Scientific American Supplement No. 819, September 12, 1891Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement No. 819, September 12, 1891
Various
Science -- Periodicals
The Sarmatian tribes were principally horsemen, and it is not
surprising, therefore, that the coat of arms of the former kingdom of
Poland in the second and third quadrate shows a silver rider in armor
on a silver running horse shod with golden shoes, and that at present
about 1,000 families in 25 lineages of the Polish Counts Jastrzembiec
Bolesezy, the so-called "Polnische Hufeisen Adel" (Polish Horseshoe
Nobility), at the same time also carried the horseshoe on their coats
of arms. The silver horseshoe in a blue field appears here as a symbol
of the "Herbestpfardes" (autumnal horse), to which, after the
christianization of Poland, was added the golden cross. The noblemen
participating in the murder of the holy Stanislaus in 1084 had to
carry the horseshoe reversed on their escutcheon.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.]
From the African and Turkomanic horseshoe, through the turning up of
the toes and heels, originated later the Turkish, Grecian and
Montenegrin horseshoe of the present as shown by Fig. 12.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.]
By the Moorish invasion in Spain, the Spanish-Gothic horseshoeing was
also modified, through which the shoe became smooth, staved at the
margin, very broad in the toe, and turned up at toe and heel, and at a
later period the old open Spanish national horseshoe (Fig. 13) was
developed. As we thus see, we can in no way deny the Arabian-Turkish
origin of this shoe.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.]
As France had received her whole culture from the south, and as the
crusades especially brought the Roman nation in close contact with
them for centuries, so it cannot appear strange that the old French
horseshoe, a form of which has been preserved by Bourgelat and is
represented by Fig. 14, still remained in the smooth, turned up in
front and behind, like the shoe of the southern climates, with Asiatic
traces, which hold on the ground, the same as all southern shoeing, by
the nail heads.
[Illustration: FIG. 14.]
The transit of the German empire, in order to keep up the historical
course, once more brings us back to the middle of the fifth century.
At this time Attila, the "Godegisel" (gods' scourge), left his wooden
capitol in the lowlands near the river Theis, to go to the Roman
empire and to the German and Gallican provinces, there to spread
indescribable misery to the horrors of judgment day.
The following is a prayer in those days of horror:
"Kleiner Huf, kleines Ross,
Krummer Sabel, spitz Geschoss--
Blitzesschnell und sattlefest:
Schrim uns Herr von Hunnenpest."
We are at present reminded of those times of fright, when during the
clearing and tilling of the soil, a small roughly made horseshoe is
found in Southern Germany, about as far as the water boundary of the
Thuringian forest, and occasionally on, but principally around
Augsburg, and in France as far as the Loire.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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