The Horse Trade of Tudor and Stuart EnglandHorses played a vital role in the economy of pre-industrial England. They acted as draught animals, pulled ploughs, waggons and coaches, worked machines, and transported goods around the country. As saddle animals they enabled their riders to carry out a wide variety of tasks, and at all levels of society they were regarded as status symbols in a unique relationship with man shared by no other animal. During the Tudor and Stuart period, horses were needed in ever-growing numbers, and for a greater variety of tasks. As demand grew, improvements became necessary in the means of supply and distribution. The agents of change, the specialist dealers, were often condemned as rogues and cheats, whose actions raised prices and caused shortages. Dr Edwards argues that, far from being generally unscrupulous, the dealers were no better or worse than those amongst whom they lived and worked. |
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Accounts activities alehouse animals Arbury Hall areas ASSI Assize Records Bedworth border bought bred Bridgnorth Carlisle centres Chartres Chester Coach Cockburn Colln colts common Corpn courser crime Derby draught economic Edward Elizabeth England Essex Estate Papers Everitt Examinant Family and Estate farmers farming fillies Frizwell geldings gentry Henry VIII Horbling horse breeding horse courser horse dealers horse dealing horse stealing horse trade Hugh Wixtid indicate instance inventories involved Item paid John Lincolnshire Lincs London mares Market Bosworth markets and fairs middlemen Midlands Myddle nags Normon North North Shropshire number of horses Oxford parish Penkridge period Probate Quarter Sessions R.O. Family Richard Richard Cholmondeley Riding saddle sayd Harrisons selling seventeenth century Shrewsbury Shrops Shropshire Smithfield sold Somerset stolen horses theft thieves Thirsk Thomas Fluitt Thomas Harrison toll books town Tudor and Stuart upper classes voucher W. G. Hoskins Warrington Warwick whilst William Yorkshire