valued at £40 per annum, to provide shoes for his horses.[1] Another follower, Henry de Farrariis, or Ferrers, is said to have taken his name from the circumstance that he was intrusted with the shoeing of the king's horses, or rather, the control of the shoers; for which his sovereign bestowed upon him the honour of Tutbury, in the county of Stafford.[2] After the Crusades, when it became the custom for families to take coat-armour hereditarily, a charge of six horse-shoes was assumed by this great house.[3] These armorial bearings are, without doubt, much older than the regular establishment of heraldry, and were, with the family name, signs of office. 'This bearing of horse-shoes in armoury,' says Guillim, 'is very ancient, as the arms of Robert Ferrers, Earl Ferrers, testifieth, who lived in the time of King Stephen, and who bore for his arms, argent; six horse-shoes, sable.'[4] The origin of the family name and office is perpetuated by a curious custom. The town of Oakham, the comparatively insignificant capital of the smallest county in England, also lays claim to horse-shoes in its arms, and Guillim relates that it is the chief town in Rutlandshire, seated in a rich valley, and an indifferent good and well-inhabited town. Here is an ancient privilege or custom which the inhabitants claim, that is, 'if any nobleman enter precinct or lordship, as an homage, he is to forfeit one of his horse's shoes, unless he redeem
- ↑ Dugdale. Baron., vol. i. p. 58. Blount's Tenures, p. 50.
- ↑ Brooke. Discovery of Errors in the Catalogue of the Nobility, p. 198.
- ↑ Ibid. p. 65.
- ↑ Ths present Earl Ferrers has, as one of the supporters in his coat of arms, a reindeer charged on the shoulder with a horse-shoe.—Vide Burke's Peerage List.
