Pricked Spur (1200s): Art, History and Details

Pricked Spur (1200s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The spur was an essential part of the knight's equipment. Fastened to his heels by means of straps and buckles, it was used to prod a horse into action. This example represents the oldest type recorded, the "pricked" spur, so-called because its neck terminated in a spike. The pricked spur was replaced during the Middle Ages by the "rowel" spur, with a rotating spiked wheel.

Object facts

• Title: Pricked Spur
• Date: 1200s
• Culture: Spain
• Type: Arms and Armor
• Technique: steel
• Dimensions: Overall: 19 x 8.4 cm (7 1/2 x 3 5/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Arms & Armor
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1916.1953

A detail from the museum

Before they were made of metal, the earliest spurs were probably thorns that were attached to the back of the heel.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Catalogue of Arms and Armour. [Boston, Massachusetts]: [Frank Gair Macomber], 1900.
• Gilchrist, Helen Ives. A Catalogue of the Collection of Arms & Armor Presented to the Cleveland Museum of Art by Mr. and Mrs. John Long Severance; 1916-1923. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1924.
• Fliegel, Stephen N. Arms and Armor: The Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland, Ohio]: The Museum, 1998.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.