Beastly Natures: Animals, Humans, and the Study of History

Nature Bridled: The Treatment and Training of Horses in Early Modern England

155 Throughout history, man has attempted to dominate his environment and exploit its flora and fauna for his own ends. At first, as a hunter-gatherer, he competed with other animals for food, but he did not begin radically to change the world in which he lived, until he settled down and began to farm. Cultivation of the soil and the domestication of animals not only helped man to meet his basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter but also added to the ways in which he could exploit his surroundings and his fellow creatures. By the early modern period, man’s demands were much more complex and far more controversial: he chased and killed creatures in the wild merely for pleasure and enslaved and mistreated domesticated animals. Man dominated the natural world to the extent that many inhabitants of Tudor and Stuart England believed that the earth’s resources were completely at their disposal. In literature, with hardly a hint of irony, animals were depicted as complicit in their oppression. As Ben Jonson wrote in “To Penshurst”: “The painted partrich lyes in euery field/and, for thy messe, is willing to be kill’d.”1 Domestication made the job of controlling animals that much easier, but it also raised important ethical questions concerning man’s treatment of them. Within the traditions of Western civilization, this discourse dates from at least classical times and was a matter of concern for early modern thinkers. Indeed, Keith Thomas, in his seminal work Man and the Natural World, sees the early modern period as one of transition, a bridge between the unabashed anthropocentric views of the Middle Ages and the theriophilic-influenced Nature Bridled The Treatment and Training of Horses in Early Modern England pet er e dwa r ds p e t e r e d wa r d s 15 6 posturing of the modern world.2 He contends that attitudes toward animals gradually improved over the course of the years 1550–1750, with the pace quickening in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. But did these views change actual practice? What Thomas has to say on this point is largely anecdotal or based on literary texts, but what evidence he does cite suggests that abuse continued. This essay addresses the link between changing attitudes and actual treatment, focusing on the experience of horses in early modern England as reflected in a wide range of primary sources. I begin with a survey of contemporary philosophical attitudes toward animals, emphasizing the growth of pro-animal sentiment during the period. The impact of these ideals on actual practice is tested against the evidence. Firstly, I have examined early modern manuals of horsemanship and animal husbandry, which do indicate changing attitudes, at least among the writers and perhaps their readers. More problematical is the question whether they reflect actual practiceorprescribewhatshouldbedone.Secondly,Ihavelookedatlegaland other types of records that document the horse trade. These sources provide evidence of what actually happened, though the weight of documentation in muniment rooms skews the analysis toward horses on landed estates. For the population at large, court cases reveal instances of cruelty and misuse. Toll books, recording the sale of horses at markets and fairs, proved particularly illuminating. Paying particular attention to the training and use of horses, I show that their treatment was often a class-based issue. Whereas many gentlemen had a close relationship with the horses they rode, they rarely tended to or managed them. At the outset of a trip, a gentleman or an aristocrat mounted a horse that his groom had led from the stables; when he returned, he left the animal in a servant’s charge. Milords certainly did not steer the plough, drive the coach or cart, or lead pack ponies to market; hence they were free to romanticize about their steeds’ nobility while others did the hard work of breeding, training, and tending to their horses. Man and the Natural World For Christians, man’s unique position was part of a divine plan. God had created the Garden of Eden as a paradise for humans and had given Adam dominion over all living things. At first, humans and beasts cohabited peacefully ; Adam and Eve did not eat meat, and animals were tame. The Fall forever changed that relationship: beasts became wild and aggressive. After the Flood, God reaffirmed man’s ascendancy, but the world was now a far Nature...