![]() The following is an extract of the account of this episode by the chronicler Jean Froissart. A bet of five thousand francs was riding on the outcome. They worked themselves into a challenge as to who could reach Paris first, each one starting at the same time on the same morning accompanied by only one other person. In 1389 in Montpellier, “a good 450 miles from Paris,” the King of France and his brother, the duke of Touraine, turned to talking about how good it would be to be in Paris with their wives and families. In one of the many tales about him, Robin Hood was said to have given both a courser and a palfrey to a downtrodden knight: A FEAT OF TRAVEL Neapolitans, of the kingdom of Naples, were the major suppliers of this breed, a hybrid of the Turkish/Arabic and European stocks. Within Latin Europe, the need for a fast carrier of messages between armies or kingdoms gave rise to the courser, a strong, lean horse. European Latin and Arabic cultures alike prized horses of Turkish or Arabian blood. Huge stables maintained by the eleventh-century Caliph at his palace Madînat al-Zahrâ, five miles west of Cordoba, testified not only to the Andalusian use of horses but also to the careful breeding of them. ![]() In al-Andalus, Muslim warriors stayed aloft and did not deign to fight on foot. ![]() In the Islamic world, the Arab warrior was just as obsessed with the horse as was the European knight. While the destrier and palfrey excelled others in power and comfort, they were not fast horses. Off duty or perhaps on the round of visits a lord financed for his eldest son and other new knights immediately after their dubbing, knights rode the palfrey, a short-legged, long-bodied horse, which had a gentle ambling gait. The destrier, or heavy warhorse, could carry some 250 to 300 pounds and, weighing twice as much as a conventional riding horse, could give greater force to the impact of the knight’s lance. Once it became possible to mount a soldier bearing heavy armor and weapons, medieval warfare in Europe was dominated by the cavalryman until well after the Middle Ages. Medieval chivalric values exalted the horse and travel on horseback. Italian merchant families hired runners who would travel 55 miles a day for a week’s stretch and then rest for a week instead of messengers on horseback. A horse fatigues long before a man and recovers more slowly. ![]() On a pilgrimage a rider might average five to seven miles an hour, and medieval travelers accustomed to walking found travel on foot faster. Pushing a horse to achieve 60 miles daily would certainly cause it to founder sooner rather than later. In the tenth century it is recorded to have taken one week to travel from Algeciras Córdoba, a distance of 150 miles. A horse can easily carry a rider 40 miles in a day and even 50 miles without duress, but the lower figure of 20 miles is probably a more realistic average. Sources differ, but it seems that the distance one could cover riding a horse on an extended trip, such as from Venice to Bruges, ranged from 20 to 30 miles a day depending on the weather, with a courier being expected to cover as much as 60 miles every 24 hours. The actual speed would depend on the type of horse, the weight the horse was carrying, its feed and forage, and the rest breaks for both man and mount. Travelers who did not make their way on foot in the Middle Ages likely rode a horse.
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