54321 shoes&pattens5

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Shoes from London sites, 1100-1450

Table 5. Shoes (all sizes) from ‘Baynards Castle’, early/mid 14th century.

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	Type 1	Type 2	Uncertain type	Buckie	Latchet	Buckie or latchet	Side- laced	Front- laced	Not known	Total
Shoe	11	_	—	1	1	1	1	2	3	20
Ankle-shoe	—	1	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	1
Boot	—	—	—	—	—	—	6	—	1	7
Not known	1	—	1	—	1	—	3	—	7	13
Total	12	1	1	1	2	1	10	2	11	41

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the late 13th and early 14th centuries was the ankle-shoe or boot fastened with a drawstring. Examples of this datę are very similar in appear-ance and construction to those madę in the early 13th century (cf Figs. 20-23), but it seems that now they were mainly wom by very smali child-ren, for whom perhaps toggles were considered as yet unmanageable. The only ankle-shoe of this type from Billingsgate measures no morę than c. 120 mm, and three of those from Ludgate (Table 4) are of similar dimensions. The Ludgate group, however, also contains several ąuite large adult boots or ankle-shoes with drawstring fas-tenings; it is possible that these were very old when they were lost or, altematively and morę plausibly, that sińce the site lies in the extreme west of the City, far removed from Swan Lane and Billingsgate in the south-east, the incidence of different styles varied slightly from one place to another, in accordance with the demands and occupations of the local inhabitants.

The mid 14th century (Fig. 35)

This period is poorly represented by finds from London. There is only one large group, from ‘Baynards Castle’, but fortunately it is exception-ally well preserved (41 individually registered shoes). The other groups are smaller and morę scrappy, though sińce they come from three ąuite widely separated sites can be expected to provide useful evidence to confirm the main trends. One is from Trig Lane (6 registered shoes), the second is from Dowgate (9 registered shoes) and the third is from Custom House (4 registered shoes).

The ‘Baynards Castle’ assemblage is of especial interest, because it shows a further stage in the development of the trends first distinguished in the late 13th century - in particular, the elear polarisation between, on the one hand, below-the-ankle shoes, which account for about half the total, and, on the other, fuli boots rising to nearly mid-calf height, which account for a fifth (see Table 5). Low boots terminating just above the ankle, so common in the early 13th century, are hardly present at all. Both boots and shoes seem to have been madę in a similar rangę of sizes - the six shoes with complete soles vary from 180 to 245 mm in length, and the four complete boots from 172 to 240 mm - and this could suggest that they were wom eąually by men and women, but that they had rather different functions. Boots of this height would be suitable for work and outdoor occupations, whereas the shoes might be morę appropriate for indoor use.

It is elear that by this datę styles and construc-tional methods had become further standardised -again in continuation of a late 13th-century trend -and that individual examples show much less varia-tion than their 12th- and early 13th-century pre-decessors. Nearly all the shoes were fastened with toggles and the boots were all laced at the side. Boots with toggle fastenings of the type which was popular in the late 13th century seem to have been wom no longer, except by very smali children (cf. Fig. 38), and drawstrings seem to have disappeared completely.

These inferences from the ‘Baynards Castle’ assemblage are broadly confirmed by the groups from the other three sites, although the distinction