61184 shoes&pattens 1

Pattens

preliminary roughing-out, hang in a rack on the wali behind. (From the Mendel Housebook (Nuremberg), late 15th century).

Medieval shoes can rarely have been My water-proof, and the fiat heels must have madę walking additionally unpleasant in mud or snów. Several types of overshoe were devised to raise the foot further above the ground, and in the 14th and 15th centuries these were variously known as pattens (‘patyns’), clogs (‘clogges’) or galoshes (‘galoches’). The original meanings of these terms are unclear. They do not necessarily correspond to those that have become customary sińce the 17th century, and for convenience ‘patten’ is used here as a generał term to cover three similar, though plainly distinguishable, types of overshoe

124 A patten-maker shaping a wooden sole with an adze. Four draw-knives, probably used for that are well-known finds on archaeological sites both in London and elsewhere (in Amsterdam, for example: Baart et al. 1977, 83-91, Figs. 16-18, 20-22). One type has a wooden ‘platform’ sole raised from the ground on ‘stilts’ or wedges (Figs. 125-7), another has a fiat wooden sole, which was often hinged (Figs. 133, 135-6), and the third has a fiat composite sole madę from several layers of leather (Figs. 139-40).

In comparison with shoes, pattens seem never to have been common in London before the early 15th century (Table 21, p. 132). This, together with the fact that many are elaborately decorated, suggests that in the City, especially during the late 14th century, they were worn chiefly as a useful fashion accessory to protect the feet - and the shoes - of the well-to-do. The early 15th-century groups, on the other hand, which contain large numbers of all-leather composite-soled pattens and a higher proportion of fiat, hinged pattens (Table 21), hint both at a change in fashion and that by this time pattens had come to be worn by the population in generał. This impression is con-firmed by the morę freąuent depiction of pattens in late medieval illustrations (see below, p. 119), some of which (for example, Bagley 1960, 142) make it elear that they might be worn no longer as true overshoes, but rather over the hose as a fashionable form of open sandał.

Wooden pattens, 12th-15th centuries

(Figs. 125, 132)

The earliest patten fragment in the collection is part of a plain toe strap from Seal House dating from the early 12th century, but the earliest com-plete patten, coincidentally from the same site, belongs to the early 13th century (Fig. 126). It is crudely but solidly constructed, carved from a single błock of alder with a straight-sided sole and a wedge below the bali of the foot. The front has been sawn diagonally to suit a left foot, but this has been done so roughly that it seems morę likely to be a modification carried out during use than an original feature. This is the only patten in the collection to have iron fittings - a reinforcement-