Introduction

In the premodern world and right up to the twentieth century, horses were a con-spicuous presence in people’s daily lives, whether in rural or urban environments. There was not a single member of a community whose life was not, in some way, relatedtoordependentonthepresenceofhorsesandtheworktheydid.Thisisespecially true of the medieval period: even before horses were used in agriculture, peasants were aware of the need to supply food for their lord’s horses. For peoplein towns, horses were the means of quick transport. In non-secular settings, thereis evidence that many larger monasteries were breeding horses. Horses are presentin a variety of sources: in courtly literature, court records, wills, and charters, inprayers and charms, on stained glass, paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and deco-rated household objects, not to mention the wealth of archaeological evidence en-compassing horse equipment, the remains of actual horses, as well as suchstructures as stables and hippodromes.