Transporting horses by sea in the Middle Ages

 Detail of a miniature of the building of Caesar's fleet of ships.
Jean Wavrin, Anciennes et nouvelles chroniques d'Angleterre, volume 1; British Library Royal MS 15 E IV, fol. 57v
Public domain image

In medieval Western Europe, equids were the main mode of transportation, carrying humans, pulling carts… But what happened when the horses themselves needed to be transferred from one place to another? This could happen for both commercial and military purposes. And sometimes, the horses had to travel by sea. 

The maritime transport of horses is especially complicated, due to the fragility of those animals, of their legs especially, and to the difficulties of feeding them appropriately during the voyage. Even today, it is not always straightforward or easy, so you can imagine the difficulties faced during the Middle Ages. 

Horses were transported in special ships, that were conceived almost like floating stables. Many animals could fit those ships, in individual boxes. In 1066, William the Conqueror transported his warhorses from Normandy to England in that manner. This had important consequences on the horse population of Britain: Norman horses were generally considered to be taller and “better” than their English counterparts. Those horses that had crossed the Channel went on to be used in the royal studs, to perfect the ideal warhorse. 

In the following centuries, a similar manner of transport was used, in the context of the crusades. Horses had to be taken from European harbours to the Middle East, across the Mediterranean. In the 13th century, Jean de Joinville, companion and biographer of the French king Louis IX writes about loading the horses on a ship: 

“In the month of August, we boarded our round ships at la Roche in Marseille. The day when we boarded our ships, we opened the door of the ship and we put inside all the horses we needed to take overseas; then we closed the door and blocked it well (…) because when the ship is on the sea, all the door is beneath the water.”[1]

Frustratingly here, more details are given on the way the door is made watertight than on the actual loading of the horses, that is mentioned in passing, as if it was an usual occurrence. Moreover, this extract does not give any information on the actual organisation inside the ship. However, there are other sources mentioning that. In her book The Medieval Warhorse, From Byzantium to the Crusades, Ann Hyland says that a contract was passed between Genoa and Louis IX in 1246 for the ships necessary for the crusade. This contract details the way those ships were built to accommodate horses. Here is what the author says: 

“The round ships were provided with mangers, stall rails, beddings of esparto grass, rope and ringbolts to secure the stabilizing underbelly slings. It is certain that those slings were not intended for raising horses off their feet.”[2]

Ann Hyland also states that the maritime transport of horses lasted for several weeks and needed an impressive organisation to feed them, with barley and hay, and to give them water. Each boat could contain about twenty horses (though they were more numerous in some).[3]

The organisation of those voyages, as well as the fact that they actually managed to bring live – if a little battered – horses to their destination, could reflect the knowledge medieval people had of horses. They had to feed them properly, and also to secure them in their stalls to limit the risk of injuries. The horses thus transported were for the most part valuable destriers who needed to be used quickly after their arrival for warfare. However, Ann Hyland states that they often suffered from the after effect of this transport (and the enforced immobility that went with it) and that the horses “would have been very vulnerable in battle because of debility, and also even more susceptible to local diseases.”[4]

The horses who survived then had to be transported back. In some instances, it is probable that they were joined by a few local horses, whether Arabian or Turkoman (a now extinct breed of horses, the ancestors of the Akhal-Teke), that the European kings and princes wanted for their studs. 

If the subject of the maritime transport of medieval horses and of the crusades interests you, I invite you to have a look at Ann Hyland’s book, which gives a lot of very interesting information, as well as references to primary sources. 

[1] Joinville, Vie de Saint Louis, edited by Jacques Monfrin, Paris, 1995 

[2] HYLAND Ann, The Medieval Warhorse from Byzantium to the Crusades, London, Sutton Publishing, 1994, p. 144 

[3] Hyland, 1994, p. 146 

[4] Hyland, 1994, p. 148