page_title: History of the horse in Britain
section_title: Roman Britain to the Norman Conquest
hierarchical_section_title: History of the horse in Britain / Roman Britain to the Norman Conquest
caption_attribution_description: English: 10th century Anglo-Saxon illustration of a two-horse chariot, in a copy of Prudentius's Psychomachia
context_page_description: The known history of the horse in Britain starts with horse remains found in Pakefield, Suffolk, dating from 700,000 BC, and in Boxgrove, West Sussex, dating from 500,000 BC. Early humans were active hunters of horses, and finds from the Ice Age have been recovered from many sites. At that time, land which now forms the British Isles was part of a peninsula attached to continental Europe by a low-lying area now known as "Doggerland", and land animals could migrate freely between what is now island Britain and continental Europe. The domestication of horses, and their use to pull vehicles, had begun in Britain by 2500 BC; by the time of the Roman conquest of Britain, British tribes could assemble armies which included thousands of chariots.
  Horse improvement as a goal, and horse breeding as an enterprise, date to medieval times; King John imported a hundred Flemish stallions, Edward III imported fifty Spanish stallions, and various priories and abbeys owned stud farms. Laws were passed restricting and prohibiting horse exports and for the culling of horses considered undesirable in type.
context_section_description: By the time of Julius Caesar's attempted invasion of Britain in 55 BC, the inhabitants of Britain included proficient horsemen. Caesar's forces were met by British horsemen and war chariots, the chariots outfighting the Gaulish horsemen who had accompanied him. Caesar later faced organised resistance led by Cassivellaunus, with over 4,000 war chariots. To the east of the Pennines, the Romans also encountered the Gabrantovici, or "horse-riding warriors". The spread and development of horse trappings recovered from this period, such as bits, strap junctions and terrets, have been used to indicate the withdrawal of ruling groups of Britons during the Roman conquest of Britain.
  A large amount of horse dung has been found in a well at a Roman fort in Lancaster, Lancashire, which was a base for cavalry units in the 1st and 2nd centuries. The bones of 28 horses have been found in a Roman well at Dunstable, Bedfordshire, which was a Roman posting-station on Watling Street, where horses would have been kept. These horses had been butchered for horsemeat; but a revival of the cult of the Celtic goddess Epona, protector of horses, donkeys and mules, may account for horse carcasses buried whole at Dunstable, with "special care". Buried with humans in a 4th–5th century cemetery, these horses represent a belief that Epona protected the dead.
  One of the earliest records of British horses being recognised for their quality and exported dates from the Roman era; many British horses were taken to Italy to improve native stock. Some of the earliest evidence of horses used for sport in Britain also dates from Roman times, a chariot-racing arena having been discovered at Colchester, in Essex.
  From the 5th century, the role of the horse in Anglo-Saxon culture is partly illustrated by the number of words for "horse" in Old English. These distinguish between cart horses (two words), pack horses (two words), riding horses (three words), horses for breeding (three words, male and female), horses suitable for royalty and aristocracy (five words, of which three were mainly used in poetry), and warhorses (one word). There was no word for "plough horse", and no evidence that horses were used for ploughing in Anglo-Saxon times, when this was still done by ox teams; but Domesday Book records a horse used for harrowing, in 1086. Horses were used predominantly for transporting goods and people; numerous English place-names, such as Stadhampton, Stoodleigh and Studham, refer to the keeping of "studs", in this case "herds", of horses; and Anglo-Saxon stirrups and spurs have been found by archaeologists. Horses were also raced for sport, and a "race-course" in Kent is mentioned in a charter of King Eadred, dated 949.
  There is some evidence that horses were occasionally eaten, perhaps in a hard winter, or ridden until five years of age and then slaughtered for meat; but there are many references in medieval sources indicating that the Anglo-Saxons placed a high value on horses. They were often included in the price paid for land and in bequests and other gifts, and kings' servants included horse-thegns, or marshals. Numerous horses and horse-breeding establishments were recorded in Domesday Book, though many more horses were probably omitted, given the need for horses for riding and pulling carts. Only 71 smiths are recorded in Domesday Book, but others "must be concealed under the heading of other classes". Six smiths in Hereford were obliged to supply 120 horseshoes each year for the maintenance of horses belonging to warriors.
  Horses held religious significance in Anglo-Saxon paganism. The 8th century historian Bede, of Jarrow, in Northumbria, wrote that the first Anglo-Saxon chieftains, in the 5th century, were Hengist and Horsa – Old English words for "stallion" and "horse", respectively. Modern scholars regard Hengist and Horsa as horse deities venerated by pagan Anglo-Saxons, euhemerised into ancestors of Anglo-Saxon royalty, and stemming from the divine twins of Proto-Indo-European religion, with cognates in various other Indo-European cultures.
  Hors
caption: 10th century Anglo-Saxon illustration of a two-horse chariot carrying Luxuria
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