Horses were first domesticated over 6,000 years ago, but it took quite a while for someone to get brave enough to take a piece of metal and use a nail to attach it to an animal’s hoof. First they tied on woven grass or leather, and then it was metal, but still tied on. The Romans used the hipposandal, but it was pretty awkward and everyone was uncomfortable.
Luckily, they found a better way, a way that has stuck with us, much like a horseshoe, for over 1,000 years (likely more, but impossible to pinpoint exactly.) But who was the brave person who finally decided to take a metal nail and stick it into a horse’s hoof, and not in a horrible way, but in order to help them?
Interestingly enough, no one really knows. This exact information has been lost, much like a horseshoe discarded out in the pasture. It’s a mystery, except instead of the traditional type of mystery where there’s a climatic ending which points out the killer or we find the lost horseshoe out in the pasture, there is no solving this one. There’s no one person who can be given credit for coming up with nail on horse shoes, just a whole lot of theories. Maybe one day someone will be able to prove who invented it, maybe they just need to search some more, maybe over in that patch of tall grass, or next to the fence post.
Why is it a Mystery?
It is well know that horseshoes were originally made of iron. Iron was an extremely valuable metal, and often times horseshoes were actually accepted in place of money. Since it was so valuable, iron was frequently melted down to be reforged into something new. So any early horseshoes that may have existed may also have been melted down to be reused. It would have been crazy to toss out something so valuable.
But if any horseshoes had been tossed out, they might have had to fight another battle: rust. Iron is a metal, and one of it’s properties is that it will rust. It’s possible there were horseshoes that still existed but lost the battle of time, rusting away into nothingness.
These things together mean there is very little archaeologic evidence of horseshoes prior to 900 AD. People didn’t write about horseshoes, which is the best evidence we could have. The clearest reference in writing to horseshoes was in 910 AD, when “crescent figured irons and their nails,” was mentioned. Over the next 100 years, references to horseshoes went way up. Suddenly, horseshoes were a hot item.
But in 1653, the tomb of the Frankish King Childeric, in Tournai Belgium, was opened, and there was a horseshoe, complete with nails. It’s estimated this tomb was sealed up in about 480 AD, so someone had definitely come up with the idea, but it may not have been wildly spread yet. Unfortunately the treasures found in the tomb were stolen and much of them destroyed, which means our understanding of the tomb is limited.
So we know horseshoes existed as early as 480 AD, but were not widespread enough for people to talk about. So who came up with the idea? Let’s dive deeper into the theories…
The Theory of the Romans
The Romans had already utilized the wacky and weird hipposandal, showing they understood there was a need to protect horse hooves. They used horses a lot as they were needed for military, farm work and transportation.
The Romans were widespread throughout the modern day European continent. The Roman Empire was huge, spreading across Europe, and extending into parts of Africa and the Middle East.
With this broad stretch of land under their control, it would have been easy for them to swoop up any technologies developed in any area of the Roman Empire, and spread it through world. Trade was easy throughout the empire, the idea could have come from any part and traveled around.
Due to the vast area and amount of people included in the Roman Empire, it’s easy to theorize that horseshoes with nails were invented somewhere in there. Which means anyone in their empire could have invented the concept, such as…
The Theory of the Druids
The druids were a Celtic religious and social order that flourished in Britain, Ireland, and Gaul from the 4th century BC, until the 2nd century AD. It was at that point the aforementioned Romans swooped in and took over.
But before their downfall, they were known for their knowledge of nature, their religious beliefs, and their practices of magic. They were also known for their skill in metalworking. Could they have invented horseshoes? Honestly, there’s no definitive proof, just speculation.
The areas where the druids lived were known to be wet. Wet hooves break down much easier than dry hooves, making for lame horses. Back then, a lame horse meant way more than just some stall rest and postponing the next horseshow. It mean their entire life was at stake because they needed their horse to work the fields so they could eat. There was a need to keep those horses sound.
The druids were very interested in horses, as they were interested in all of nature. They did do certain rituals that would be completely unacceptable in today’s world but would have given them the knowledge to understand how the horse is put together. This would have allowed them to see exactly where nails could have gone into a hoof.
There is some folklore that tells the story of a druid creating shoes that would make a horse fly, which could either be completely ficticious, or a based on real events type of story.
But other than speculation and folklore, there’s no solid proof that the druids were the creators of the nailed on horseshoe.
The Widespread Use of Horseshoes
Around 1000 AD, the use of nailed on horseshoes had became widespread. Horseshoes were such a massive upgrade for horses that they became the standard in horse care. Many different people wrote guides to horse care and included information on shoeing a horse.
Capitulare de villis, written in the late 8th or 9th century from the reign of Emperor Charlemagne, details how to run Charlemagne’s estates, including horse care. A full description of shoeing a horse is included.
In about 1075 AD, the German monk Theophilus Presbyter wrote a guide to all the known crafts at the time, which included a section on how to make horseshoes, attach the nails, and finish the shoe.
Although everyone is thrilled that horseshoes exist, surprisingly no one person or group ever stepped up to claim credit or was able to be tracked down enough to give credit. With how revolutionary shoeing horses was to the entire lifestyle of humans, it’s shocking that no one stepped up to declare they invented it. People continue to theorize and guess at who might have done it, but there remains a solid lack of evidence to prove anything. One scholar suggested that early researchers may not have realized the importance of horseshoes so they weren’t recorded, both in archeological finds or in translations. If this is the case, we may have lost valuable information that we will never get back.
Perhaps one day more information will come out to pinpoint the origin of the nailed on horseshoe, but for now, we can just marvel in the still very widespread use of a technique created over 1000 years ago.
Want more?
The Origins of the Horseshoe in Asia
Are the Etruscan Horseshoes the Earliest known Horseshoes in the World?