What popular medieval animal is rare in England today?

animals were the only form of portable power in the medieval period we know all about horses and that kind of thing there's another kind of creature which is less familiar to us in the West these days what is it and what can it do let's find out [Music] the animal I'm talking about is a mule now for those of you that don't know a mule is a sterile hybrid of a donkey and a horse that means the mum has to be a horse and the dad was a donkey there is another type of hybrid which is a horse dad and a donkey mum that's called a hinny but they would typically not very much used we don't hear about them there's a possibility they're a more frail kind of creature not necessarily having the best of both as mules are supposed to have mules are ever-present in the medieval landscape one of the perhaps slightly troubling things about them is they're not often talked about so functional were they and so in the background that really an awful lot of commentators of the medieval period just didn't even talk about them now mules along with oxen were used as relatively low status beasts of burden they were ridden sometimes but mostly they were used to pack goods so pack animals or a mule train or the equivalent which course became very familiar to the settlers in North America at a later period but in the medieval times mule trains were used for carrying bulk goods from one place to the other when boats weren't available boats were obviously the cheapest form of transportation but had to be linked by rivers so mules were used for cross-country travel now the interesting thing about mules is that it's of course a genetic dead end once you've got a mule you can't breed with it so they were actually in some places more valuable than horses but of course you have to remember that horses were not as big as they are today and mules could actually have what's called hybrid vigor which means they're actually stronger than both of their parents supposedly they had the attributes of a horse and the attributes of a donkey so they were very sure-footed they could carry weight for weight more than an equivalent sized horse and they're supposed to be very steady and calm now of course these generalizations are always a little bit rough-and-ready because I work with horses I know every horse I work with has a different personality I'm pretty sure every mule would have had a different personality but in general terms they were considered to be beasts of burden mule breeding itself was quite a lucrative pastime it appears from the records it looks like a good mule was more expensive than an average horse so you could argue they were just as valuable as horses but interestingly they're supposed to eat a lot less which is good and they can live on rough forage where a horse would need more expensive grain or more expensive grass to survive a mule can live on slightly more rough forage and possibly could for ajaan its actual route so if you're going to be transporting goods you could transport them for the waking hours of daylight you then Corral your mules you let them eat whatever's there and they'd get enough sustenance to keep going it does appear in antiquity the mules were treated with quite a lot of disdain and that's very sad they seemed to have been treated more cruelly than horses which is quite awful but that's just the way it seems it was these days there are mules used in logging and there are mules used in some parts of the world but there are many more horses used very few oxen and mules quite hard to get hold of one of the things that I'm always interested in doing though is testing stuff out now sometimes the stories about mules have the ring of apocryphal tales passed down from one writer to another without them actually having any direct experience of them so in typical modern history TV style I have decided to buy a mule I've shipped in a mule all the way from Spain where there are more mules than there are in the UK and I am going to try riding him for the first time and I'm going to see whether I can train him for carrying weapons because we do know that clergy quite often rode wheels and it is possible that Bishop odo the brother of William the Conqueror in 1066 may have ridden a mule at the Battle of Hastings not sure but as a possibility it appears that mules were slightly synonymous with humility Jesus rode donkey through the gates of Jerusalem in their Bible and so it's possible that donkeys and mules have a religious significance for the early Christian church so let's see whether it's possible let's experiment and see whether I can ride a mule to war boy this is the mule with no name I've just imported him from Spain so he's still a little new to this country and he's completely unfamiliar to me mule was a very important type of steed if you like in the medieval period good boy a good boy but we don't actually in the West anyway in particular in Europe there are not many riding mules around we see incredibly high status people riding mules in some of the resource material that we've got and the mules are covered in gilded bridles and gold tack so they were not necessarily low status creatures come on then walk on good boy good boy good boy hey what's this so they were definitely not low status creatures the reason I bought him and I've got to think of a good name for him is that I wanted to experiment with riding an animal that was not a horse obviously I've spent all my life riding ponies and then horses and horses are very familiar to me and they have lots of challenges and everyone is an individual I've never actually ridden a mule before certainly never trained a mule before and I thought it was interesting to try one of the things I've noticed straight away is that I've probably got the bit wrong he seems to like this bit and this is a training bit this is the sort of bit I would put on a young horse it has little keys in which tickle the tongue and make the creature mouth the bit so this is an attempt to get him to accept the bit more and obviously the head geometry is quite different this bridle was originally set up for a horse and went on him fairly easily but the width across here that is typical of a donkey or a mule is quite different and you could liken said he now good boy you could liken this to the brow ridges of a Neanderthal compared to the smaller brow ridges of a Homo sapiens so it's interesting and obviously huge ears huge expressive ears and a different personality I've I've noticed that interest in handling he's it's a little bit more like handling a wild animal instead of a domesticated animal which is interesting he's quite well trained he's trained to be ridden although he isn't particularly well-trained and a lot of meals just don't get that kind of high-level training that high-level schooling so I'm going to get on him today I've got one of my old war saddles this saddle is a converted Spanish saddle it's basically it's not a medieval saddle it is quite a narrow Spanish saddle and it's been converted with these nice bits of steel on the front in the back to look a bit more like a medieval saddle but it's not built like one it is quite narrow though because what I found is a Mules back is quite straight a horse's back is more dipped in and therefore the saddle sits on it differently a mules back is actually quite straight so I've had to work quite hard with the different types of the different types of padding and the different types of under blanket there and also he's completely untrained for filming so this is going to be interesting for me to train him and also to train him for filming so I've got high hopes and I'm quite excited about trying so got a helmet on though because you never know this is a medieval helmet so that's good training for me but also it's a safety helmet it's very well padded so if I fall off or hurt myself this should protect me quite often on horses I don't wear a safety helmet on him I'm going to some other time until I get more confidence with him right I suppose I shall check the tack and then get on him good boy come on then let's see whether we can use the mounting block any guess that would be nice good boy okay okay good boy oh yeah you play okay well good boy well I have to work on how to keep his nose down he's a he likes having his mouth open that could be to do with the bit so I'll try different bits and the first thing I feel I notice most of all is that there isn't much of an animal in front of me here compared to a horse with a horse you would have a lot more shoulders shoulder girdle especially with the stallion neck and the head would be less obvious so it's a rather sweet I'm good boy trying to be super gentle he's actually very gently mouthed but he has the most enormous ears he has a very thin neck and he has enormous his it's rather sweet because it's rather amazing for anybody that's never ridden the mule he's actually quite sensitive to that's interesting he neck reins as well he's very sensitive to movements he's also interested in what's going on in the world but he's no he doesn't know leg yielding at all good boy but he is listening to me and I feel I ought to sit a little bit further back on him than on a horse I've seen pictures of people riding mules and donkeys much further back and that probably seems to make sense so I might need to get a specifically built saddle for him at some stage but this one seems to be okay I feel quite comfortable on him and it kind of makes me smile because there's something wonderful about a new area of endeavor there's something really exciting about riding a different creature than a horse and there aren't many creatures big enough for us to ride and so a mule is a is on the way to riding a wild animal in some ways it's obviously hard force so it's not not fully a wild animal in any way shape or form and he's behaving incredibly well he does open his mouth a lot and stand good boy he's done very well I'm going to pick up a sword now and try swinging a sword around that's because I feel quite confident on him and I have a suspicion he'll be ok but I will take it very very gently as always and see how he is so let me go and get a sword come on then let's try and get a plastic sword I think a metal one is too much at this stage or a wooden sword good boy good boy yep good boy good boy he's definitely noticed you can see by his ears he's noticed what I've picked up but he's be very good good boy I will make sure and I hold this that I can throw it away from it any time if you're holding on to something and a horse is panicking the best thing to do is get rid of it and then the horse might or in this case mule might calm down come on then come on then good boy so just swinging it actually he's going incredibly well with a young horse I probably wouldn't do this this much but he seems to be taking everything in his stride I have heard that mules are quite well stubborn hard to train so far I would say that that's absolutely not the case I hope to say that he's maybe he's a one in a million but I would say that he's very good he's picked up neck reining very quickly unless he already knew it I don't know whether he does know it and he seems to be ok was swinging a sword yeah there's a little bit of tension when I hit something he's tensing up wondering what it is but that's hardly surprising Wow he's learned very well off pretty good boy come on then I am only going at a walk of course come on you and his bit come on come on good boy the way he holds the bit in his mouth we need to work on I don't like tying my horses mouths or mules mouths yeah together I like them to accept the bit naturally it was a bird good boy I'll go who stay down this end I like them to accept the bit naturally he's beginning to do that I say beginning to this is incredibly quick Wow he doesn't really know me either so he has no reason to trust me particularly but whoa I would say he seems quite okay with a sword good boy come on then come on then come on so in summary I would say feels fantastic he absolutely does feel like he could be used as a wall platform or a fighting platform but he also seems to be listening to me incredibly well with those big ears it's very easy to see where his attention is I think we have to work a little bit on how he carries the bits in his mouth and what I do with it we'll have to see we'll have to see what suits him and obviously I haven't done anything at speed but it has been just exciting and interesting and quite different outside my own personal zone of comfort to ride a creature that isn't a horse that is so different well come on you come on you and to be quite honest I'm presenting from the back of him he's never done that before and we're filming as well so the stuff going on that would freak out quite a lot of horses that are well trained so I would say so far so absolutely brilliant got to think of a name for him though very quickly good boy come on [Music]

Channel: Modern History TV

Views: 611,221

Rating: 4.9165668 out of 5

Keywords: history documentary, jason kingsley, medieval, middle ages, knight, mule, battle, horse training, mule training, lance

Id: h0TvOSu_xLQ

Length: 18min 22sec (1102 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 06 2019