the way he occurs in the above and other traditions relating to horses or farriery. Lyndesay says:
'Saint Eloy, he doth stoutly stand,
Ane new horseshoe in his hand.'
And again:
'Some makis offering to Saint Eloy,
That he their horse may well convoy.'
Horsemen also appear to have sworn by the good bishop; for Chaucer makes the carter in the 'Friar's Tale,' when he had been assisted out of the mud into which his horses and cart had stuck fast, to thank his assistants by the best animal in his team, and to exclaim:
'That was well twight (pulled) my owen Liard boy,
I pray God save thy body, and Saint Eloy.'
The saint was supposed to work great miracles among diseased animals. We will have more to say about him, however, at a later period.
So far as I am able to ascertain, we have no written evidence to show that the Germans shod their horses before A.D. 1185. According to Anton,[1] about that time mention is made of the shoeing of two horses (II. equorum ferramenta, Kindliger). In some old German records, given on the authority of Shopflin, there is a notice that the smith was obliged to deliver sixteen horse-shoes and the necessary nails. And in another writing (Sachsen Spiegel), it is ordered that 'the horses of messengers (die Pferde der Boten) shall only be shod on the fore-feet.'
- ↑ Geschichte der Teutschen Landwirthschaft von den Ältesten Zeiten bis zu Ende des Funfzehnten Jahrhunderts, p. 37. Gorlitz,1802.
