C (2:33)

Fine, just had a walk in the forest with my horses, so. Perfect.

B (2:39)

Yeah, that sounds delightful. Let's start there. I want to start with your dedication actually, which is to Fizz, who is more than just a horse, but also a teacher, a friend and a critic. May she rest in peace. So tell me about Fizz.

C (2:56)

I was in the UK doing my PhD at Benga University in Wales. And during the summer I decided to have some time with horse and work at the barn. So at the end of the summer I merged with an X ray horse. My first horse feed. And I never before that I was a good girl. I have never taken any rash steps, but I think that was destiny. I bought a horse which was an X racer, a horse which was also a rescue horse, which was rescued by the yard, but they didn't want to keep it for school. And I brought her back to Latvia to rehabilitate her. She was wonderful. When we started experimenting with armor, with strange dresses, with mounted archer, with mounted fighting, she was a prize horse. But as an ex racer with very, very kind of difficult history, she was also unpredictable, as an ex racer could be. So she also taught me how to sit through the box and how to get up after you fall and get back. But a lot of things which I learned about horses, I learned because of her. She was. Yes, she kind of. She was the horse who started it all.

B (4:20)

In my past there is Sunny, who was an old stoic palomino and I vented on him for years. Amazing guy, right? Who. Who also just. He had an attitude, he would put up with nothing. I learned an immense amount from him and I will miss him forever. Yeah, I get it. So I'm guessing that Fizz has something to do with how you came to write this book?

C (4:47)

Yes. So initially I was about horse racing, the culture and well, I guess that horses in the Middle Ages didn't look like zorobreds today. But I was interested in the kind of medieval history of equestrian sports about horse racing. And I started to research it back and also the history of racing, the culture of racing, the myth about horses. And this was publications which I did before I came to write this book. But at some point I finished my PhD, which was, by the way, about Arthurian literature, not about horses. And in my free time during one of the spells when Fizz had another injury, I couldn't ride her, I started to ride other horses for a riding yard and Experiment with horse breaking. At the same time, I was also reading medieval treatises on horsemanship. Just realized how much of the things we know today, it was known in the Middle Ages. And some things were different, some were similar, but I also started to experiment with them, try them out. And eventually I had a young horse with whom to try these things as well. So kind of my interest grew into, into horse history, into the way horses were in the Middle Ages, how they were different from sport horses today. Because I started with Latvian warmblood horses, which are very similar to the German sports horse. Most of them have German sports horse blood, but they didn't they. But they were very different in their attitude from medieval horses. And as I continued in my research, I also found a group of like minded people who helped me, colleagues who were also interested in horse history. And was so thanks to them that I learned so much outside my field, outside the field of medieval literature, and looked at kind of other places in the medieval world, archaeology as well as literature and art history and so on. And also experimenting with both sports horses, but eventually also with ponies, which big ponies, which looked and behaved in a way which probably was more similar to the way medieval horses behaved. And yeah, I realized that Fizz wasn't an ideal medieval horse.

B (7:25)

Yeah. All right. So one of the things that I found that I learned from this book, one of the many things I learned is that breeds are a modern notion and horses were categorized very differently in the medieval era. Can you tell me about that?

C (7:39)

Yeah. So that's a stereotype which is quite common. During the weekend we had some kids coming and they had an encyclopedia which said the destrier was a medieval horse breed and it wasn't a medieval horse breed. Just as today there is no breed of race horses, there is no breed of show jumpers, and no breed of dressage horses. And horses could just as you can say this horse is a dressage horse. In the Middle Ages people could say, oh, this is a destrier, a war horse, this is a courser, so a swift horse, this is a working horse or a pack horse. And they could also change through categories of these, change from racehorse to a show jumper. And her body changed as well. And then she also became a riding therapy horse and a school pony. Well, some, some kids experienced very interesting schooling with her, but she was very good at doing all these jobs, much the same way horses could pass through these different categories. Now in the, in the sources we have from the Middle Ages, we sometimes see references to Arabic horses, a cusarabicus in Latin or a Frisian horse. And today we know there is a breed of Frisian horse and it claims its origins in the Middle Ages. The thing is, in the Middle Ages, when you say a Frisian horse or an Arabic horse means a horse from this region, which is absolutely not the case today. You can breed in Arabian anywhere. You can breed a Zorrobred anywhere, as long as the parents are registered. In the Middle Ages, people believed that the place where the horse was born would influence its characteristics. So when late 15th, early 16th century author Pietro Monte wrote that if you take two horses from Spain and you breed them in South France, the offspring will be worse than the original horses and the grandchildren will be even worse. They will not be the original Spanish horse there. You can breed Lipizzaners anywhere in the world and they would still be registered. So, yes, it's, it's very misleading when you see a Frisian horse and you assume it's a Frisian, modern Frisian, it. It's a horse which was bred for harness. So horses were bred in the region in the Middle Ages, but they probably looked very differently.

B (10:05)

And so what we're. The. The way we're going to characterize horses in the Middle Ages is what they're for, what they do, right?

C (10:11)

Yeah. You can also pressurize by region, by place of origin. Of course, an imported horse would be kind of more expensive, more elite because of the extra money. And some horses were more prized. Like Spanish horses were thought to be better, and German horses were often believed to be, like, heavy and sluggish. But, yeah, it's just a place of forage. It's the place where you bought your horse.

B (10:42)

All right. Horses are doing a lot of work in the Middle Ages. What are they doing?

C (10:48)

So, first of all, we always think about knights and their horses. And they didn't ride just these three years. You would believe from romances, they are riding these three years all the time. They weren't. They were traveling on palfreys or amblers. These are comfortable traveling horses. In Spain, it was also possible to travel on the back of a mule, even for a night. Elsewhere in Europe, it was mostly religious people who were traveling on mules and ladies, just mules are kind of calmer rides, more docile. Also horses, as the Middle Ages progressed, they were doing agricultural labors, they were doing ploughing, they were pulling carts. But in some regions, ox still continued to be used for this. And actually into the 20th century, there were regions and even Today there are regions where oxen are used for the same work. It depends on the soil, the selling point about horses, they can do the work quicker, but they also need more food and better quality food. The other thing, if the ground is the soil is too heavy, it's better to use oxen because oxen have more power but less speed. Horses have more maneuverability. But. Yeah. So at some point in the Middle Ages, there would be even farms, for example, in France, where they would keep both oxen and horses and would harness them depending on the task at hand. In the south, donkeys were also used as pack animals, also ridden by the religious people. So lots of work. But it's not like everybody could ride a horse.

B (12:47)

Okay, Yeah. I mean, there's also. When we think about, particularly the Middle Ages, most of what I'm thinking about is like Marshall uses. Horses are used for war.

C (13:00)

Yes, definitely. And they were used for war. Not always. It was cavalry in the modern sense of the world. For example, in the early Middle Ages, Roman cavalry disappeared with the Roman Empire. So they would use horses just to ride somewhere, but they wouldn't necessarily fight on horseback in Arabian cultures, in the Muslim culture, they would use horses for raiding. They would fight on horseback, but they wouldn't fight the same way as knights fought. And they would also shoot arrows from horseback. It would be a very different way. Yes. So medieval knights definitely fought on horseback, but they were also some parts of the army which would just travel on horseback. Like the Genoese crossbowmen, they would travel on horseback, then they would dismount and different horses would be needed for these different uses.

B (14:06)

Yeah, so like a horse, a medieval knight that's going to go into war with one horse may not ride that horse. Or like.

C (14:14)

Okay, if you were a medieval knight, you would probably have more than one horse because if you, you had a destrier, you wouldn't ride that destrier until you reach the battlefield. You would have a horse which you are riding and a horse on which you are fighting. Ideally, but not all knights could afford destriers. They could also fight on the back of coursers of rounces. So roundseas were usually for servant, but if the knight was very poor, they could have a roundsea. So a war horse is kind of general category. It's a horse which goes to war and which fights, but it's not necessary at destrier.

B (14:58)

So what do we know about tack and what they used about tack?

C (15:03)

It's a very good question because we don't know that much. And until recently there was this impression that medieval. Most of the medieval text was quite abusive. We didn't know much about medieval saddles, not much about bridles and bits. And yeah, a lot of people still think that knights were wearing very long spurs just because they wanted to hurt the horses. It's not true. It's the fact that their legs were so much forward, they couldn't reach without longer spurs. So they were just gently touching. So one way you can learn about these items is by reconstructing them and using them for riding. Unfortunately, not many saddles have survived until the very late period in the Middle Ages because saddles are. They have a lot of valuable leather. You can remake it into something else. Most of the time they don't survive. There were some chance findings basically when they were standing in the workshop and then something happened. The walls collapsed and they forgot the saddle. They forgot to take the saddle out. So there are a few reconstruction like that, but a lot of hypothesizing is involved in them. I was very lucky to have a reconstructed saddle which looks like a medieval saddle. But we are not necessarily sure if like inside, if the construction is medieval because the saddle tree, they don't always survive. And there was. There were different designs as well. And about medieval bits which go into the horse's mouth, there were snaffles the way we have today. What we see on miniatures. Most knights are riding with what looks like curb bit. But it's quite possible they had a very different action and there were different designs. These designs were changing over the middle age. Well, very long period of time. It's 1,000 years. So these designs definitely changed. And again, we don't always know how it works until we tried on actual horses. There were people who did it like Anne Hyland was a historian working in the 1980s, 1990s. She tried some of these bits with her horse and she found it. It's okay if you're careful, you can ride a horse with these bits. There are people there who are experimenting and some of these designs seem to have been quite problematic to use. But definitely people wouldn't go out just to try and hurt their horses because horses cost a lot of money. Once you destroy the horse, you're not going to get one just. Just by walking into a supermarket.

B (17:51)

They're expensive. It takes a lot of time to train them. And they have. Even if you're not say going to fight on it or it can't carry you anymore, there's still things your, your horse can do or you Know, it can't carry a bunch of. An immense amount of stuff, but it could still maybe carry you. So you want to take care of your horses and keep them, you know, 20, 25 years sometimes.

C (18:15)

Yes. So one medieval horse trainer, horse marshal, Jordanus Rufus, he wrote that if you follow his advice, your horse is going to work for 20 years and more, which is a lot. Not. Not all sports horses today are going to work for 20 years.

B (18:34)

No. Yeah, Absolutely not. So the horses have great significance in the medieval world for so many reasons, and it has a presence. And, you know, they're big and they're beautiful, and a lot of people are frightened of them if they haven't spent a lot of time around horses. So I don't. It's no surprise that they're. They played these important spiritual roles. So were horses used for sacrifice?

C (19:01)

Okay, so in the early period, before Christianity arrived, horses were definitely sacrificed. We have Lombard burials which have horses sacrificed in them. The interesting thing, there are a few burials where women are buried with horses. So it wasn't always a male thing. It could be a status thing, I would suggest. So some women of status could be buried with horses. There is also a case in Scandinavia of the Birka warrior who was buried with two horses and with objects which had kind of military significance. There were weapons, there was a saddle, it seems, at least there are stirrups. And for a long time, people assume that it's a man because of the attack and the horses. And then people could do DNA tests and they found it was a woman. And it's quite possible she's not the only one. Just not.

A (20:03)

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C (21:05)

Not enough testing has been carried out. Men and women could be buried with.

B (21:10)

Horses as a sign of affection. How important they are to something you want to take with you to the next life.

C (21:18)

Yes.

B (21:19)

Yeah. Any of these options. So can you tell me, do you have a favorite equine superstition?

C (21:26)

Favorite equine superstition. Okay, that's very local one. That's from Latvia and it's not certain if it's medieval, but it could have medieval roots. In the summer solstice night, you cannot leave the horses out grazing, but because witches are going to ride them. And I think I know what they're meaning, because summer solstice night is the time when you have the most mosquitoes. So during the night, the horses are walking all the time. It's around this season when mosquitoes are at their peak and immediately after somersault, they disappear. And they have seen it more than once. Because all my horses, they live out, they're walking all the time. Luckily they're not running. So no witches are riding them. But.

B (22:17)

Sure, you know, you could see. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Well, you know those witches, they'll ride anything. They'll run brooms, wheat, they'll do anything. I was thinking also about, you know, the horseshoe, like upside down horseshoes. That's been around for a really long time, Right.

C (22:37)

It has been argued that doesn't need to be a horse, but any iron object found. Because iron objects are kind of quite rare, they're expensive. And it's supposed to help again, the little folk from entering your house and kind of doing mischief. And they have heard so many variations. Sometimes you need to hang it upside down, sometimes you need to hang it the other way around, depending on where inside the house, outside the house. But definitely a horseshoe is something you can find on the road quite easily.

B (23:13)

Yeah, horses throw them. We had one over our barn when I was a kid. I always like everyone did. And I don't think, like my grandfather would have said it was superstitious, but he didn't take it down.

C (23:27)

Yeah, we also had it at the summer house. We didn't have horses, but my grandfather found a horseshoe somewhere. It was like very boggy, marshy area and they hung it around the house. So, yeah, horses do draw them.

B (23:44)

Yeah. I mean, an iron is a protective metal. It's like really powerful magical properties and everything protects you from the little people, if you can, because they're trouble. So horses play a large part in superstitions, but they're just magical equines as well, right?

C (24:05)

Yes. And in my book, I wrote about unicorns, or medieval unicorns, actually. It's not always an equine. Sometimes it has goat characteristics as well, but it's a composite animal which has something from a horse, something from a goat. Sometimes it also has lion paws and so on. And it's not always positive. Today you would think unicorns are so lovely. But there are legends in which unicorn is associated with the devil, the unicorn chasing a human up a tree. That's a motif which appears very often medieval manuscripts in marginales or something on the margin, not related to the main text. And apparently people in the Middle Ages knew this legend very well, actually, the legend of Buddha. But in Christian version, where unicorns symbolizes death and a human who is a faithful Christian, they would kind of climb up the Tree of Life. And if you are good, then you are going to be saved. If you're not good, the unicorn is going to ram into the tree with its horn and try to toss you off and eat you. So, yeah, he tells his story to little girls and they think, oh, my God, not pink unicorns. They could be quite ferocious.

B (25:28)

And I'm not gonna tell my niece that. She'd be crushed.

C (25:32)

Yes. And apparently people knew this story. It appears everywhere from medieval Rus into Byzantine manuscripts. It appears in sculpture as well. So people didn't need the text, they just looked at it and they remember the Tree of Life. Look upwards, be a good Christian, otherwise the unicorn is going to get you.

B (25:53)

Yeah, sure. Okay. There are lots of kind of magical composite animals, right, that are half horse, like centaurs and Pegasus. I'm thinking of.

C (26:05)

Yeah. So people in the Middle Ages, they just loved ancient culture, didn't disappear suddenly to be rediscovered during Renaissance. So people knew all these stories. They could also be critical. Like Isidore of Seville wrote a whole book, encyclopedia of everything, and he criticizes the myth of centaur. He's saying these were people who were so good as horsemen that they seem to be at one with the horse. Very scientific thinking for this time. Of course, we don't know if people really believed that they were winged horses like Pegasus or. I think they believed in unicorns. But what they describe it might have been a rhino. Rhinoceros so the stories of rhinoceros could travel without people seeing it. And they would think, oh, it's a horse with a horn. And unicorn horse were imported and sold, but they were narwhal horns. In reality, they looked very fancy because of the unicorn horns.

B (27:12)

Yeah. And it's like.

C (27:13)

Yeah. Or.

B (27:14)

And like mermaids. It seems like those are manatees or like seals even, but. Yeah. Do people believe in these mystical and magical things, or are they used metaphorically and for stories? Because it's not like medieval people are stupid. You know, they didn't know the things we know. We don't know the things they knew. So it kind of. If they believed in a unicorn to be real, maybe, or maybe they just thought it was a good story.

C (27:44)

I have a feeling they believed they just. Just because the rhinoceros is a real animal. And stories about rhinoceroses, they traveled around and the unicorn doesn't always. Not all miniatures show unicorn as a whole horse. There are miniatures from Rus, which shows a unicorn with, like, some bovine features, which is more like a rhinoceros. Definitely. But then there were also creatures like the seahorse. Sometimes the seahorse is depicted like a horse with some fishy characteristics. And then at other times, it's just a black horse, just like a kelpie. Doesn't always appear in Celtic regions. It also appears all around Europe, like some water spirits, which is taking the shape of a black horse.

B (28:32)

Yeah. Powerful and scary. Yeah. So I want to talk about how we understand the relationship between people and their horses. You know, you. You ride. I have had horses. We. We have a relationship that is different than, say, my great grandfather who farmed with a team of horses, or medieval people for whom horses are sometimes machines. What do we know about the way medieval people understood their relationship with horses or how they felt?

C (29:08)

Okay, Just as today, there would be people who are working with horses, professionals. There would be some whom they really love. And then there are other forges passing by, like not quite machines, but they are means to a certain end. We just saw off one of our private horses to a different yard. I was quite happy to have him move on. He was nice guy, but he was a little bit of a troublemaker. So I hope he found a new home. I'm certainly not going to miss him. And it's very different from the relationship I have with horses who I know they are my own. They are staying with me. You kind of try to distance yourself from horses who are not going to be your own. And we have evidence that in the Middle Ages, a lot of knights, they had very personal relationship with their horses. And not just knights. People from different cultures and different kind of walks of life, they could form very personal relationship with horses. There is one romance about Gawain, where Gawain has a horse which is not Green Galette, but it's called Grizel. And then Grizel is killed during judicial battle by the enemy. And then Gawain throws kind of a tantrum. He's as if mourning for a lost comrade. Like, I'm not going to mount a different horse. I'm going to fight on foot and I'm going to avenge this horse. And he does. Actually, there is another source which I really love. It's an early Arabic poet, Entera IBN Khandad. He's a legendary hero, a bit like King Arthur, but there is a lot of poetry ascribed to him, quite early poetry. And one of them is Ode to His War Horse, which is really heartfelt. He's describing this relationship, how they were supporting each other in battle. He was protecting his horse, the horse was protecting him. And it's definitely very heartfelt relationship. But then Andre must have had lots of other horses and he didn't care about every one of them. There are two Poms devoted to two other horses, but they don't have the same ring. They just. He's taking care of these horses. They are wonderful horses, but it's not that personal. So it would depend. And I don't think people viewed them as machines. They realize it. Not machines. They could be quite crafty. They had their own agency. You're not necessarily going to cry over every. Every horse in your yard. From my experience, I think Fizz is the only horse which felt. Which went so much to my heart. I would certainly feel bad if something happens to another of my horses, but it wouldn't be such a disaster. And I think for many people, there would be like, one horse who really goes to your heart and then others you could care about. And for some of you, you just have a business relationship. As long as I need you, I'm going to keep you. Something happens. Well, something happens. That's the way it is.

B (32:28)

Yeah. So you've used. You used archaeological material. You used poetry, romance, lots of, like, literary devices. You've used a lot of art history. But some of. Another thing you were able to find are some really stunning burials that you could use as sources. Can you tell us about those?

C (32:51)

Yes. So the Chinese Terracotta army, right?

B (32:54)

Yeah, it's all about the Terracotta army.

C (32:57)

Okay. Yeah, so this is a very early one. And yes, so they had, as, in addition to this Terracotta army soldiers, they had stallions and they were kind of the same size, the same shape, possibly even the same age. The stunning thing is that they have this great number of horses and they clearly kept them. They were animals in their prime. So sometimes in some burials you have animals which are kind of older horses or younger horses or whatever. They're not super elite horses. The thing about the Terracotta army, they sacrificed very, very valuable animals. And there are some other, like, pre medieval burials which also have horses in their prime. So it could matter which animal you sacrifice. I mentioned Lombard horse burials before and the one which had ladies and horses. They were not animals in their prime. They were just. Some of them were older horses, one of them was a younger equine. The connection is there, but they're not sacrificing the best ones.

B (34:22)

No, sure.

C (34:25)

But.

B (34:26)

And so might people be buried with horses, you know, for the afterlife or something?

C (34:33)

Yeah, so this is one possibility definitely, that you would need your horse to ride into the afterlife and another one that there could be a bond of affection as well. So you would bury exactly the same horse which was used for which the owner rode. The story of Alexander and Bucephalus was known in the Middle Ages, and some versions say that Bucephalus died before Alexander. But in the Middle Ages, one of the most popular versions was that Bucephalus outlived Alexander and pointed to the person, to the servant who poisoned Alexander and tried to attack him. And then he sort of could have died of grief together and buried together with Alexander. There are also similar stories in the Arabic tradition of a horse who is so faithful that it would die of grief when its rider is killed. So definitely horses could feel they could grieve for their lost owners. And. Yeah, well, we know today that horses do miss their companions, but in the Middle Ages, people notice it and kind of transfer this relationship to humans and horses. So you could grieve for your horse, but your horse is also going to grieve for you.

B (36:12)

So I'm getting this overwhelmingly, this image that horses are just such a normal part of everyday life for even, you know, for peasants who aren't going to own one. They're still around, you know, I'm thinking about the sweet. I think it's a manuscript image of Saint Be's horse bead's trying to pray and his horse comes and like, nudges him and gets, like, tries to stake some food. They're so. They're. They're like. They're just images of horses in books where they. They don't necessarily need to be. I just feel like their horses are everywhere and everyone uses them and everyone knows them. Is that fair or am I just hoping?

C (36:54)

I think quite often we compare horses to cars, and in some ways it's a misleading comparison, but in another way it's a good comparison because just as today's cars are everywhere. But is every driver an expert driver? Can every driver repair a car if something goes wrong? No, there are some, not many, who still can do it. I think our parents, grandparents were better at it. I'm quite useless, to be honest. I'm okay as a driver, hopefully, but. Yeah, so in much the same way, in the Middle Ages, people. There were people who were real experts, there were people who cared. There were people who were real experts but didn't care very much about horses. And there were those who were quite indifferent as riders, or at least indifferent to start with. One interesting thing about Jean d', Arc, for example, it seems that at the beginning of her career she wasn't a very good rider. But as more opportunities presented themselves and she had to take more rides, she became better as a rider. So basically, in her early years, she didn't have that many opportunities to ride horses or to ride good horses, and then she learned it. So that's also a skill. As you move through life, you learn.

B (38:13)

Yeah, okay.

C (38:16)

Yeah.

B (38:16)

Thanks. What an interesting. What a fun book to read. Thank you so much. I have taken up enough of your time already. So I just have one more question. What's next? What are you working on?

C (38:30)

Okay, I've just finished more academic book about medieval wild horses. Basically, as a spoiler alert, it's not the Preczavalski horse. It's a way of keeping horses and breeding them in forests or in other areas and just drawing them back. Or if you have an older war stallion, you can just release it into the herd of mares and they're going to be there and you're going to have good warhorses at the end. That's something which might happen to Bayar at the end of his career when he disappears into the Ardent Forest. And I'm sure there are legends about him breeding. So that's one project I finished. And the other one, I'm working on a model of training horses using medieval methods. So there are some very detailed instructions, and some of these methods I feel are better than modern methods. And then there are some of these methods which I think are a bit kind of quirky. I'm not sure if I want to use them. Maybe it's because I don't understand them. I don't want to experiment on my horse with something I. I don't know.

B (39:40)

Oh, cool. That sounds great. What fun. I'm so glad you've gotten to do this. You made your something you love so much a passion into your academic work as well.

C (39:51)

Yeah, yeah.

B (39:53)

Well done. All right, listeners. The book is the Medieval Horse by Anastasia Ropa, out right now with Reaction Books. There'll be a link on our website. Anastasia, thanks for joining me today.

C (40:06)

Thank you very much. Yanahi.