Finally, it was medieval Europeans who invented harnesses and reins that permitted large teams of horses or oxen to be lined up in columns of pairs. Previously, teams of horses or oxen were arranged abreast, which severely limits the number of animals that can be employed. For example, to harness fifty-two oxen abreast is inconceivable, but in the eleventh century “ignorant” medieval Europeans used a fifty-two-oxen team, harnessed in a column of twenty-six pairs, to move large pieces of marble during the construction of the soaring cathedral in the French village of Conques.
