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Citadel of Carcassonne. Though largely rebuilt in the ijth century, these defences incorporate earlicr structures. Notę the

reconstructed wooden hoardings on two sections of wali and one of the towers. (AuthoCs photograph)

Roman times. Unlike their predecessors, the Arabs had, sińce pre-Islamic times, bred for ąuality rather than ąuantity. The first recorded Arab veterinary manuał dated from AD 785 while the artificial insemination of mares was known by at least 1286. Arabian horses were imported via Spain as early as the ęth century and, perhaps as a result of the first Crusades, morę powerful horses of Byzantine or Persian type reappeared during the i2th century. This, of course, was a time when the largely French Crusaders were supposedly ‘bowling over the Sar-acens on their smaller ponieś’. Arab influence can also be found in the terminology of medieval French horse breeding, where the word bardot (the mixed offspring of a stallion and she-ass) derived from the Arabie birdhawn meaning draught or pack horse.

The most immediate source of influence upon French horse breeding was Muslim Spain, where a famous stud had been established at Cordoba as early as the 8th century. It was in Southern Spain that the famous Andalusian breed was developed. Basically descended from the North African Barb, which was also a foundation strain for the Arabian horse, the Andalusian was the first ‘oriental’ breed to be appreciated in Western Europę. William of Normandy had two at the battle of Hastings, and such so-called ‘hot-blooded’ horses were imported in large numbers from the late nth century. Inevitably they had an impact not only on the character of the finest French war-horses but also, it seems, on the places where destriers were raised. The Perche region of Southern Normandy later gave its name to the Percheron breed, but during the first half of the i2th

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