What was the lowest class that could have reasonably attained a horse in Anglo-Saxon England? For example, could a Ceorl have attained a pack horse? Would it be reasonable for a Craftsman to have owned a riding horse? Broad or specific answers are both greatly appreciated.
If possible, any comparisons to Norman culture would also be appreciated, but not expected.
I've been trying to come up with a definitive answer for this but it's a tricky one. It's muddled by the complexities of Anglo-Saxon society and the use and value of horses in that society.
Anglo-Saxon society is fairly stratified, but there are many levels and not all ceorls are necessarily equal. Æthelberht of Kent's law code of 597 identifies the free, the 'semi-free' and slaves, and by the time of Domesday post-Conquest, Domesday records a social heirarchy from slaves to freedmen, cottagers, smallholders, villagers and freemen. The waters get muddied somewhat further by urban classes such as burghers. Wealth within these classes can be assumed to increase and decrease as we move along the heirarchy, but being a 'villain', or 'semi-free' does not preclude you from owning your own property or necessarily accruing wealth.
Horses are interesting because they largely appear peripherally in the Anglo-Saxon world. Warhorses don't appear to have played the central role in either battle or society that they played post-Conquest. Horses were ridden to battle but not necessarily in battle. Instead, they seem to have been used for transport and entertainment: Old English has many different specifying terms for carthorses, packhorses, riding horses, 'noble' horses and racing horses. There is no term for draughthorses because ploughing was done by ox teams. We know from toponymic evidence that horse farming did exist, and charter evidence that horse racing may have been reasonably popular in some areas. The archaeological evidence from the Portable Antiquities Scheme suggests that horse trappings - strapping buckles, stirrups, bridle mounts, etc. - are relatively common finds.
The best answer I can really give you, then, is that a ceorl or freeman could very well have owned a horse, and there was nothing conclusively stopping a villager or maybe even a smallholder from owning one, but they would have been cart or packhorses, most likely used for taking goods to and from market. The bigger, faster riding horses are likely to have been the preserve of the elites.