Iron horse-shoes were at this period, according to Mr Rogers,[1] sold by the hundred, and nails by the thousand, as at present. In 1265, we find the former articles selling at Dover 225 for 5s. 5¼d. per hundred, and 1000 nails at 1s. 3d. a thousand; whereas at Odiham, in Hampshire, 84 were purchased for 5.s, 6½d., and 1000 nails at 1s. 1d. These prices vary considerably, but in increasing proportion up to 1398, when we find 26 foreshoes sell at Oxford for 16s. 8d., and 22 hind-shoes at 12s. 6d.; while nails at the same place, in 1390, were 2s. 6d. per hundred.
In the accounts and annals of farms and estates during the 13th and 14th centuries, it is shown that the chief expenditure incurred in the keep of horses was the cost of shoeing. In the earlier part of this period, shoes were occasionally made, it appears, out of the iron purchased by the chief bailiff, and fashioned by the village smith. But shoes were nearly always bought ready-made, and in considerable quantities. They must, indeed, have been very slight, and little more than tips; the necessity for strong shoes, in the absence of hard or well-metalled roads, not being so urgent as now-a-days. It is possible, also, that the hoofs of horses have in our time become less solid, in consequence of the continual paring and mutilation which the modern system of shoeing involves. If we compare the price of iron by the hundred with the cost of shoes, says Mr Rogers, and remember also that the charge of working iron was generally almost equal to that of the material, we shall find that the mediæval horse-shoe
- ↑ History of Agriculture and Prices in the 13th and 14th Centuries. Vol. ii. p. 328.
