The Culture of the Horse

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Karen Raber, Treva J. Tucker

      Pages 1-41

3. Power and Status

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 43-43

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   2. Cultural Convergence: The Equine Connection between Muscovy and Europe

      • Ann M. Kleimola

      Pages 45-62

   3. The Palio Horse in Renaissance and Early Modern Italy

      • Elizabeth Tobey

      Pages 63-90

   4. Shakespeare and the Social Devaluation of the Horse

      • Bruce Boehrer

      Pages 91-111

   5. “Faith, Say a Man Should Steal Ye—and Feed Ye Fatter”: Equine Hunger and Theft in Woodstock

      • Kevin De Ornellas

      Pages 113-137

4. Discipline and Control

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 139-139

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   2. Just a Bit of Control: The Historical Significance of Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century German Bit-Books

      • Pia F. Cuneo

      Pages 141-173

   3. Man and Horse in Harmony

      • Elisabeth LeGuin

      Pages 175-196

   4. From Gens d’armes to Gentilshommes: Dressage, Civility, and the Ballet à Cheval

      • Kate van Orden

      Pages 197-222

5. Identity and Self-Definition

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 223-223

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   2. A Horse of a Different Color: Nation and Race in Early Modern Horsemanship Treatises

      • Karen Raber

      Pages 225-243

   3. “Honest English Breed”: The Thoroughbred as Cultural Metaphor

      • Richard Nash

      Pages 245-272

   4. Early Modern French Noble Identity and the Equestrian “Airs above the Ground”

      • Treva J. Tucker

      Pages 273-309

   5. “Horses! Give Me More Horses!”: White Settler Identity, Horses, and the Making of Early Modern South Africa

      • Sandra Swart

      Pages 311-328

   6. Learning to Ride in Early Modern Britain, or, The Making of the English Hunting Seat

      • Donna Landry

      Pages 329-349

6. Back Matter

   Pages 351-371

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This volume fills an important gap in the analysis of early modern history and culture by reintroducing scholars to the significance of the horse. A more complete understanding of the role of horses and horsemanship is absolutely crucial to our understanding of the early modern world. Each essay in the collection provides a snapshot of how horse culture and the broader culture - that tapestry of images, objects, structures, sounds, gestures, texts, and ideas - articulate. Without knowledge of how the horse figured in all these aspects, no version of political, material, or intellectual culture in the period can be entirely accurate.

• culture
• identity
• Renaissance
• structure

• University of Mississippi, USA

  Karen Raber

KAREN RABER is Associate Professor of English at the University of Mississippi, USA. She is author of Dramatic Difference: Gender, Class and Genre in the Early Modern Closet Drama (Delaware 2002), and co-editor with Ivo Kamps of Measure for Measure: Texts and Contexts (Bedfor/St. Martin's 2004).

TREVA J. TUCKER is a doctoral candidate in History at the University of Southern California, USA. Her article, Eminence over Efficacy: Social Status and Cavalry Service in Sixteenth-Century France appeared in the Sixteenth Century Journal in 2001.

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