Contents

Acknowledgements

Notes on the Editors

Notes on the Contributors

List of Illustrations

Introduction The Horse as Cultural Icon: The Real and the Symbolic Horse in the Early Modern World

I. Horsemanship and Status

The Duke of Newcastle's 'Love [...] for Good Horses': An Exploration of Meanings

Visual Aids: Equestrian Iconography and the Training of Horse, Rider and Reader

Big Men, Small Horses: Ridership, Social Standing and Environmental Adaptation in the Early Modern Philippines

Letting Loose the Horses: Sir Philip Sidney's Exordium to The Defence of Poesie

The Legacy of Federico Grisone

II. Horse Breeding

Altering a Race of Jades: Horse Breeding and Geohumoralism in Shakespeare

"Beware a Bastard Breed": Notes Towards a Revisionist History of the Thoroughbred Racehorse

"The Most Excellent of Animal Creatures": Health Care for Horses in Early Modern England

"Dark Horses": The Horse in Africa in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

The Renaissance Studs of the Gonzagas of Mantua

III. Horse-Human Identities

Image and Reality: Upper Class Perceptions of the Horse in Early Modern England

'Know Us by Our Horses': Equine Imagery in Shakespeare's Henriad

'The Author of their Skill': Human and Equine Understanding in the Duke of Newcastle's 'New Method'

The Military Value of Horses and the Social Value of the Horse in Early Modern England

Forging Iron and Masculinity: Farrier Trade Identities in Early Modern Germany

Index Nominum