feet of oxen used in ploughing, and heifers or stotts in harrowing, were shod at threepence each.[1]
It is necessary here to remark, that Richardson[2] derives the word 'stott' from the Anglo-Saxon stod-hors, and as applied to oxen from the Swedish stut, Danish stud, a steer. The word has given rise to some discussion, it having been used for a very long time in Scotland as a designation for a steer, heifer, or bullock, and the notice in the above is thought by the antiquarian who quotes it, to mean heifer. Of this, however, there may be considerable doubt; as the term has been constantly applied in England to under-sized strong horses or cobs. In the 'Vision of Piers Plowman' (1362?) it occurs in this sense:
Grace of his goodnesse, gaf
Peers foure stottes.
And Chaucer, in his 'Canterbury Pilgrims,' says:
This Reevè sat upon a right good stot.
That was all pomelee (dappled) gray, and highte Scot.
Signifying, I think, that the word came from beyond the Tweed. Sir David Lyndsay also applies it to a horse. On a part of the border of the so-called Bayeux tapestry, representing the landing of William the Conqueror and the battle of Hastings, a piece of needlework by some ascribed to Saxon embroiderers, there is a representation of a man driving a horse attached to a harrow—one of the earliest instances we have of horses being used in field-labour; but which was a common enough custom in the time of Richard II.
