The signs of a good horse according to Pietro de Crescenzi

Agricultural calendar from a manuscript of the Ruralium Opus Commodorum by Pietro de Crescenzi (1470-1475)
Image from Wikimedia commons

Pietro de Crescenzi (1233-1320) was a magistrate and agronomist from Bologna. He wrote in Latin, between the years 1304 and 1306, the Ruralium Opus Commodorum, a treaty on agriculture, using Latin sources as well as the knowledge of his time. This book had a huge success and was translated in many languages, including Middle French in 1373. To give you an idea of its importance, this book was one of the first to be printed, in 1471. 

The treaty contains an extensive section on horses. Unfortunately, it gives little to no information about actual farm horses – which would have been expected, given the nature of the book. Though horses were, in many parts of Europe, an important agricultural asset, the symbolism surrounding warhorses was such that even an agricultural treaty talked about destriers than about ploughhorses. However, that does not make it less interesting. 

This short extract gives a list of the qualities of a good horse. I have translated it from a French manuscript, dating back from 1470-1475 and kept at the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal. 

“One knows that a horse is beautiful when his body is large and long and all his limbs well proportionate to his size and length. And the head must be small and fine and long enough, the mouth large and the nostrils dilated and wide. The eyes must be large and not sunken in, the ears small and vivacious, the neck long and thin, and on the head, a little bit of mane sweeping on the brow. His chest must be large and round, his back short and his thighs long, round and wide, like a an ox’s, his belly long, the mane on his neck long, and his tail must be thick with hair. 

His flanks must be large and fleshy, his hocks quite tall and dry. 

Like a deer, he must have large, hairy thighs, with the wide, short joints like an ox. His hooves must be large and hard and curved, and the horse must be a little bit taller in the hindquarter than in the forequarter, like the deer who wears his neck high and has a large chest. 

There are many opinions on the colour of the coat, but many say that the bay is safer and more agreeable than the others. And one can know the beauty and quality of the horse better when he is thin than when he is fat. 

The horse is considered to be better when he has a good eyesight and sees far afield, and has a strong gaze and strong ears and a long mane, a strong chest, and big, long thighs and front legs, and short back legs, a delicate head and a fine nose, soft hairs, a large croup, a big neck and a good appetite. 

A horse who has large, dilated nostrils is naturally braver. 

A horse who has a large mouth and thin cheeks and a long neck that is thinner towards the head is easier to stop. 

A horse who has big flanks, like an ox, and a large belly that hangs towards the ground is good for ploughing. 

A horse who has big, wide, short hocks that point towards each other is light and speedy. 

A horse who has a short nose, large hocks and curvy hips must naturally amble. 

A horse who has the joints of his thighs naturally big and his jaws short like an ox is considered to be strong. 

A horse who holds his tail between his thighs is strong and can run while carrying a burden, but he is not light. 

A horse who has his thighs and the joints of his thighs quite hairy, with long hair in this part, is a hard worker but is not light. 

A horse who has long wide hips and is higher in the hindquarter than in the forehand is usually light.” 

All in all, according to Crescenzi, the ideal horse had to be both strong and light, sturdy and fast. It is interesting to note that a downhill conformation seemed to be favoured, which would not really be the case today. The desire for a short-backed horse finds more of an echo today. It confirms the idea that a good horse had to be strong. A lot of attention was given to the actual bone structure, hence the precision that it’s easier to tell if a horse is good when he is thin than when he is fat. This could show the depth of knowledge medieval people had of horses. 

The fact that there is no definite statement on which colour is better (apart from the ubiquitous bay) is quite telling. Many researchers have given a lot of importance to the symbolism of horse coats in the Middle Ages. And it is true that this symbolism can play a role in chivalric literature. But in daily life… The horse’s conformation, and no doubt character, was what decided a person to buy a horse or not, not his colour. You will note similarities between the physical description here and the one found in Brunetto Latini’s text: they used the same Latin sources and both treaties were informed by the same ideal of the (war)horse.