The horse in Middle Ages

The horse was an integral and essential component of medieval existence. Horses were needed for tournaments, for hunting, for pleasure, for travel, for transport and haulage, for agricultural work, and for war.

Ladies in hunting

On this day: The King Henry II of France died after fatal injury

Historically, as the representative of a nation, it was essential that a monarch remain strong and healthy. In 1559 Henri II of France was injured at a jousting tournament when a lance splintered, went into his eye and shot upwards into his brain, causing a subdural haemorrhage (a build-up of blood between the inner and outer membranes covering the brain). Although he was badly injured, the king managed to get to his chambers, where all of his physicians gathered in the hope of curing him.

Medieval tournament

Born in 1519, the future Henry II married Catherine de Medici in 1533 when they were both 14 years old. His father, King Francis I, reportedly supervised the consummation, announcing they had both shown valour in the ‘joust’. Catherine was rich but not pretty and Henry was soon in the arms of Diane de Poitiers, a beautiful, ambitious widow in her mid-thirties who became almost a queen behind the scenes. Henry had other mistresses but his two other great loves were hunting and jousting. He succeeded his father to the French throne on his 28th birthday in 1547 and in 1558 his and Catherine’s eldest son, the stunted and sickly Francis, was married to Mary, Queen of Scots, who had been brought up in France by her mother’s family, the Guises, to keep her out of the hands of the English. The French intended through her to acquire the Scottish throne.