Polled cattle in the Roman Netherlands

Most cattle in the Netherlands have been deliberately dehorned, which some people consider to be a cruel practice. But the breeding of genetically hornless (or polled) cattle is also regarded as unnatural and cruel to animals. Nevertheless, this is a practice which, like elsewhere in Europe, was also common here in the past. Unlike elsewhere in Europe, in the Netherlands polledness, a dominant trait, occurred mainly in the Roman period and disappeared again in the Middle Ages. Polled cattle were particularly common in the coastal area beyond the borders of the Roman Empire, where up to 40% of animals were hornless. By contrast, to the south of the border, polled cattle were rare. No polled animals have so far been found in Nijmegen, at the time the country's most important military and civilian centre. The question is why this is the case, and why polled cattle subsequently disappeared from the Netherlands.There is little evidence to explain the presence of polled cattle on one side of the Roman border, their near absence on the other, and their total disappearance after the Roman period on the basis of natural selection. Nor do functional considerations – superiority as a source of food or supplier of tractive power – provide us with any conclusive answers. The most likely explanation is that it was mainly emotional and aesthetic considerations that led farmers and other users of cattle to decide what a ‘good’ cow was, and that was a cow with horns. The fact that polled cattle occurred in the coastal area during the Roman period may be associated with a different ideal, and possibly also with a lack of economic power that prevented farmers from being selective. After the Roman period, the desire for ‘good’ horned cattle will have caused the disappearance of the dominant polled cattle. A growing demand for horn as a raw material for the manufacture of objects might also have played a role. These factors should probably be viewed in the context of an influx of other breeds brought by new population groups that ‘drove out’ the old cattle populations. The current debate in the Netherlands as to the desirability of breeding polled cattle would appear to be nothing new, having already exercised the minds of farmers centuries ago.