Dear Jo,
Juliet Clutton-Brock very briefly refers to this issue in a
review article on horses in history. She points to a
different area of archaeological evidence - armour. Mary
Littauer has apparently done metrical work on horse armour
that suggests that whilst war horses were taller and more
robust, they were still usually less than 15 hands and
would more normally be just over 14 hands (still larger
than the average nag at the time).
Glancing at one castle bone report on my shelves
(Launceston, Cornwall) I note that the horses range from 12
hands 2 inches to 14 hands 2 inches (after application of
Kiesewalter's factors). I think anything over 14 hands is
a quite large for the period, but that is nothing
compared to more recent draft animals.
Refs:
Alabarella, U. and Davis, S.J.M. 1996 Mammals and Birds
from Launceston Castle, Cornwall. Circaea 12 (1), 1 - 156.
Clutton-Brock, J. 1996 Horses in History. In: Olsen, S.
(ed.) Horses Through Time. Boulder: Carnegie Institute and
Roberts Reinhart.
Littauer, M. 1963 How Great was the Great Horse. Light
Horse, December 1963, 350-352.
----------------------
Alan K. Outram BA MSc PhD MIFA
Department of Archaeology
University of Exeter
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