...]
But though the practice of horse-shoeing is said to have been
introduced to this country at the time of the Conquest, it is
probably of an earlier date; as, according to Dugdale, an old Saxon
tenant in capite of Welbeck in Nottinghamshire, named Gamelbere, held
two carucates of land by the service of shoeing the king's palfrey on
all four feet with the king's nails, as oft as the king should lie at
the neighbouring manor of Mansfield.

Although we hear of the smith mostly in connexion with the
fabrication of instruments of war in the Middle Ages, his importance
was no less recognized in the ordinary affairs of rural and
industrial life. He was, as it were, the rivet that held society
together. Nothing could be done without him. Wherever tools or
implements were wanted for building, for trade, or for husbandry, his
skill was called into requisition. In remote places he was often the
sole mechanic of his district; and, besides being a tool-maker, a
farrier, and agricultural implement maker, he doctored cattle, drew
teeth, practised phlebotomy, and sometimes officiated as parish clerk
and general newsmonger; for the smithy was the very eye and tongue of
the village. Hence Shakespeare's picture of the smith in King John:

"I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news."

The smith's tools were of many sorts; but the chief were his hammer,
pincers, chisel, tongs, and anvil. It is astonishing what a variety
of articles he turned out of his smithy by the help of these rude
implements. In the tooling, chasing, and consummate knowledge of the