Sir Thomas Blundeville's The Art of Ryding

Blundeville decided to adapt, rather than simply translate, Grisone’s text because he found the writing style full of ‘doubtful phrases, and manners of speaking’ (A Newe Booke containing the Arte of Ryding and Breaking Greate Horses, London: Willyam Seres, 1560, unnumbered page). The Arte of Ryding was published in 1560 and followed in 1565 by a revised and expanded version, The Fower Chiefyst Offices Belongyng to Horsemanship, which had run to six editions by 1609.

Translation as a Fashion

When Blundeville introduced his English text, Grisone’s 1550 original was very new and riding as an art still in its infancy. At the time, adopting another author’s ideas was not seen as plagiarism but rather as a compliment that added credibility to the new material. The number of derivative texts which followed suggests that Blundeville started something of a trend.

Pupils and Followers

Claudio Corte, a pupil of Grisone, wrote his manual Il Cavallerizzo in 1562, and Thomas Bedingfield translated it as The Art of Riding in 1584. John Astley’s manual of 1584, also called The Art of Riding, contained tributes in the title to ‘Xenophon and Gryson, verie expert and excellent Horsemen’ and included ‘the true use of the hand by the said Grysons rules’, although he argues against Grisone’s level of violence (London: 1584, title page). Christopher Clifford’s The Schoole of Horsemanship, appeared in 1585 followed in 1593 by Gervase Markham’s A Discourse on Horsemanshippe, which also both commends and criticizes Grisone, recommending training ‘to bee done with all the gentleness and quiet means that may be’(London, 1593, sig. B2v-B3).

A New Century

New manuals of the seventeenth century were Michel Baret’s Hipponomie or The Vineyard of Horsemanship in 1618 and Nicholas Morgan’s The Perfection of Horsemanship of 1609, re-issued in 1620 as The Horseman’s Honour. From Blundeville onwards, all these English texts derived from Grisone’s method and it is evident that there was no significant English horsemaster to compete. Further translations and derivative texts flourished between 1560 and 1593 in England and were still being reissued in the 1620s, even as they became outdated by the new approaches of the French horsemaster, Antoine de Pluvinel.

English Horsemanship

The standard of English riding concerned many enthusiasts of the new art over a long period of time. Addressing his reader, Blundeville says the English horse is ‘so evel broke, as when he is spurred to go forward, he wil go backward’. Therefore, ‘For redresse of which faultes both in man and beast this booke is chieflye set foorth’. In bringing the work of Grisone to the English-speaking rider, he offered a practical approach so that ‘not only by reading, but also by exercise of ridinge, I doubt not but by your spedye profiting therein’(Blundeville, sig. A.iii)

The Riding House Versus the Race Track

Despite the enthusiastic response to Blundeville’s book, in 1639 Thomas de Grey, author of The Compleat Horseman, was expressing concern at ‘the neglect of the Horse of the Menage, since the applying of our Breed only to Racing’. He believed that ‘furnishing ourselves with Horses of speed’ could only undermine English courage and give the impression of running away (London, 1639, sig. b21v). As interest in the riding house waned in favor of the race track, de Grey was not the only author to express dismay. To those who loved the art of the riding house, a decline of interest seemed to reveal a lack of manly spirit that did not bode well for England.

A Long Influence

However, despite these concerns, through Sir Thomas Blundeville and those who followed his lead, English horsemanship manuals remained strongly influenced by Grisone for over a century. There would be no significant competition until the publication of the first and only seminal text by an English horsemaster, William Cavendish, Marquis and later Duke of Newcastle, in 1658.

Availability of Blundeville’s Manual

Sir Thomas Blundeville’s manual is classed among rare books today and not readily available. However, it may be read in facsimile through Early English Books Online, a subscription service available through many of the main University libraries worldwide.

The nobleman on horseback - a long tradition

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