shoes&pattens2

Shoes in art and literaturę

The purpose of this finał chapter is to bring to-gether some of the divergent sources of informa-tion about medieval footwear and to compare the picture that they offer with that provided by the archaeological materiał in the present collection. It is also hoped briefly to compare the trends in shoe fashions evident in this country with contem-porary trends on the Continent, by drawing both on the archaeological finds and on illustrative evi-dence. It is not possible to State conclusively that the manuscript evidence indicates one thing or another; only to convey impressions of what has been depicted. The ąuality of execution varies tremendously, as do the conventions used. The problem with assessing the evidence of footwear presented on tomb effigies or monumental brasses is that presumably one would choose to be shown in clothes approximating to, and in some cases surpassing, one’s best. And it is worth noting that some brasses were of Flemish origin and imported, so that they may not represent strictly English fashions.

It seems unlikely that even the poorest people went barefoot, although they may have continued to wear their shoes when the stitching had gone and the soles were worn through (Fig. 150). People occasionally might go barefoot on pilgrim-age as a form of penance, but with the exception of specifically biblical scenes, people depicted in medieval manuscripts are always shod. The 13th-century French poet Guillaume de Lorris, whose work was translated by Chaucer, madę the follow-ing observation about the pride that even the lowliest members of society took in their appearance:

Of shoon and botes, newe and faire,

Loke at the leest thou have a paire;

And that they sitte so fetisly,

That these rude may uttirly Meneyle, sith that they sitte so pleyn,

How they come on or of ageyn.

(The Romaunt of the Rosę, ed. Skeat 1912,

2265-70)

Chaucer himself uses a widower without shoes as

150 Beggar with tattered shoes and hose.

an example of extreme poverty in the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales:

For thogh a widwe hadde noght a sho,

So plesaunt was his ‘In principio

Yet wolde he have a ferthing, er he wente.

(ed. Skeat 1912, 253-5).

The Treatise of Walter de Biblesworth written in the early 14th century exhorts young boys to:

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