Pause in posts

The next blog post will be on or around Monday 15 May.
See you then.

Horseshoes in Roman and post-Roman use

A couple of weeks ago, Channel 4's Time Team archaeology programme was investigating a Roman mansio, which they described as the approximate equivalent of a motel and wayside inn, in the South of England. One of the most interesting items in the programme was an attempt to reconstruct a hippo sandal. These unlikely-looking objects are rare finds from the Roman period and are usually described as Roman horseshoes, used to protect horses' hooves for long journeys on metalled roads or when pulling heavy loads. So the programme got a farrier to try making a pair and fitting them to an obliging horse.

The horse looked very uncomfortable wearing them and walked awkwardly, reminiscent of someone teetering on platform soles. The farrier said he thought the horse would catch its legs on the front spike of the hippo sandal when it tried to turn, that it wouldn’t be able to pull a heavy load, and that he would certainly not ask it to try to trot while wearing them. He suggested that they were not actually used for long journeys on metalled roads or for hauling heavy loads at all, but that they might have been used to hold a poultice in place on the hoof. I'm not sure I'm convinced by that, because the horse would surely still be at risk of stabbing or catching itself with the spikes, possibly even more so if it was already lame. I'd have thought binding a poultice in place with cloth or leather might be safer. But I'll take his word for it as a possibility.

Which made me wonder whether Roman and post-Roman horses were shod, and if so, what with, if not with hippo sandals? And if they weren’t shod, how did they manage when travelling long distances on hard-packed Roman roads?

Horses in their natural environment obviously manage fine without horseshoes. Wikipedia lists reasons why domestic animals may need them, but notes that with appropriate care, domestic horses can grow hooves as strong as wild horses and no longer need shoes. Proponents of natural hoofcare argue that horses were not shod in the ancient world, and one website lists the evidence for the absence of horseshoes in various classical sources. It specifically notes that Xenophon gives detailed instructions on how to care for unshod horses’ hooves but never mentions horseshoes, and provides further discussion on a separate page.

So this suggests that horseshoes were not necessarily in routine use in Roman times, despite the metalled roads.

What about post-Roman times? Direct evidence comes from the horse buried in Mound 17 of the Sutton Hoo site in Suffolk, Britain and dated to the 7th century AD (Carver 1998). The burial showed no trace of iron horseshoes. Numerous other iron artefacts had survived and the horse was found intact, part sand-body* and part skeleton, so it seems certain that iron horseshoes would have survived had they been present. As this was a high-status, possibly royal, burial, the owner would have been able to afford horseshoes had he wished. So their absence suggests to me either that they were a low-status item (in which case they ought to turn up regularly in excavated rubbish pits and the like, and they don't), or that iron horseshoes were not in routine use in the period. (Which may be a useful snippet for writers of Roman- and post-Roman-set fiction).

So when did horseshoes come into regular use? Theories abound. An article in the Danish Veterinary Journal suggests that the horseshoe was invented in China and/or Mongolia and brought westwards into Europe by the Huns, but the abstract doesn't specify a date.

Another suggestion is that horseshoes came into common use during the Crusades. The writer comments that Crusaders used big Flemish horses that had big flat feet from being raised on damp lowlands. I think it quite likely that a breed of horse that had evolved, perhaps with the help of selective breeding, in the damp climates of north-western Europe probably would have developed large feet to spread their weight on soft, muddy ground. It seems plausible to me that such horses would have suffered disproportionately when they were taken to the hard, dry, stony terrain of the Eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor. Perhaps that prompted shoeing to be widely taken up? Or perhaps it was a matter of fashion?

Do you know? Or would you care to hazard a guess or advance a theory?

Carver M. Sutton Hoo: Burial ground of kings? British Museum Press, London, 1998, ISBN 0-7141-0591-0.

*sand-body. The acid sandy soil of the Sutton Hoo site preserved the external shape of some human and animal bodies as a crusty layer of dark sand that was visible on careful excavation. The picture on the left of the second row in this link gives an idea of their appearance.

Ingeld's Daughter - update on Lulu shipping charges

Those of you outside the US who expressed interest in buying the paperback of Ingeld's Daughter but were put off by the cost of international shipping may like to know that Lulu is presently running a promotional offer of free shipping on any order of at least $25 (approximately 21 Euros, £15, or Can$29).

So if you can find something else that takes your fancy, or get together with a friend and put in a combined order, shipping is FREE. Poddy Girl recently recommended a time-travel thriller, a short story collection, a crime novel, and a humorous literary novel. Sarah Johnson mentioned the historical novels of Dee Morrison Meaney, which include a trilogy set in 11th-century England, a retelling of the story of Iseult and Tristan of Lyonesse set in Arthurian Cornwall, and a tale set in early Ireland. Lulu also do calendars, music and DVDs as well as books.

Lulu haven't said how long the free shipping offer will last, but it's already on borrowed time (it was supposed to end in early April), so it's unlikely to be long. If you want to make use of it, catch it while you can.

The Lady Soldier, by Jennifer Lindsay. Book review

Edition reviewed: Robert Hale, ISBN:0-7090-7825-0.

The Lady Soldier is a historical romance set in 1812, first in Spain against the background of the Napoleonic war, then moving to aristocratic society in London. All the major characters are fictional.

I should say right up front that I don't generally read romances, historical or otherwise. I picked this one up because I read about it on one of Kate Allan's blogs, and because Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series and CS Forester's The Gun (the film, I confess, not the book) got me interested in the Peninsular War.

So how did I get on with this unfamiliar reading territory? Pretty well. The hero, Captain Tony Dorrell, is a classic romantic-novel hero with broad shoulders, tight breeches and curling dark hair the heroine can't take her eyes off (think Colin Firth in the BBC's Pride and Prejudice; I did). The heroine, Jem Riseley, aka Jemima Cullen, is an aristocratic lady who has disguised herself as a man, joined the army to escape her abusive stepfather and is making a name for herself in Spain as a military hero. A promotion brings her into the same regiment as Tony Dorrell, the man she was in love with three years ago in England. The two of them get cut off in French-held territory in Spain, have to battle deserters and French agents to get back to safety, and Jem struggles against the odds to keep her secret. Then the scene switches to Regency London, where Jem's struggle is now to be accepted into high society and to build a lasting relationship with Tony. I won't give away any more of the plot, except to say that it's a romance so you already know that all ends in perfect felicity.

I found Jem the more interesting of the two lead roles. She comes over as courageous, determined, independent-minded and inclined to try to sort out her own problems rather than ask for help, even though she doesn't always succeed. I have the impression that she fitted better into army life than she does into Regency high society, and the Author's Note comments that women who are known to have served as soldiers (yes, there are recorded examples) often had great difficulty adjusting to a traditional female role afterward. Tony didn't work so well for me, in part at least because he has the classic alpha-male traits of arrogance, reluctance to listen and absolute conviction that he always knows best (even when he doesn't), and alpha males tend to annoy me.

I have a few quibbles. Reading Sharpe and CS Forester's Rifleman Dodd and Brown on Resolution has hammered into me that a rifle and a musket are different weapons with different capabilities. The rifle was more accurate but the musket was faster to load. It's clear the authors know this, because they mention it in the text. So it jars to see the terms used apparently interchangeably, "it was an Indian Pattern Brown Bess musket.....she balanced the Indian Pattern rifle" and later, "the recoil from the musket would be savage....The rifle kept hitting her bruises." I'm also a little uneasy that no other man in a year of soldiering apparently noticed Jem's shapely behind in her tight breeches, or that a small woman would be able to carry a scaling ladder on her own. And I would have liked a lot more about the French villain's nefarious activities with the deserters in Spain and his spy plot in London. But that's a personal taste; I'm well aware that a romance has to focus on the central relationship and complaining that it doesn't have subplots is like complaining about the body count in a crime novel.

Jennifer Lindsay is a pen name for two collaborating authors, Kate Allan and Michelle Styles, and I wondered if this would be apparent in the book. It isn't; the prose flows seamlessly and I can't see the joins.

A good read for fans of romance who like an adventurous background.

Has anyone else read it?

Effective use of detail in world-building

Gill Polack has an interesting post today about the use of specific details to build effective worlds and cultures in fiction. I couldn't figure out how to link to the specific post (anyone know how you do this with a LiveJournal site?) so scroll down to the post "Even in a little thing" dated 22 April. It refers primarily to fantasy and science fiction, but it seems to me that it applies equally well to historical fiction. Good historical fiction also has to build a world that is different from the world we all inhabit day-to-day, and make it recognisable enough for a modern reader to follow a story set there.

Discussing a writer called Glenda Larke (who sounds like someone whose novels I should try - anyone read them?), Gill Polack says:

"Her worlds work because she mimics the sense we sometimes get in our own lives: that things are interlinked and complex. She streamlines her narrative by making use of different aspects of society and making sure we see those aspects from several points of view (never just 'sheep' - sheep in fields, cloth in market, wool on someone's back)and so she indicates to us that these societies are complex and functional. The detail is *so* telling, that we can infer much more from her hints than is said on the page."

This chimes in with the discussions we had here earlier about how much detail is too much, and with the recent discussion about sensory description (also discussed by Bernita). It also ties in with a conversation I had with Rick on Gabriele's blog on the possibility of inferring considerable information about a fictional world from the existence of a single item (in that particular case, a book).

Detail and description for its own sake has a tendency to drag, whereas detail and description that has the double function of saying something significant about the world, advancing the plot or developing a character can be hugely effective. As ever, one should bear in mind the caveat that it depends on the personal taste of the reader. Perhaps even more than usual in this case, because the telling detail may only be telling to a reader who is sufficiently engaged with the story to be using their imagination to make the inferences. Someone who is skating along on the top of the plot may never notice at all.

Have you any favourite examples of a telling detail that makes a world real?

Ingeld's Daughter, paperback

Those of you who expressed interest in having Ingeld's Daughter available in book form may like to know that it's now available as a paperback on Lulu.com. Lulu's printing is done in the US, so if you're outside the US the international shipping charges may be uneconomic. A printer in the UK/Europe is planned but there's no definite date, so in the meantime it may be simpler to consider finding a friend/relative/acquaintance in the US who's prepared to order a copy and post it to you. A note on pricing: it's a long book (250,000 words, 572 pages) and the cost price comes out at $15.99 (you can check this for yourself on Lulu's cost calculator if you like). Lulu takes a 20% share of any royalty but waives it if it is less than 20 cents. I'm quite pleased that Lulu exists and offers a mechanism for printing something in book form for anyone who wants it, so I should like them to take their cut on any copy sold. So I set a royalty of $1.50, bringing the price to $17.49.

The book is of course still available as a free download on my website, now complete with sketch map for those of you who asked for one.

A Perfect King (biography of Edward III), by Ian Mortimer, and others

Some of you may be interested to know that Ian Mortimer was on Radio 4's Start the Week discussion programme on Monday 17 April, talking about his new biography of Edward III, A Perfect King. If you missed it, or if you're not in the UK, you can get the programme from the BBC's Listen Again page. You can listen to the programme directly or download it as an MP3 file to listen to at your leisure. The full programme lasts 45 minutes and the discussion of A Perfect King is the last 15 minutes.

Ian Mortimer makes the interesting point that the battle of Crecy was the first full-scale battle of the Middle Ages that was won by projectile weapons (longbow archery) rather than by hand-to-hand combat. He also said that Edward III was the first king to make significant use of archery. I'd always thought that although archery came to its fullest flowering in Edward III's reign, it had already been used to great effect by Edward I, who used South Welsh mercenary archers in his wars with Gwynedd and then took them to Scotland for his Scottish campaigns. Does anyone know if this is a myth?

And a couple of comments from Joe Roesch that may have been missed because they were added recently to posts that have rolled off the end of the blog. In the Boudica post he notes that Discovery Channel is running a 5-part series on Warrior Women, including Boudica, on May 3-7 (more info here), and in the Pompeii post he recommends a book on Roman engineering: J.G. Landels, "Engineering in The Ancient World" (1978/1997).