Medieval bestiaries are mini-encyclopedias of animals and other living beings, some real and some imaginary (or we think them imaginary, because a unicorn or a dragon could have been as real to medieval audiences as rhinos and crocs).
This is a precis from the entry on the horse, summarised from the medieval bestiaries, which go all the way back to the antique authors, including Plutarch:
Horses are lively and high-spirited. They are happy in fields, can smell war, are provoked to race by a voice, are called to battle by the sound of the trumpet, grieve when defeated and exult when victorious. Some horses can recognize an enemy in battle and attack by biting. Some recognize only their masters and will allow no other to ride them. Only the horse weeps and grieves for its dead or dying master. Mares are sometimes impregnated by the west wind. There are three kinds of horses: noble, good for battle and work; common, good for carrying burdens but not for riding; and hybrids, born from a mixture of two kinds.
If you want to read more on this from medieval bestiaries, you can take a look at this website: https://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast212.htm.
Now, for a long time, scholars tended to dismiss this bestiaries as fanciful, or at least some information in them as fanciful. Thus, the statement about horses weeping for their masters. However, I believe there’s more to it than the over-active imagination of an untravelled ecclesiatic.
Recent studies confirm that horses have emotional attachments to their conspecifics.
My own elderly blind mare Kalla has formed an attachment to a lame gelding of her age. Every time she is in season, she is ready to literally leap into his lap.

But a horse can easily become part of a human herd, and vice versa.
The story of Bucephalus, who has been “tamed” by Alexander of Macedonia, may originate in antiquity, but it was popular in the Middle Ages throughout Europe and Byzantium. Some of the versions state that Bucephalus wept when the poisoned Alexander died, but immediately stopped weeping and was ready to attack the poisoner, one of Alexander’s servants, when the latter entered the room.
“Bukephalos rushed into their midst and, stopping near Alexander, began to bathe the bed in tears. A loud noise arouse among the Persians and the Macedonians alike, about the horse shedding tears.” / “ὁ δὲ Βουκέφαλος ἵππος μέσον πάντων δρομαῖος εἰσῆλθε καὶ πλησίον Ἂλεξάνδρου ἐπιστὰς ἤρξατο τοῖς δάκρυσιν καταλούειν τὴν κλίνην. κοπετὸς δὲ γέγονεν μέγας Περσῶν ὁμοῦ καὶ Μακεδόνων ἐπὶ τῇ τοῦ ἵππου δακρυρροίᾳ.“ F. Parthe (ed.), Der Griechische Alexanderroman. Rezension Γ. Buch III, Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie 33 (Meisenheim am Glan, 1969), 32, 442, 10–14.
This is from an Greek anonymous text, which was revised through the Middle Byzantine period continuously, the earliest versions going back to the 4-6th century. The quotation comes from an 11th-century recension.
A weeping horse must have come as a surprise to the onlookers, judging by their reaction. But affective response in a horse, just as in another intelligent domestic animal, is not a far-fetched or uncommon occurrence.
I suggest we read medieval “scientific” and “popular” literature more attentively, rather than dismiss something we don’t understand in it out of hand. There may be more to it than may appear at first glance.
And Bucephalus started off as a “wild” horse, too. Now, judging by my own experience with Basja, a wild horse may be worth a dozen farm-raised horses, in terms of faithfulness and affection.
Basja (left, a formerly feral konik) and Kalla (right, a Latvian Warmblood).
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