Footwear: Shoe, Boot, Slipper, Patten

CHAPTER 9 Footwear: Shoe, Boot, Slipper, Patten Introduction ited c. 625, contained two pairs of shoes. Neither pair was worn by the corpse, which had entirely disappeared, Pre-medieval shoes are a recurrent, if not frequent, ar- but were stored, along with other precious personal and chaeological find from prehistoric ice-bound sites, Iron royal items to travel to the afterlife with their owner.4 Age peat bogs and Roman burials and occupation sites. Among ecclesiastical shoes, there are early examples In contrast, there is very little evidence of footwear from among the relics of St Caesarius of Arles (died 542)5 and the early Middle Ages.1 Most evidence of dress from this those associated with St Germanus (9.8) which are prob- time comes from the graves of corpses buried in their ably seventh-century. clothes, which, when excavated, rarely contain evidence Evidence of footwear is more common from archaeo- of footwear. It is possible that shoes were originally pres- logical excavation of urban sites. Town life was perhaps ent but, in the absence of metal fasteners or nails, they more demanding of shoes than rural life, and the accu- have rotted away completely in the earth; or that the mulation of craft workers in the urban environment sup- corpses were buried without their shoes; or that these ported the manufacture and repair of footwear. Worn people, though respected enough in their communities out or redundant shoes have been preserved in the ac- to be formally interred, did not habitually wear shoes. cumulated rubbish of medieval towns. The waterlogged Late Anglo-Saxon calendars depict agricultural labour- conditions of Anglo-Viking York, medieval London and ers, some doing quite heavy work barefoot. Perhaps this Bryggen, Bergen, Norway, provide examples considered is because they were slaves or very poor peasants – and in the following sections. indeed they work alongside others who wear shoes (see Shoe-making was a specialised task requiring special for example London, BL MS Cotton Tiberius B. v, fol. 4r tools: knives for cutting the basic shapes and the nar- where barefoot men break up the soil and sow seed, but row thongs, awls for piercing holes for stitching, special the man digging with a spade wears shoes); but perhaps needles and lasts for shaping. Nevertheless shoemakers the reason is that mud would damage shoes irreparably, could turn their hands to making various other leather whereas feet could be washed. However, we must always items, with vessels, bags and horse tack making up a sig- be cautious in interpreting art of this period, often based nificant part of their business. The sceowyrhta character on classical models, as evidence of real medieval life. in Ælfric’s Colloquy, a play composed in Latin about AD Shoes begin to appear more regularly as archaeo- 1000 to aid the teaching of Latin to boys in a monastic logical finds in the early Christian era both in secular school, and later glossed in Old English, claims to make and ecclesiastical context. Most examples belong to ‘footwear of various kinds, slippers and shoes, leather wealthy and important people. The woman buried in hose and bottles, reins and harness, flasks and contain- the Cathedral of Saint-Denis, Paris, in the second half ers, spur-leathers and halters, pouches and bags’.6 A of the sixth century, who has been (rightly or wrongly) shoemaker did not prepare the skins. He bought them identified from the inscription on her finger-ring as already tanned (or sometimes as tawed white leather). Arégonde (or Arnegund), wife of King Chlothar I, had In an era when the majority of people walked from footwear that has been reconstructed from fragments as place to place, shoes were worn to protect the feet from slip-on shoes with pointed, decorated toes which would stones, thorns and other sharp things, but also, as in the not look out of place today.2 She wore them over silk stockings, which were held to the leg with cross garters. 4 R. Bruce-Mitford, ed., The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial, Vol. 2 (London: The garters passed under the shoes, securing them to British Museum Publications Ltd for the Trustees of the British the feet, and were finished with silver buckles across the Museum, 1978), 442–3; K. East, ‘The Shoes’ in R. Bruce-Mitford, instep and dangling silver strap ends.3 The magnificent The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial, Vol 3.ii, ed. A. Care-Evans (London: and eclectic Ship Burial at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, depos- British Museum Publications, 1983), 788–812. Buckles associated with the shoes were once thought to have fastened them, but Volken (p. 121) denies that buckles were used to fasten shoes at 1 Marquita Volken, Archaeological Footwear: Development of shoe this date. They were perhaps garter buckles. patterns and styles from Prehistory till the 1600’s ([Zwolle:] SPA 5 Volken, Archaeological Footwear, 119. Uitgevers, 2014), 117–18 identifies a few finds from bogs. 6 Translated by GRO-C from the Latin and Old English texts which 2 Volken, Archaeological Footwear, 119, fig. 156. can be found in G. Garmonsway, ed., Aelfric’s ‘Colloquy’ (revised 3 Volken, Archaeological Footwear, 119–120. ed., Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1978), 34–5, lines 170–4. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��8 | doi ��.��63/978900435��6�_0�� Footwear: Shoe, Boot, Slipper, Patten 349 calendar illustration mentioned above, from rough work, for adding decorative stitching in thread (as opposed to such as heavy digging with a wood-and-metal spade. leather thonging) developed in the eleventh century,9 They were also worn for warmth, over socks, hose and usually with a simple decorative line down the centre foot wraps of various kinds, and they were sometimes of the vamp. It reaches its apogee of extravagance in a insulated with cloth, moss or other material to comfort cross-cultural quotation on a shoe from Bryggen, Bergen, the feet. Medieval shoe soles were relatively thin; ad- Norway (9.4) consisting of a silk-embroidered runic in- ditional protection against the weather was sometimes scription representing a Latin, Virgilian aphorism on needed and this chapter includes various methods ad- Love: thus both those late medieval phenomena which opted: boots, bone skates and pattens. have endured to the present day, namely Romance and Medieval shoes are more sophisticated than the prim- Fashion, had already burst on to the footwear scene itives shoes made by wrapping animal skin round the in twelfth-century Norway! Meanwhile the practical foot and securing it with thongs, and different in both round-toed ankle shoes of the early Middle Ages were manufacturing method and appearance from many giving way to lower shoes with exaggerated toes, first Roman shoes, which can have nailed soles and a strappy, seen in the notorious ‘pulley-shoes’ of the twelfth cen- sandal-like upper. Medieval shoes have a distinct sole tury (9.3) and later in the ‘poulaines’ (or ‘pikes’ or ‘cra- and they are entirely thonged, not nailed. Secular shoes kows’) of the fourteenth (9.5). have an enclosed upper. Ecclesiastical shoes, though Ankle shoes were not the only footwear of the early they are not nailed, evoke the Roman sandal style in Middle Ages. Both low slippers and boots appear in their use of cut-outs. Early medieval shoes did not dis- Anglo-Viking York, for example, but they are less com- tinguish between right and left foot when new, though mon archaeological finds than shoes. The boots featured of course they could become shaped through wearing. here from a female grave at Peiting, Germany (9.7) are All medieval shoes were flat soled. Raised heels, which unusual both for their region and for the gender of their were devised by horse-riding Asian peoples to stop the association. It is necessary to say that any shoe found in foot slipping out of stirrups, probably arose in Persia, urban context cannot be definitely associated with one and did not reach western Europe until the sixteenth sex or the other, except that the largest shoes are prob- century, where they were adopted by the elite of both ably those of men. In many cases, such as the embroi- sexes, probably both to raise themselves up and to show dered shoe from Bergen, it is impossible to know now they did not have to work. Pattens (also called ‘clogs’ whether the owner was male or female. or ‘galoshes’) were, in contrast, entirely practical, since Ecclesiastical shoes have only been associated with they raised both the sole and the heel of the foot for the male corpses. Female religious women were of necessity purpose of lifting the shoe clear of water and mud; so nuns, so wore plain garments. We know nothing about although they were probably first adopted in the twelfth their footwear but it is unlikely to have been highly century by the wealthy who had the more delicate shoes decorated. The shoes of bishops, however, were liturgi- to preserve, they were to move down the social scale, cal garments, designed to demonstrate the public role persisting as a working-class accessory into the nine- of the wearer. teenth century.7 Liturgical shoes10 and stockings are first documented In the earlier medieval period the most popular foot- in the sixth century (by Gregory of Tours) and appear wear style was the ankle-high shoe (which could equally in Italian mosaics of the fifth and sixth centuries. The be described as a low boot), appearing as early as the shoes (called campagi), as depicted in art, are black, seventh century.8 It opened either with a slit down the with closed toes and heels and a decorative tongue; they centre front or a triangular flap which fastened over the are secured by crossed thongs.

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