Robert of France, presented Athelstan of England with three hundred fine coursers and their trappings, besides other valuables.[1] Athelstan enacted that 'no man shall send any horses over sea, but such as be presents.'[2]
In the reign of this monarch it is probable that horses were used for ploughing; for in one of his laws (16) it is ordained that 'every man have to the plough two well-horsed men.' From these laws we also learn, that a horse was valued at half a pound, 'if it be so good; and if it be inferior, let it be paid for by the worth of its appearance, and not by that which the man values it at who owns it, unless he have evidence that it be as good as he says.'
About this period, too, tournaments began to be popular among the Anglo-Saxons. In 934, Henry the First of Germany published his institutions concerning them, and certain classes and persons were forbidden to engage in them under penalty of losing their horses.[3] Even previous to this period, Nithard mentions that some French gentlemen fought in play on horseback.[4]
It has often been asserted that the Anglo-Saxons had no cavalry in the days of Harold, and that their defeat at the battle of Hastings was chiefly due to the absence of that arm from their force. This would appear, however, to be incorrect. At the decisive battle between that unfortunate monarch and the Danish invader, Hardrada, at Stamford Bridge, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, only a
