Carriages & Coaches: Their History & Their EvolutionStraus, Ralph
History
Carriages & Coaches: Their History & Their Evolution
Straus, Ralph
Carriages and carts
“Carriages of some kind,” he continues, “appear also to have
been used by men of rank when travelling on the Continent.
_The Expeditions to Prussia and the Holy Land of Henry,
Earl of Derby, in_ 1390 _and_ 1392-3 (Camden Society’s
Publications, 1894) indicate that the Earl, afterwards King
Henry IV of England, travelled on wheels at least part of the
way through Austria.
“The accounts kept by his Treasurer during the journey contain
several entries relative to carriages; thus on November 14,
1392, payment is made for the expenses of two equerries named
Hethcote and Mansel, who were left for one night at St.
Michael, between Leoban and Kniltefeld, with thirteen carriage
horses. On the following day the route lay over such rugged
and mountainous country that the carriage wheels were broken
despite the liberal use of grease; and at last the narrowness
of the way obliged the Earl to exchange his own carriage for
two smaller ones better suited to the paths of the district.
“The Treasurer also records the sale of an old carriage at
Friola for three florins. The exchange of the Earl’s ‘own
carriage’ is the significant entry: it seems very unlikely
that a noble of his rank would have travelled so lightly that
a single cart would contain his own luggage and that of his
personal retinue; and it is also unlikely that he used one
luggage cart of his own. The record points directly to the
conclusion that the carriages were passenger vehicles used by
the Earl himself.”
It is to be noted that the carriage of the Lady Ermengarde was a
Flemish vehicle. Flanders, indeed, seems to have shared with Hungary
the honour of playing pioneer in carriage-building throughout the ages,
and long after the general adoption of coaches in Europe, Flemish
models, and also Flemish mares, were freely imported into the various
countries.
Another carriage of this time is described in a pre-Chaucerian poem
called _The Squyr of Low Degree_, in which the father of a Hungarian
princess is made to say:—
“Tomorrow ye shall on hunting fare,
And ride my daughter in a _chare_.
It shall be covered with velvet red,
And cloths of fine gold all about your head;
With damask white, and azure blue,
Well diapered with lilies new;
Your pomelles shal be ended with gold,
Your chains enammelled many a fold.”
The pomelles no doubt were “the handles to the rods affixed to the
roof, and were for the purpose of holding on by, when deep ruts or
obstacles in the road caused an unusual jerk in the vehicle.” One
notices that lilies were apparently a common form of decoration on
these early carriages, but it is to be regretted that the accounts in
general are so scanty.
We come to the litters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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