In European cultures, women were not supposed to straddle the horse when riding. Riding side saddle was developed as a way of protecting the hymen to aristocratic girls. In addition, straddling the horse as required with a regular saddle was considered unladylike and vulgar.
The first sidesaddle emerged in Europe in the fourteenth century and is generally credited to Anne of Bohemia (1366-1394), the first wife of the English King Richard II. This saddle was a chair-like device which made it difficult for the woman to control the horse and therefore the horse would be led by a male rider on another horse. With regard to the reason for this saddle, Jana Bommersbach, in an article in True West, writes:
“As absurd as this may sound, the sidesaddle took hold in the 14th century to protect the virginity of a teenaged princess traveling across Europe to wed the young King of England.”
In the sixteenth century, a more practical design appeared in which the rider faced forward, hooking her right leg around the pommel of the saddle with a horn to secure the rider’s right knee. This design has been attributed to Catherine de’Medici, an Italian noblewoman. While this design gave women riders more control over the horse, it allowed them to ride at only slow speeds.
A major revolution in sidesaddle design came about in the nineteenth century with the two pommel design. Invented in the 1830s by Jules Pellier, this design added a second lower pommel. With this saddle, women riders had addition freedom of movement which allowed them to ride at a gallop.
While a man riding in a western saddle could control the horse with pressure from the thighs, knees, and heels (very important in herding cattle), a woman riding sidesaddle was total dependent on the reins. In riding sidesaddle, the whip is used in place of the rider’s right leg to cue the horse.
In riding sidesaddle, correct posture is critical to protect the horse from injury and for the safety of the rider. There is concern that if too much weight is placed on one side of this horse, this can cause physical harm to the horse.
While in the twentieth century, women began to ride astride the horse like men, there was some negative reaction to this. One columnist (male, of course) in the Los Angeles Times wrote:
“The woman does not live who can throw her leg over the back of a horse without profaning the grace of femininity; or grasp with her separated knees the shoulders of her mount without violating the laws of good taste; or appear in the cross-saddle with any semblance of dignity, elegance or poise.”
Jana Bommersbach reports:
“By 1900, American women were split on the issue—along geographic lines. Women in the East clung to the sidesaddle as proper and necessary, while Western women saw them as impractical and dangerous. Western women were far more likely to use a horse for farm and ranch labor than their Eastern sisters, who saw the horse as a weekend entertainment.”
Shown below are some women’s sidesaddles which are displayed in museums.
Prosser Historical Museum, Prosser, Washington
Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, Spokane, Washington
This is from a special exhibit, Dressing the Abbey, which featured the English TV series Downton Abbey.
In a comment on this saddle, FarWestGirl posted:
The display shows a fairly modern sidesaddle. Originally they only had the upper support, (for the right leg). The rider sits square on the saddle- facing forward, not sideways- with the right leg over the hook. Later the second, lower hook- called the leaping head- was added for hunting. Once mounted and the legs in position, it’s very difficult to fall off, squeezing the legs together basically locks the rider into the saddle.
A side saddle cannot be mounted without either a mounting block or a leg up, you can’t use the stirrup to step up like a regular saddle.
Since there’s only the left leg to signal the horse with, a long, dressage-type whip was carried on the right side, sometimes with a blunt metal piece called a whip-spur, to improve communication and give cues.
Reprinted here by permission of FarWestGirl.
Presby House Museum, Goldendale, Washington
Fort Dalles Museum, The Dalles, Oregon
According to the museum display:
“Concessions to fashion ensured that the immense riding skirts, as well as special corsets, kept the rider erect, rigid and uncomfortable. Additionally, the sidesaddle was labour intensive. A man could mount alone. Yet it took two men to help one lady get onto her side saddle.”
Fort Steele Heritage Village, British Columbia
Tillamook County Pioneer Museum, Tillamook, Oregon
Stevensville Historical Museum, Stevensville, Montana
More museums
Museums 201/301/401 shows similar exhibits from several museums.
Museums 201: Hand cranked telephones (photo diary)
Museums 201: Telephone Exchanges (photo diary)
Museums 201: Forest fire lookouts (photo diary)
Museums 301: Jails and prisons (photo diary)
Museums 301: Quilts (photo diary)
Museums 301: Radios (photo diary)
Museums 401: Typewriters (photo diary)
Museums 401: Shoes (photo diary)