The Book of Horsemanship (Livro do Cavalgar, c 1430) is unique in being a medieval work about horse riding. Equitation was later to become a popular subject for writers, but other books on the subject did not appear until after 1500. This is the first English translation of the work and there is much to interest students of both medieval chivalric culture and horse history.

The book has a useful illustrated introduction. This provides biographical information on Duarte (king of Portugal from 1433 until his death in 1438) and gives an account of how the book’s manuscript came to be in the Bibliothèque Nationale, to be discovered, rediscovered and eventually published in the nineteenth century. The introduction also gives some background to fifteenth-century Portuguese equestrianism, providing explanations and images of the artefacts that Duarte describes. It certainly helps to see the saddles, stirrups and spurs that feature in the book. The introduction also gives some idea of the difficulty in appropriately translating what can be quite specialist terms from medieval Portuguese. For example, Forgeng translates one equine gait as ‘running’, suggesting this is most likely a gallop, but it is not certain.

It must be observed that Duarte’s work is incomplete. He laid out his proposed contents, but the book only contains some of the planned material. The chapters that do exist concentrate on different styles of riding and the techniques to adopt for these. There is little written on the subject of the horse itself. The riding that is described tends to relate to sports rather than equitation as an end in itself. The reader learns much about jousting, the tourney and hunting – but the classical riding exercises of early modern riding manuals are notably missing, which probably in itself says something about the changing role of the horse.

Interestingly, Duarte has much to say on the psychological aspects of riding. He has advice on overcoming fear and developing confidence (he also warns of the danger of being insufficiently fearful when riding a horse). He has nothing to say on the psychology of the horse, however, and there are several indications that there is little or no sentimentality expected of a rider for his horse. Appearance and reputation are all. The desired aim is to show nonchalance and confidence however the horse is behaving: Duarte even gives tips on subtle aids to make a horse fidget so the rider can carry on a conversation while showing how unconcerned he is. It is a far worse offence for a servant, by some neglect of equipment, to make his master look bad than it is for a servant to neglect the horse, even if this results in the death of the animal.

There are one or two places where a student of horse history might wonder if the translation had missed some of the nuances of the original work. For example, the early Iberian horse breed, the Jennet, appears frequently. Duarte discusses the different saddle and style of riding required for such a mount, but there is no mention made of the ‘ambling’ gait for which these horses were renowned (an ‘amble’ is a fast four-beat gait, very comfortable and easy to sit to). One can speculate that some of the words taken to mean ‘run’ and ‘gallop’ actually refer to the amble? But these are minor reservations. The book is undoubtedly very useful both in informing students of medieval culture of the significance of horsemanship, and in providing material for the study of the long-neglected area of the horse in history.