shoes&pattens 9

99

Pattens

used extensively by medieval craftsmen, is hard and easily worked, but perishable. Yet, rather than any of these, it is tempting to suppose that the present items are of aspen, populus łremula. In modem France it has been used for sabots, but in medieval England it was specificaUy prohibited as a materiał for patten-making by a well-known law of 1416 (4 Hen v c.3). The purpose of this statute seems to have been to preserve the wood for making arrows and to keep the price of arrows down, sińce half the hundred-shilling fine levied on those who failed to observe it was to be paid to the Fletchers. Nearly fifty years later, in 1464-5, after strenuous representations by the patten-makers, who claimed that ‘Asp timber be the best and lightest Timber, thereof to make Pattens and Clogs’, it was enacted that pattens could

137 Leather patten-straps (late 14th-century). a: stamped decoration (the enlarged detail shows the form of the stamp used), b-f\ stitched decoration (for the possible form of the stitch, see Fig. 138). Scalę 1:3.

henceforth be madę of ‘such Timber of Asp, that is not apt, sufficient, nor convenient to be madę into (arrowshafts)’ (4 Edw w c.9).

The leather straps were madę from stout cattle-hide and on many late 14th-century pattens were of double thickness (Figs. 128-9). The two pieces were stitched together along the sides, with the flesh faces together and, sometimes, a thin leather edging to give a less ragged appearance. In the 12th and 13th centuries, and again in the early 15th, the straps were plain, but the broad bands of the late 14th century provided an ideał opportunity for embellishment. Nearly all carry some decoration, however slight. One (Fig. 128) has a narrow vertical stripe, once painted in brilliant red. The pigment used was yermillion (identified by S. Duncan, British Museum), which was well known to medieval artists and could either be madę arti-ficially or could be obtained from cinnabar, the Principal ore of the metal mercury. Others have stamped ornament, two of them, from Billingsgate (Fig. 127) and ‘Baynards Castle’ (not illustrated),

f