shoes&pattens3

83

Shoemaking and cobbling

117 Openwork decoration. a, b: Vamps of buckle-or latchet-fastened shoes (late 14th-century). Scalę 1:3.

The fragility of such work is attested by the sur-vival of this vamp in several pieces with some of the leather tom between one opening and the next.

Incised and engraved

Fig. 119a, datable to the late 14th-century, is covered with shallowly-incised, closely-spaced lattice-work. The panels of incised decoration are separated by plain strips edged by narrow lines where the leather surface has been scraped back to provide a contrasting felted (suede-like) effect. The same treatment has been given to the outline of the design just inside the lasting-margin.

There are several points of interest to be noted about this modę of decoration. The first is the use of shallow incision with a sharp instrument, as opposed to the engraved decoration (with a blunt instrument) which was so popular on other forms of leatherwork (Cowgill, de Neergaard & Griffiths 1987, 40 and 43). The incised work which has been recorded on leather scabbards of the same period is fairly crude in relation to the work on this shoe, although it will be noted that the lines used, except the edging, are all straight, sińce curved lines were difficult to incise with any degree of precision and accuracy. The leather used for shoe uppers is much thinner than that used for scabbards, and thus required a greater degree of precision to avoid cutting through the entire thickness. However, shoes in the present collection which are decorated in this way all datę to the late 14th century, the time when incised decoration was most popular (Russell 1939, 139).

The second point of interest is the scraping back of the grain side of the leather to create a different surface effect. The same effect has been noted on scabbards from ‘Baynards Castle’ of a slightly earlier datę - i.e. mid, as opposed to late, 14th-century (Cowgill, de Neergaard & Griffiths 1987, 41) - but it was not possible in those instances to determine whether the tonal difference was in fact the result of scraping back the surface, or of im-pressing a hot implement briefly on the leather. It is possible on this shoe actually to see the knife marks where the leather has been pared away (Fig. 119a detail). It seems likely that the areas to be decorated were marked out with a shallow incision, prior to the deeper incision of the lattice. After this, the wider edging strips were cut back