with heel and toe calks of unusual shape, others are plane, but, at the same time, as a rule, they are of exceedingly coarse workmanship: a fact which may still be perceived despite the ravages made by rust. . . . . Universal as the practice of shoeing is at the present day, there are yet places, such as North Germany, Hungary, and others, where it is not always necessary, and where horses are seldom shod, except on the fore-feet, or only in winter; others, on the contrary, as the horses of the rich, being shod merely as a kind of luxury on all four feet.'
The 'ajusted' or curved antique shoes are peculiar to Germany, it would appear. They have not been found in France, so far as I am aware; neither, as we will see hereafter, have they been met with in this country. It will be remembered that two specimens were found in Belgium. They seem to be generally grooved, and have peculiar calkins. Grosz's last illustration gives us the primitive undulating-bordered shoe.
We have seen from M. Quiquerez's report, that the earliest traces of grooved or 'fullered' shoes are found with remains of the Burgundi, and constitute a new and characteristic form. This ancient people—one of the principal branches of the Vandals, originally inhabiting the country between the Oder and Vistula—have left numerous traces of their passage through, and sojourn in, various regions of Switzerland and Gaul in the 4th and subsequent centuries. They established themselves to the west of the Jura, about the same time that the Goths entered Aquitaine,[1] and appear to have been, from the remotest times, distinguished from the other German
- ↑ Aug. Thierry. Lettres sur l'Hist. de France, vi.
