From specimens I have examined belonging to this period, it might be concluded that the weight of the shoes continued gradually to increase, while the sizes and forms occur in greater variety. Heavy armour and the tilting-lance had not yet gone out of fashion, as the projecting nail-heads and calkins sufficiently indicate. Some curious specimens of shoes can be seen on the feet of the wooden horses in the armour-gallery of the Tower of London; these, I understand, belong to Henry VIII.'s reign.
It is somewhat astonishing that no toe-clips to prevent displacement of the shoes have yet appeared. The specimen found at a depth of ten feet in the Walworth sewer works in 1825, along with the bones of a horse, was probably made at this period. It has four nails on the outer branch, and apparently only three on the inner, which is much narrower towards the heel, as is often the case now-a-days. There are calkins on both branches, and the nail-head in the last inside hole projects nearly three-eighths of an inch from the surface of the shoe (fig. 159).
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| fig. 159 |
With the total extinction of the French language in Britain, the designation of 'Maréchal' also disappeared, or was used but very rarely. The shoer of horses was only known by that of 'farrier,' a term that had, as we have seen, been employed for centuries, and which was derived, no doubt, from the ferreus faber of the Latins, or the fabbro ferrario or ferraro of the Italians. In Queen Elizabeth's annual expenses—civil and military, we find that the Master of
