Great a most valuable present consisted of a few horses. At the reception of Theodebert by his uncle Childebert, king of Paris, among all the considerable gifts he received, none excited so much admiration as six horses;[1] and when Theodebert entered Italy in 539, with an army of 100,000 combatants, the only mounted men were a few armed with lances who formed his body-guard. All the others were footmen.[2]
The renowned Clovis himself, after defeating the Visigoths at Vouglé, went to the tomb of Saint Martin to return thanks for his victory, and presented the monastery with the horse he rode at the battle. But so scarce were good horses, that in a very short time he repented having bestowed his courser, and offered to buy it again for fifty marks of silver. The monks, however, sent an answer that Saint Martin was very tenacious of the present made to him; so that Clovis was obliged to double the amount in order to overcome the defunct Saint's scruples. This crafty stratagem caused the impious Sicambre to murmur in his beard, 'Saint Martin does his friends good service, but he sells it somewhat dear.'
When the nobles or their families travelled it was either on foot, or in carriages (basterne) drawn by oxen; kings even journeyed in this manner, and the possession of horses did not denote nobility or wealth. Martin, alluding to this period, gives us an example of this undignified mode of progression. 'Clodowig hastened to send an official ambassador to Gondebald, who, not without hesitation, permitted the deputies to espouse
