shoes&pattens9

79

Shoemaking and cobbling

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112 Embroidered decoration. a: Detail of vamp seam on a late llth/early 12th-century ankle-shoe. The left edge overlapped the right and was sewn down the centre with a running-stitch. The edge of the leather was skived to make the seam lie smooth. Grain side. b: The same vamp seam seen from the flesh side. Five tunnel-stitches reinforced the start of the seam. c: Detail of vamp stripe, marked by four lines of incisions, on a lOth- or llth-century round-toed shoe. d: Detail of vamp stripe, marked by two lines of incisions, on a late llth/early 12th-century ankle-shoe. The large size of the stitch impressions may be contrasted with (g). e-g: Vamp stripes composed of two, four and six lines of stitch-holes on 12th-century ankle-shoes. The position of the single stripe was lightly scored before being sewn. Scalę 2:1.

114); another, from Swan Lane, has red and white stripes. A comparative group of 12th-century shoes from Bergen, Norway has a number of morę elaborately-embroidered shoes and these show that different blocks of colour were some-times present along a single stripe (Inger R. Pedersen and Ame Larsen, pers. comm.). The repertoire of stitches also embraced cross-stitch and satin-stitch. Thus the fuli rangę of pattems on the London shoes can only be conjectured in view of the decay of most of the embroidery thread.

The techniąue of plait-stitch falls into a category of embroidery known as canvas work, sometimes called opus pulvinańum in the 13th century be-cause it was a popular means of decorating cushions (Christie 1938, 83). A cushion from the grave of archbishop Walter de Gray (d. 1255), who was a regent of England during the minority of Henry III, was couched in gold thread on a ground worked in plait-stitch and cross-stitch (King 1971,129), while the pattem of the cushion from the spectacular tomb of Fernando de la Cerda (d. 1275), in the mausoleum of the Castilian royal family at the convent of Las Huelgas in Burgos, was worked entirely in plait-stitch (Gómez-Moreno 1946, 86, Pis. cxxiii-cxxiv). The stole of archbishop Hubert Walter is an earlier embroidery in plait-stitch but like the de Gray cushion it is in a fragmentary condition sińce the ‘canvas’-like materiał used for the foundation has rotted away beneath the embroidery stitches (Christie 1938, 59, Cat. No. 18). The London shoes madę from leather, a morę resilient materiał

113 Plait-stitch, the stitch normally used for embroidering shoes.

than canvas, thus enable a gap to be filled in the historical record of this form of embroidery, indi-cating that it was flourishing on a considerable scalę in the 12th century as well as in succeeding years. The wide extent of the practice can per-haps be gauged by the fact that similar embroidered shoes, albeit mainly lacking in any sewing thread, have been excavated in England in Durham, York, Lincoln, Coventry, (Mord, Worcester, Gloucester and Winchester.

Openwork

After embroidered vamp stripes, this is the most common form of decoration on the shoes in the collection. Ali the uppers with this sort of decoration may be seen in Figs. 115-117. The decoration seems to have been effected after the shoe pieces had been cut out and before the shoe was stitched together. The work seems to have been done freehand, without the assistance of guide-lines but possibly with some sort of cutting pattem. Although sometimes the designs could be combined with great skill and effect, mostly the stamps were impressed in straight lines, carefully spaced to minimise the possibility of tears be-tween one opening and the next.

The earliest example, Fig. 115a, dates to the first half of the 13th century. Compared with later examples, the work seems very cautious, with a yariety of 4 smali motifs averaging 8 by 2 mm