Saga - 2005, Side 81

AF BEISLABÁTUM OG UNNARJÓUM
79
ir á vissan hátt þá algengu evrópsku þjóðtrú að það sé lánsmerki að
finna skeifu. íslenskir kotbændur hafa líklega orðið að spara við sig
járningar allt fram á tuttugustu öld, sérstaklega hvað áburðarhesta
varðar. Hestar sem voru aðeins notaðir í heybandslestir og til að
bera klyfjar í svo sem einni eða tveimur kaupstaðarferðum á ári
hafa trúlega sumir aldrei verið járnaðir. Það hefur verið talsvert fyr-
irtæki fyrir kotbændur að járna heila lest og freistandi að stilla
fremur ferðahraða í hóf og láta nægja að hafa reiðhestana á járnum.
Járningarnar hafa hins vegar skapað höfðingjum og öflugustu
stofnunum landsins yfirburðastöðu.
Abstract
HORSESHOEING AND THE TRANSPORTATION
REVOLUTION OF THE MIDDLE AGES
It is generally thought that the horse played a major role in facilitating the settle-
ntent of Iceland in earlier times. Its importance is seen for example in there being
one horse for every two of the country's inhabitants around the year 1700. This
high number can also be explained by the fact that horses in Iceland were not
raised like ordinary domesticated animals, but mostly foraged for themselves.
On the other hand, people have tended to assume that the use of horses remained
unchanged from the beginnings until they were replaced by modem technology,
which is hardly the case. The use of horseshoes was not customary in the Nordic
countries until the llth century at the earliest, although simple iron spikes were
used for travelling in winter. Icelanders therefore rode unshod horses through-
out the first centuries after settlement; even if some horseshoes were made as
time passed, they were expensive. One can only wonder that people should have
travelled in this way on difficult mountain paths, but one can probably regard it
as an indication of how much the vegetation cover and soil have eroded since
those times. People in some ways compensated for the lack of horseshoes by
owning many horses, and apparently it was considered generous to exchange
horses with travellers. It seems likely that transport by sea was more important
in the Middle Ages than it later came to be. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the
North Icelanders had quite a number of large cargo ships, which one might
expect that they applied to the types of transport that later were handled pri-
marily by horses. No such fleet existed in the north in later centuries. There is lit-
tle evidence of general horseshoe use until the English began sailing to Iceland in
the 15th century; they brought large imports of inexpensive horseshoes. That
development must have sparked a transportation revolution. At that time the
seats of the bishops had begun to acquire farms that operated fishing boats, and