Healing the horse in medieval Europe

"Arrival of the crusaders at Constantinople," c. 1455
Public domain image

In my post “How they saw the horse…” I pointed out that the many of the inhabitants of medieval Europe loved their horses and took good care of them. One of the aspects of that care is the number of veterinary treaties that were produced at the time. Those have been studied at length by generations of historians, but I thought I could give you a quick overview on the subject of medieval veterinary medicine. 

As I’ve mentioned before, several veterinary treaties were written during the Middle Ages, especially from the 13th century onwards. Many were produced in Sicily and Southern Italy. Several Ancient Greek or Byzantine treaties were translated. Other authors compiled their own manuals. That was the case of Teodorico Borgognoni, a Dominican monk and physician from Bologna who wrote the Mulomedicina. Or of Lorenzo Rusio who wrote the Liber marescalcie in Rome in the first half of the 14th century. Another example: the treaty written by Guilliaume de Villiers in 1453.[1]

This last book is interesting because it includes magical formulas, spells and prayers to help horses heal more quickly, but also to better control those animals. There is, for instance, a chapter called “Cherme du cheval qui ne vault estre paisible” (“spell for the horse who will not be calm”) where a magical diagram has to be copied on a piece of parchment and tied to the horse’s neck. 

Like human medicine, veterinary medicine for the medieval horse relied on the theory of humours. According to this Antique theory, a balance has to be maintained between the four elements of air, fire, water and earth which, supposedly, compose the human (and equine) body. When an unbalance is suspected, one of the solutions is to bleed the patient. Hence, bleeding (and cauterisation) was often practiced, especially when people considered that there was an excess of humours in the legs. 

Concerns about the legs keep recurring in medieval veterinary treaties. Modern day horse owners will probably understand this, given the number of injuries and infections, both internal and external that can affect a horse’s legs. The theory of humours applied to those was an attempt to understand heat, swellings, and so on: those ailments were all explained by an unbalance of humours. However, bleeding was not the only solution. Some treaties give the advice of making the horse stand in water to regulate the flow of humours in the legs. Though in that case the cause is not understood, the treatment is far from foolish or outdated. 

There were, of course, other solutions than bleeding in those treaties which endeavoured to detail very specifically the symptoms of different illnesses (and even of different manifestations of the same disease), before describing a more or less efficient cure. The treatment was usually given by a farrier who, in medieval Europe, often combined the skills of a blacksmith with those of a vet, and might have also been the one in charge of training young horses. 

However, an oral knowledge of equine medicine was passed down among the population and handbooks such as the 14th century Mesnagier de Paris, which I have already quoted in my previous post, describes treatments to give at home, such as this hoof unguent: 

“Take a quarter of goat tallow, a quarter of wax, a quarter of turpentine, a quarter of resin. Mix everything together and apply it on the horses’ hooves. Then, wrap the foot in a cloth that has been dipped in old unguent and manure.”[2]

Here’s another remedy, this time against colic: 

“If a horse has colic, you must make him lie down and, with a cone, inject in his anus a quarter of any sort of oil, then have someone ride him until he sweats, and he’ll be cured.” 

What do you think of this? It seems to show that the author knew colic could be due to a blockage and thought that the oil could help with that. The advice that the horse should be ridden until he sweats could be a way of promoting gut motility through movement, in the hope he will finally pass some manure. Anyhow, the author seems very hopeful about the outcome and the efficiency of his remedy. 

The following advice is quite different: 

“When the horse has swellings beneath the jaw, you must say to him, with three paternosters, these words three times: +abgla +abgli +alphara +asy + pater noster, etc.” 

In a time when germs and viruses and bacteria were not known, lymph nodes were very mysterious, and that is probably why the treatments relies on religious superstitions and spells. Though they sound Latin, abgla, abgli, alphara and asy don’t seem to mean anything. 

The spell to ward off farcy (a form of glanders) is clearer. Here are the instructions given by the Mesnagier: 

“When the horse is affected by farcy, you must, during nine days, put a dressing on the affected part and recite every day, while fasting, three times, with three paternosters, and while touching the abscess, those words: +in nomine Patros + et Filii + et Spiritus Sancti + Amen. I order you, treacherous evil, by God Almighty, and in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and in the name of all the saints and all the angels of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by all the power that God gave to speech and voice, in the name of the powers through which God healed the leper from his disease: you, treacherous evil, do not spread; do not dare double in size or swell, or split or form fistulas, no more than did the five wounds of Our Lord Jesus Christ who saved the world, which resulted in those five wounds. In nomine Patris + et Filii + et Spiritus Sancti + Amen.” 

Isn’t this interesting? Religion becomes mixed with superstition and an analogy is made between horses and humans (the leper), and horses and the Christ (through the analogy with the wounds). Isn’t it revealing of the importance horses had for the people of the 14th century? They were ready to try to do anything to heal them, and the solutions they had at hand ranged from sensible treatments to attempts to restore the balance of humours, to a call for help addressed to God. 

Of course, that was because the horse was so useful to the inhabitants of Medieval Europe. But the development of veterinary care shows that they understood the horses’ manifestations of pain and strove to make those animals better. Studies have shown that medieval equine medicine was as developed as the human one at the time, that there were similarities between the two (such as the theory of humours) and that no other animal was the subject of so much care. And that, in a way, is quite logical given the unique relationship humans and horses entertained. 

[1] POULLE-DRIEUX Yvonne, « L’Hippiatrie dans l’Occident latin du XIIIe au XVe siècle, » dans BEAUJOUAN Guy, POULLE-DRIEUX Yvonne, DUREAU-LAPEYSONNIE Jeanne-Marie, Médecine humaine et vétérinaire à la fin du Moyen Age, Genève-Paris, 1966 

[2] Le Mesnagier de Paris, éd. Georgina E. Brereton et Janet M. Ferrier, trad. Karin Ueltschi, Paris, 2010