is mode of fastening evidently was also insufficient, and so the
fastening of the shoe by nails was adopted. These iron plates used for
shoes were too thin to allow nails with sunken heads to be used, so
only nails with blades and cubical shaped heads were applicable. These
nail heads, 6 to 8 in number, which left the toe and the back part of
the heel free, served at the same time to secure the horse from
slipping, which the smooth plates, covering the whole hoof surface,
without doubt facilitated.

[Illustration: FIG. 4.]

Shoes of this kind, after the old Roman style, with a very strong rim
bent upward, likely proved very comfortable for the purpose of
protection, in the Sierras of the Pyrenean peninsula, where they seem
to have been in use for a long time; for in the twelfth century we
find in Spain the whole form of the Roman shoe, only fastened by nails
(Figs. 4 and 5). At first the shoe seems to have been cut off at the
heel end, but as apparently after being on for some time, bruises were
noticed, the shoe was made longer at the heel, and this part was
turned up so as to prevent them from becoming loose too soon, as both
the Spanish horseshoes of this period show, and the acquisition was
even later transferred to England (Fig. 7).

[Illustration: FIG. 5.]

The shoe containing a groove (Fig. 6), which we shall see later, made
its appearance in Germany in the fifteenth century. From this time,
according to our present knowledge, ceases the period of the Roman
horseshoe. Its influence, however, lasted a great deal longer, and has
even remained until our present day.

[Illustration: FIG. 6.]

Its successor became partly the Arabo-Turkomanic and partly the
Southwest European horseshoe.

For the descendants of the Numidian light cavalry, the Roman and old
Spanish horseshoe was evidently too heavy for their sandy, roadless
deserts, so they made it thinner and omitted the bent-up rim, because
it prevented the quick movement of the horse. For the protection of
the nail heads the outer margin of the shoe was staved, so as to form
a small rim on the outer surface of the shoe, thus preventing the nail
heads from being worn and the shoe lost too soon.

[Illustration: FIG. 7.]

[Illustration: FIG. 8.]

[Illustration: FIG. 9.]

A horseshoe of that kind is shown by Fig. 8, which was used in North
Africa in the twelfth century, and became the model for all forms of
horseshoes of the Mahometan tribes. Even now quite