Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/315

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BATTLE FLATS.
287

mens found in Belgium. Mr Roach Smith informs me that no particular account of the find reached him.

We have evidence that, in the time of Harold, horses must have been generally shod for service in the field. Dart,[1] in his History of York, says that at Battle Flats, six miles east of that city, the scene of the conflict between Harold and the Danes under Tostig (A.D. 1066), 'the farmers in ploughing frequently turn up a very small sort of horse-shoes, which would only fit an ass or the least breed of northern horses;' and Camden,[2] in speaking of the ancient village of Aldby, remarks: 'Aldby may have been a Roman before it was a Saxon villa. Stanford bridge has the name of Battle Bridge in writings after the Conquest, such as the instrument containing Oswis' translation, but it now keeps its antient name, and has no memorial of the battle except a piece of ground on the left hand of the bridge called Battle Flats, in plowing which of late years they find pieces of swords, and a sort of small horse-shoes that could only fit an ass or the smallest breed of northern horses, but are proofs of the antiquity of shoeing in England.'

It is much to be regretted that no description can be found of these articles.

In the Anglo-Saxon manuscripts of an early date, we have additional proof that horses wore shoes. In the accompanying illustration (fig. 111, next page) of a riding Saint, copied from an illuminated manuscript (Tiberius C. 6. fol. 11.) in the Harleian collection of the British Museum, and belonging, it is surmised, to the 11th century,

  1. Eboracum, p. 84.
  2. Britannia, vol. iii. p. 69.