Saddles of various kinds were used in Spain throughout the Middle Ages. Among them were the ordinary travelling-saddle or _silla de barda_ (Arabic _al-bardá_); saddles _de palafrén_,[143] the _silla de la guisa_, or _de la brida_ or _bridona_, for riding with long stirrups, and consequently the antithesis of the _gineta_ saddle;[144] or saddles made for use exclusively in war, on which the rider was accustomed to make the sign of the cross before or after mounting, such as the _lidona_, _gallega_ ("_siellas gallegas_" are mentioned in the _Poem of the Cid_), and _corsera_ or _cocera_ (Arabic _al-corsi_), or else the _silla de conteras_, "whose hindmost bow," according to the Count of Valencia de Don Juan, "terminated in converging pieces to protect the wearer's thighs." [143] An old account copied into a book (see p. 89, _note_) in the National Library at Madrid, and dating from the reign of Sancho the Fourth, states that Pedro Ferrández, saddler, received a certain sum for making various saddles, including two "_de palafrés_, wrought in silk with the devices of the king." [144] "In mediæval Spain, good riders were often designated as 'Ginete en ambas sillas,' that is, accustomed to either saddle, _i.e._ the Moorish and the Christian, and I now understand why chroniclers have taken the trouble to record the fact. Strangely enough, the high-peaked and short-stirruped saddle does not cross the Nile, the Arabs of Arabia riding rather flat saddles with an ordinary length of leg. The Arab saddle of Morocco, in itself, is perhaps the worst that man has yet designed; but, curiously enough, from it was made the Mexican saddle, perhaps the most useful for all kinds of horses and of countries that the world has seen." Cunninghame Graham: _Mogreb-El-Acksa_, p. 66. The same writer naïvely adds the following footnote to the words _Ginete en ambas sillas_. "This phrase often occurs in Spanish chronicles, after along description of a man's virtues, his charity, love of the church, and kindness to the poor, and it is apparently inserted as at least as important a statement as any of the others. In point of fact, chronicles being written for posterity, it is the most important."