Of the colours of horses, in the middle ages, white seems to have been prized most highly, and after that dapple-gray and bay or chestnut. The same colours were in favour among the Arabs. One of the poets of the thirteenth century, Jean Bodel, describes a choice Gascon horse as follows:--“His hair,” he says, “was more shining than the plumage of a peacock; his head was lean, his eye gray like a falcon, his breast large and square, his crupper broad, his thigh round, and his rump tight. They who saw it said that they had never seen a handsomer animal.” The food given to horses in the middle ages seems to have been much the same as at the present day. In 1435 the queen of Navarre gave carrots to her horses. Although the mediæval knight resembled the Arab in his love for his horse, yet the latter was often treated hardly and even cruelly, and the practice of horsemanship was painful to the rider and to the horse. To be a skilful rider was a first-rate accomplishment. One of the feats of horsemanship practised ordinarily was to jump into the saddle, in full armour:-- _No foot Fitzjames in stirrup staid,_ _No grasp upon the saddle laid;_ _But wreath’d his left hand in the mane,_ _And lightly bounded from the plain._ Though horse-races are mentioned in two of the earliest of the French metrical romances, those of “Renaud de Montauban,” and of “Aiol,” they seem never to have been practised in France until very recently, when they were introduced in imitation of the English fashion. Post-horses were first introduced in France during the reign of Henry II., that is, in the middle of the sixteenth century.