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Horse-adjacent question
Does anyone know where I could find information on nefarious activities associated with horses (and potentially other livestock) that's about its practice in historical Europe? I can find a lot of info on modern horse-theft, and some amount (though surprisingly not as much as I expected) on 19th century American horse stealing, but pretty much nothing from Europe or pre-19th century.
Context: some time ago I ran into The Vory: Russia's Super Mafia (Amazon affiliate link, because why the hell not) and part of the first chapter (which places Russian banditry and organized crime in a historical context) is about the origins of villages of horse thieves--essentially a bandit gang would take over a village and establish networks to aid them in avoiding the police and, more importantly, the peasants they preyed on, who were wont to take justice into their own hands since there wasn't much justice coming from higher up.
That sparked a character in my head, for the world in which Deadfall and Deadwater are placed, but I rather need ideas on how one steals horses and livestock in the pre-modern world. I've got a couple of English-language resources from the bibliography of the The Vory, but they're more interested in the crime-and-punishment aspect (and technically are from the 19th and early 20th centuries, not that rural Russia is that different from the early modern world at that time) than in the technical details of horse thieving. :D
I've also got resources on Scottish border reivers and their cattle raids, which is a bit more important for a different character, but honestly, all sorts of info on livestock theft and the like is useful.
I grant you: in the long run, these are probably all the sources I really need, but I've got that MUST GATHER ALL INFORMATION POSSIBLE gene that insists I hoard as much information as I possibly can like some sort of great library dragon.
Context: some time ago I ran into The Vory: Russia's Super Mafia (Amazon affiliate link, because why the hell not) and part of the first chapter (which places Russian banditry and organized crime in a historical context) is about the origins of villages of horse thieves--essentially a bandit gang would take over a village and establish networks to aid them in avoiding the police and, more importantly, the peasants they preyed on, who were wont to take justice into their own hands since there wasn't much justice coming from higher up.
That sparked a character in my head, for the world in which Deadfall and Deadwater are placed, but I rather need ideas on how one steals horses and livestock in the pre-modern world. I've got a couple of English-language resources from the bibliography of the The Vory, but they're more interested in the crime-and-punishment aspect (and technically are from the 19th and early 20th centuries, not that rural Russia is that different from the early modern world at that time) than in the technical details of horse thieving. :D
I've also got resources on Scottish border reivers and their cattle raids, which is a bit more important for a different character, but honestly, all sorts of info on livestock theft and the like is useful.
I grant you: in the long run, these are probably all the sources I really need, but I've got that MUST GATHER ALL INFORMATION POSSIBLE gene that insists I hoard as much information as I possibly can like some sort of great library dragon.
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