Horse Brasses, The Crescent Moon

The crescent moon was a very popular horse brass.  It is an emblem with significant meanings.  It was the badge of Byzantium and important to the ancient Hebrews.  It is associated with the moon goddess Isis, Hather or Hera and has enormous importance in the warding off of the evil eye. It also was the emblem of Diana the goddess of hunting.  Diane de Poiters was the mistress of two French Kings, Francis l and his son Henry ll. She lived in the magnificent chateau of Chenonceau on a tributary of the Loire. She became a lady in waiting to Queen Claude the wife of Francis l. Diane de Poitiers married Louis de Brézé, seigneur d’Anet, Count of Maulévrier, and Grand Seneschal of Normandy, Her status in the French court was such that when Henry ll decorated the grand ballroom at Fontainebleau, he put a crescent moon facing both ways in the wall frieze. One way it represented his wife, Catherine de Medici and the other way the crescent moon represented the Goddess of Hunting, Diana his beloved mistress. Catherine of course hated her and when Henry died she banished Diana to Chaumont on the Loire and stately, cold and inelegant chateau compared with the beautiful Chenonceau. 

A lunar crescent was made out of boars tusks to represent the crescent moon and found in Wroxall in Wiltshire, thought to be Roman.  The moon was thought to influence women’s menstral cycle, and so the crescent moon was taken as an emblem of fertility. Sometimes the crescents were turned down and sometimes up. Much the same appears to be the way the horse shoe was set, up or down.