Horse Collar

The padded loop that lets a horse throw its shoulders into a load instead of choking against a strap. Invented in China in the early medieval period, with its earliest depiction dated 477 to 499 AD, and established in Europe by about 1000, it roughly tripled what a harnessed horse could pull, from about half a ton under the old throat-girth harness to about a ton and a half. That difference put the faster horse in front of the plough across medieval Europe, one of the quiet mechanical hinges of agricultural history. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/