shoes&pattens1

41

Shoes from London sites, 1100-1450

Front-laced ankle-shoes and boots seem to have been worn but rarely in the first half of the 15th century (Tables 10-11), and then only by very smali children (cf. Table 12). They were identical in style and construction to the late 14th-century examples discussed above (p. 36 and Fig. 56). Much morę popular, and differing significantly only in respect of the fastening method, was the buckled ankle-shoe (Tables 10-11). As Table 12 shows - although it must be remembered that the total of measurable examples is smali and that as many as three of the adult fragments may be from shoes rather than ankle-shoes - the type has an unusual size distribution, being concentrated in the infant and adult ranges. This suggests that it may have been worn mainly by men and very young children, perhaps because of its essentially practical and sturdy design.

Buckled ankle-shoes were invariably madę by the ‘wrap-around’ method, normally with the main seam on the inner side. Sometimes a single piece of leather was sufficient (Fig. 63), but morę often a smali insert was reąuired to raise the inner side to its fuli height (Figs. 64-5). There was generally

63, 64, 65, 66 Early 15th-century ankle-shoes. Scalę 1:3 approx.

a heel-stiffener but no topband. The tongues rarely survive, but those that do (cf. Fig. 64) seem to have been stitched to one side only of the vamp opening; on the other side was probably a rein-forcement cord. The buckie, which was fbced to a leather thong, and its corresponding strap passed through slots on either side of the vamp opening and were secured inside (see further, p. 75). In the late 14th century buckles had nearly all been of tinned iron, but now they were almost always of lead and morę omamental. Some were decorated with beading at the edge, and ‘spectacle’ buckles madę their first appearance (see below, pp. 75-6 and Fig. 110). Whereas the children’s ankle-shoes seldom had morę than a single buckie, the adult version was often provided with a pair (Fig. 66). An unusual feature of the illustrated example is that it did not have a normal tongue, but instead, to judge by the presence of a butt seam along both edges of the vamp opening (cf. Fig. 106), there was an insert sewn flush to make the shoe entirely enclosed and waterproof; this insert, now missing, was presumably madę of soft flexible leather so that when the wearer had put the shoe on, he could gather it tightly over the instep with the buckles.