shoes&pattens3

113

Shoes in art and literaturę

Put on your clothes dear children Draw on your braies, shoes, gloves . . .

(quoted in Cunnington & Buck 1965, 14)

Thus, the first inference is that everyone wore

shoes of some kind for some period of their lives.

What type of shoes exactly remains to be seen.

Pictorial and literary parallels

Most of the 12th-century manuscńpts vtv En&land which contam e\ndei\ce of contemporary shoe fashions show figures wearing shoes cut high at the ankle, pointed but essentially shaped to the foot. Shoes with outwardly-curving points of exaggerated length, such as the two from London (Figs. 5-6), can be seen on several manuscripts decorated at the abbey of Citeaux in Burgundy in the early 12th century (Harris 1987), and are described in contemporary writings. William of Malmesbury (lib. iv; ed. Stubbs 1889, 369) claimed that they were introduced in the reign of Rufus, whilst Orderic Vitalis called them ‘scor-pions’ tails’ and contemptuously traced their origin to Count Fulk of Anjou, who had them madę to disguise his deformed feet and bunions! Later, he says, one of Rufus’s courtiers stuffed the toes of his shoes and bent them into the shape of a ram’s horn (Eccl. Hist. lib. viii; Chibnall 1973, vol. iv, 136-9).

Illustrations sometimes show loose, Iow boots, high at the back of the ankle with diagonal lines that indicate the leather sagging about the foot. These may represent boots of soft leather, or they may be intended as buskins - Iow stockings of linen or silk, tied at the knee with a ribbon. It is most likely that buskins are indicated on the brasses and illustrations featuring members of ecclesiastical orders. Several such buskins do survive, including those of Archbishop Hubert Walter of Canterbury (d. 1205). These are of silk compound twill, with foliate crosses, eagles and stars embroidered in silver-gilt thread, and with tablet-woven ribbons at the top for fastening (King in Zarnecki et al. 1984, 358, No. 493a).

The most common form of decoration is the vamp stripe, sometimes on the feet of all the figures in a picture, but morę usually on the shoes of a saint or king, presumably as an indication of status. The Virgin Mary also wears shoes with this decoration, from which we maydnfer that this was appropriate for women of high standing (Fig.

151 Shoes with a vamp stripe, as worn by the Yirgin Mary.

151). Other decoration also occurs, such as over-all dots. A mid 12th-century painting of John the Baptist in the chapel of St. Gabriel at Canterbury Cathedral shows all the attendant figures wearing shoes cut high at the ankle with a row of contrast-ing dots along the centre of the vamp, around the throat and as clusters of three on the quarters (Tristram 1944, PI. 14). It is worth noting that by the early 13th century, vamp stripes have virtually disappeared on the shoes in the collection (see above, p. 12), whereas they continued to be an occasional feature on ecclesiastical brasses until the late 14th century. Fig. 152 shows the shoes of Robert de Waldeby, Archbishop of York (d. 1397), from his brass in Westminster Abbey: here, a wide stripe is indicated down the centre of the vamp.

152 Detail from the brass of Robert de Waldeby, Archbishop of York (d. 1397), in Westminster Abbey, showing a shoe or buskin with vamp stripe.

Very occasionally during the late 12th century, individuals are depicted wearing shoes that have an open area over the foot and are closed by buttons at the ankle. King Josiah, on a windo w at Canterbury Cathedral dated to c.1200, is shown