Horse Muzzle

This muzzle is composed of a basket made of several pierced iron panels riveted together, with two kidney-shaped openings at the front for the horse’s nostrils. It hung on the horse’s head by means of a leather headstall.

Each side is decorated with a pierced decoration featuring a deer above vegetal scrolls. The crown, the upper part of the basket, is inscribed with a motto in Latin, VERBUM DOMINI MANNET IN AETTERNUM (the word of God endures forever) and dated 1562. The back of it retains the original lining made of red silk and leather, preventing the horse to be hurt by the rubbing of the object.

This Latin sentence was actually the motto of the Lutheran Reformation. It first appeared in 1522 at the court of Frederick III of Saxony and has then been used on all sorts of objects by Lutheran believers, especially at the Saxon court.


Horse muzzles were used to preventing stallions from biting. Such pieces, however, seem to have above all been used as lavish equestrian ornaments, particularly in fashion in eastern Germany in the second half of the 16th and the early 17th century. This pierced decoration is typical of the work of the spur makers living in the southeast of Germany and Saxony in the 16th and 17th centuries. Despite their name, spur makers not only made spurs, but also small equestrian hardware like bits, stirrups, muzzles, cavessons or curry-combs, sometimes adorned with the same intricate decoration.