A professor once asked, "What are you interested in?" Being my usualself, I just said "Horses". The context of this conversation was as follows; I was required to write a paper covering some aspect of the Renaissance. I was at a loss and the paper was due the next week, so I went to my professor. When he asked me this question, I had no idea how he would be able to help me come up with a topic. To my utter amazement, he did just that. I was to write about how horses played a role within the era. Fast forward to that night. I am furiously searching online for any bit of information I can find. I had no clue where to start and wondered if I had just made this assignment even more difficult. With a bit of help, I was actually able to find out some interesting things;
1)The well known, but often forgotten Unicorn Tapestries were created from 1495-1505. Mythology was alive and well during this time period
2)Horses were a status symbol. Many of us are aware on a subconscious level that historically, only the rich owned and rode horses. Entertaining and enjoyable pursuits involving horses required money and time, two things that the wealthy traditionally had. Taking this even further, at one time, women were never allowed to ride a horse. During a wedding for instance, when the couple traveled through the city, the groom rode a horse while the bride rode a donkey.
3)The knight profession aided in the development of horse breeding. Strong work horses on farms were selectively bred to become the large destriers used to carry the heavily armored knights.
Does anyone else have any tidbits about the history of the horse? Perhaps a suggestion for another entry entirely? Thank you all for reading.
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