is often manufactured in the south of France and Italy; also
shoes of some of the plants of the hemp kind, which were woven or
plaited together. Although these may be considered as only a species of
surgical bandages with regard to oxen; but such shoes were particularly
given to mules, which in days of old were employed much more than at
present for riding; and from some instances of immoderate extravagance
in people of rank, it appears that they had for their animals very
costly shoes of some of the most valuable metals. Nero, when he
undertook short journeys, was drawn always by mules shod with silver,
and those of his wife were shod with gold.
The circumstance being barely mentioned, without any particular detail,
we are anxious to afford any certain information on the mode in which
those shoes were constructed. From a passage in Dio Cassius, we have
reason to believe that it was only the upper part of the shoe that was
made of those costly metals, or that they were plaited from thin slips.
Xenophon relates that a certain people in Asia were in the habit of
drawing socks over the feet of their horses, when the snow lay deep
on the ground. The Kamschatkian employs the same means to preserve
the feet of his dogs, which draw his sledge, or hunt the seals upon
the ice. Those species of shoes, according to Captain Cook, are so
ingeniously made as to be bound, and at the same time to admit the
claws of the animal through them.
From a passage found in Suetonius, we may infer that the Roman
horse-shoes were put on in the manner we have mentioned; for that
author says, that the coachman of Vespasian once stopped to put on the
shoes of his mules: this being the case, the probability appears pretty
certain, that in deep roads and moist soils the animals must have
frequently lost their shoes.
Artemedorus speaks of a shod horse, and uses the same kind of
expression whilst speaking of other cattle. Winkelman has described a
cut stone in the collection of Baron Stosch, on which is represented
the figure of a man holding one foot of a horse, whilst another,
kneeling, is employed in fastening a shoe.
That it was not usual to shoe the war-horse, may be gathered from
this,--when Mithridates was besieging Cyzicus, he was obliged to send
his cavalry to Bythnia, because the hoofs of the horses were entirely
spoiled and worn out. Diodorus Siculus informs us, that Alexander, in
his expedition, proceeded with uninterrupted marches, until the feet
of his horses were entirely broken and destroyed. A like instance
occurs in Cinnamus, where the cavalry were obliged to be left behind,
because the horses had suffered considerably in their hoofs, to which
he adds, they were often liable. Hence it may, perhaps, appear, that
such horse-shoes as are now in use, were unknown to the ancients; and
Chardiu gives no representation of them in ancient Persian antiquities.
In the grave of Childeric, a northern chieftain and King of France, was
discovered a piece of iron, which the learned antiquarians who saw it,
pronounced, from that portion of it which the rust had left, to have
been an old horse-shoe; they saw, or thought they saw, four distinct
apertures for nails on each side; but whilst they were endeavouring
to remove the corrosive excrescence of rust, to ascertain with more
certainty, it broke under their hands. The reason why we mentioned
this here is, that if the relic discovered was really a horse-shoe, it
must have been one of the most ancient specimens known; because, we
find that monarch died in the year 481; his grave was discovered at
Tournay in 1683. The occasion of his having a horse-shoe in his grave,
was from the creed of his religion; the superstitious belief of the
Scandinavians taught them to place implicit confidence in the power
of this amulet, to prevent the ingress of evil spirits. The remains
of this belief is even now often seen in the obscure streets of the
British metropolis; and, indeed, throughout the country, where the
mystic shoe frequently appears as the faithful guardian of the domestic
threshold.
It is, we understand, the opinion of the French historian, Daniel,
that, in the ninth century, horses were not shod always, but only in
the time of frost, and on some other very particular occasions.
The practice of shoeing horses was introduced into England by William
I. We are told that this monarch gave the city of Northampton as a
fief to a certain person, one of his attendants, in consideration of
his paying a certain sum yearly for the shoeing of horses. And it is
also alleged, that Henry, or Hugh de Ferres, or de Ferrers, was the
same person who held this fief on the above condition, and who was the
ancestor of the family of that name, and who still bear six horse-shoes
in their coat of arms. This was the person whom William entrusted to
inspect his farriers.
We should not omit to observe, that it is remarked, that horse-shoes
have been found, with other riding furniture, in the graves of some of
the old inhabitants of Germany, and also in those of the Vandals in the
North of Europe.
GUNPOWDER.
The express period when _nitrum_ was first discovered is extremely
uncertain; but that this nitrum is an alkaline salt, there is little
difficulty in proving. It has, indeed, been conjectured that it was a
component part of the _Greek fire_, invented about the year 678, which
has been generally believed to be the origin of gunpowder. From the
oldest prescriptions which have been found, and which is said to be
that given by the Princess Anna Commena, in which, however, only resin,
sulphur, and oil are mentioned, saltpetre does not appear.
It is believed by an author very well qualified to form a judgment on
the question, that the first certain account we have of saltpetre by
that express name, occurs in the oldest account of the invention of
gunpowder, which, according to him (Professor Beckmann) occurred in
the thirteenth century. Dr. Rees, in his Cyclopedia, expressly says,
about the year 1320; and that it was first used by the Venetians
employed against the Genoese in 1380; also that it was first in Europe
at a place now known as Chrogia, against Laurence de Medicis; and the
last named authority adds, “That all Italy made complaint against it,
as a contravention of the law of arms.” Dr. Rees gives the following
recipe for its manufacture, without distinguishing the proportionate
parts:--“A composition of nitre, sulphur, and charcoal, mixed together,
and usually granulated.” He describes its effects by observing, that
“it easily takes fire, and when fired, rarifies and expands with great
vehemence by means of its elastic force;” also that “it may be made
without _nitre_, by means of _marine acid_.”