shoes&pattens1

Shoemaking and cobbling plan, cut and stitch items of footwear with large deliberate (as opposed to random) inserts to take either toggles or ‘buttonholes’ (Figs. 91-2). The main side seam remained a butt seam, but the insert was anchored in place with binding-stitch. A further innovation was the attachment of what seems to have been a reinforcement cord to strengthen the edges. This is marked by a broad, deep channel straddled by tunnel-stitches, and a shoe from ‘Baynards Castle’, on which the thread survives partially intact, supports the reconstruction proposed in Fig. 81. On toggle-fastened shoes a thick thread or cord of this type was often stitched just inside the outer edge of the ‘buttonholes’ and down along the V-shaped cut at the instep, which presumably allowed morę flexibility as the shoe was being put on (Fig. 92). It was only in the mid to late 14th century that the one-piece cutting pattem was abandoned in favour of a two-piece shoe, consisting of a vamp and separate quarters. These had two main low-cut butt seams on either side of the foot with the vulnerable latchet or buckie straps held in place with a butt seam and reinforcment cord (Figs. 102-4).

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81 Shallow binding-stitch used to anchor reinforcement cords. Occurs particularly on mid to late 14th-century low-cut shoes, along the vamp throat, on the fastening straps and along the upper edges of the quarters.

82 Shoe or ankle-shoe (early/mid 12th-century). A row of tunnel-stitches inset from the edge, rather than edge/flesh stitches along the edge itself, was used to join the sole to the upper. The upper was probably madę entirely in one piece, although binding-stitch marks the position of a flap, insert or top-band at the vamp throat. The main seam (butt-stitched) is on the inner side. Slots, no doubt once on both sides, will have held a thong - or pair of interwoven thongs - which were both decorative and a means of shaping