Medieval geldings

Illustration from a French edition of Le Livre de chasse de Gaston Phébus ("The Hunting Book of Gaston Phebus"), 15th century
Image from Wikimedia Commons

Castrating an animal is the ultimate stage of domestication, resulting in the creation of a new gender, neither male nor female which, because it cannot be used for reproduction, has no other purpose than to serve humans. The reasons for castrating a horse are numerous and range from the desire to control the breeding of equines to the perception of the advantages of the physiological and behavioural changes engendered by the procedure. 

Though the destriers, the warhorses, of medieval Europe were always entire, other types of horses, such as coursers, were castrated. 3th century author Albertus Magnus states in his De Animalibus that: 

“Racehorses are generally used to run away or to pursue: and so that their nerves should not be too hardened by the hear of the race, they are castrated so that the cooling-down and the humours counteract the dryness induced by the heat of the movement and of the race.”[1]

Here, a pseudo-scientific explanation, based on the theory of humours which was very important at the time in both human and veterinary medicine, is given to justify the castration of racehorses (a vague term that could designated horses used for actual races, or even for hunting), as it would allow them to gain increased stamina. 

According to historian Charles Gladitz, similar reasons prompted Mongols, during the same period, to systematically castrate the horses they intended to ride, whether for war or for travel, as gelding are more easily kept and need less exercise than stallions.[2] Moreover, given how close, genetically-speaking, Mongol horses are to primitive wild horses, stallions are potentially untameable: gelding them, at the age of nine months, would make them easier to control.[3]

The fact that geldings are potentially quieter than stallions is also used as a justification by Pietro de Crescenzi, in his early 14th century Opus Ruralium Commodorum: 

“Similarly, some want to have calm and placid horses, and such horses must be castrated, because when the testicles are taken away, they become calmer.”[4]

The effects of castration on the horse’s behaviour were sometimes used for veterinary reasons. It could help solve difficult and dangerous behaviours, and as such was sometimes included in hippiatric treatises in that respect. An anonymous French text from the 14th century, the Cirurgie des chevaux, states that restive or felonious horses must have their testicles cut with a hot iron. Moreover, castration could also be used as a remedy in the case of strangulated hernia. 

Though it was recognised that castration could be beneficial, geldings were not necessarily perceived in a positive manner: the castrated horse was not a knightly mount, but one generally fit for a timid rider unable to control a stallion. Albertus Magnus writes that: “warhorses must not be castrated as the castration would make them timid,” and then that “palfreys are used for the type of riding which is called equitation: and they must not be castrated either, so that they do not become effete.” From Albertus Magnus’s text, it can be inferred that though geldings have their use, the effects of the procedure on their temperament can be seen in a negative light. Destriers had to retain a degree of wildness and aggressivity in order to show “courage” on the battlefield and actually fight with their rider. That wildness is part of what is taken away from the castrated horse. 

This is what makes geldings rather ambiguous. Is turning a savage stallion into a calmer animal something positive? Or, is the entire horse, with his wild temperament valued more? And the man who can handle him more respected? There is a strong cultural dimension to the decision to castrate a horse and to the perception of the resulting gelding. What applies to one country and time-period will not be relevant to another. 

In Medieval Europe, the fact that destriers, always stallion, were considered to be the best of horses, as well as a moral and physical reflection of the knights riding them, means that geldings were not as valued – though accounts showed that, in terms of monetary value, castrated coursers sometimes reached high prices. The destrier had to be as virile as his rider, and the identification between knight and warhorse was so strong that it could lead to some horses being mutilated in an attempt to morally debase their owners.[5]

Moreover, the slight distaste with which geldings were perceived was not simply due to the fact they had been castrated, but also to the reasons why they had to go through this procedure in the first place. Medieval geldings, with maybe the exception of coursers, were the horses who had no value for breeding, had such a bad behaviour they could not be entire, or belonged to someone with limited equestrian skills who just wanted a calm horse. In medieval Europe, a gelding is often a horse who is initially mediocre or “bad.” So it is not always the gelded horse himself who is seen with distaste, but the horse who has to be gelded in order to become useable and useful. 

[1] Albertus Magnus, De Animalibus, ed by Herman Stadler (Munster, 1920), p. 1378 

[2] Charles Gladitz, Horse Breeding in the Medieval World, (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1997), p. 69 

[3] Ibid. p. 65 

[4] Petrus de Crescentiis, Ruralia Commoda, ed. by Will Richter, 1998, p. 39 

[5] See for instance Andrew G. Miller, ‘Tails of Masculinity: Knights, Clerics and the Mutilation of Horses in Medieval England’, Speculum, Vol. 88, No. 4, (2013), 958-995