12th Century Shoes

By Tiffany Brown known in the SCA as Lady Teffania de Tuckerton This article was published in Lochac's Arts and sciences magazine Cockatrice may 2005. If you wish to reproduce this article, email the author: teffania at gmail.com

introduction

This article has a bias towards the shoes worn by women in England, as befits my persona, but I hope this article will illuminate all wishing to make 12th C shoes, as in this time period, most trends in style, form and manufacture are applicable for both men and women of high or low status across all of Europe.

Types of footwear

A broad overview reveals references to a few types of footwear worn by 12th Century men:

Turnshoes

Turnshoes is a term for a type of shoe which is sewn into shape while inside out, and then the seams are turned to the inside of the shoe prior to wearing. This differs from some later and modern shoes where the shoe upper is sewn to the sole from the outside of the shoe. Turnshoes are possibly best thought of as being similar to a soft leather slipper. 12th Century artwork [Zarnecki, Dodwell and other minor souces] shows several styles of shoes that are most likely turnshoes (figure1):
a) Plain – an ordinary turnshoe
b) Vamp decorated boots -a band of decoration across the top of the shoe
c) Pointy toed – shoes are pointier than normal
d) Cut outs – part of the vamp is cut out to reveal the wearer’s hose
e) Combination – common combinations are pointy toed vamp decorated shoes, although other combinations occur
f) Either leather buskins or ankle boots with extra bits of leather extending up the calf.
The vamp decorated style is associated with nobles, and the style with large cut outs with kings. Actual extant shoes suggest that the vamp decorated style was being worn by a much larger slice of the population.[Grew & Neergaard, 1988, p113]. Loose boots are generally shown as being worn by soldiers or male farm workers. Unfortunately no extant boots of this style have been identified yet (or at least not widely published). Pritchard suggests that this is because the large amount of leather from the leg of such boots was a nice rectangular piece that could be easily reused.[Grew & Neergaard, 1988, p50]
Despite the wide variety of shoes described above, in artwork women are only shown in plain turnshoes, at most decorated by a vamp stripe or pointy toe. Insufficient numbers of 12th century shoes have been excavated and studied for researchers to statistically draw conclusions about the wearers, but many extant examples of plain and vamp decorated turnshoes fall within the statistical region that corresponds to the expected size of 12th century women’s feet [Grew & Neergaard, 1988, p106]. This suggests many were worn by women, but we must be careful – any one example could belong to a small man or large boy. Artworks unfortunately often show little more than the vamp of the shoe beneath the skirts of women. We can certainly draw some inferences about decoration of these styles – decoration styles seem to not differ noticeably from those worn by men in artworks, and vamp decoration is in many cases associated with higher social standing. Where no decoration is shown on the shoe, the cut of the shoe remains the same at the base. Unfortunately we cannot tell how high the average women’s shoe/ankle boot was from the artwork as this is concealed. We must assume that this is similar to men’s shoes – a dangerous assumption.

Pattern pieces

The pattern for these shoes is in some ways fairly simple, in others quite evolved. It consists of two major pieces – the sole and the upper (Figure 2), which are sewn together to form the major parts of the shoe. Other minor pieces may be added to adapt the fit of the shoe.

sole

In the 11th century most soles were cut as in figure 3a – the sole was a roughly shaped ovoid, rather than cut to imitate the foot, and in some cases the sole at the back of the foot extended up onto the back of the heel. One of the innovations of the early 12th century was the abandonment of this v-back sole.[Pritchard, 1991, p230] It was replaced by soles which ranged from simple ovoid (3b) to more foot shaped soles (3c), a fashion which grew more popular as the century progressed. Another fashion of the 12th century was a trend toward shoes with slightly pointed tips (3d).[Grew & Neergaard, 1988, p11] Despite myths promulgated by some 19th century costume books, these do not seem to have gotten particularly long, and are quite modest compared to 14th century poulaines.

Heel stiffener

The loss of the v-back sole made cutting of uppers simpler as no notches had to be cut to accommodate the “v”, but the “v” had also served to stiffen the shoe at the heel. The solution developed was the inclusion of “heel stiffeners” (figure 4)– small pieces of leather sewn to the heel to reinforce it. 12th century heel stiffeners of triangular and semi circular shape have been found.[Grew & Neergaard, 1988, p48]

Upper

By the 12th Century skilled patterns had been developed for uppers consisting of one major piece. (Figure 5) These made good use of the leather (little wastage), and placed a single seam at the inside of the arch of the foot, allowing a better fitting. A minimum of sewing was required to turn this upper into a boot – the side seam was sewn, and the upper sewn to the sole. The upper didn’t always give a neat fit around the throat of he shoe, but no particular concern seems to be given to this, instead additional small wedges of leather (“inserts”) were sewn on to make up the throat evenly.[Grew & Neergaard, 1988, p50]

Drawstring

Many ankle shoes of the taller kind were tightened by a leather drawstring. Slots were cut in the upper and the drawstring passed through them. In some cases drawstring lacings seem to be more decorative than functional. 12th century drawstrings were generally only fastened by slots on either side of the ankle, unlike 11th century examples with more slots. [Pritchard, 1991, p230]

Rand

During the 12th century a better way of waterproofing the seam between the sole and upper was developed. A strip of leather, called the rand, slightly triangular in cross-section, was sewn into the seam between sole and upper. The thicker edge of the triangle was on the outside of the shoe and covered the seam from water penetration somewhat. The number of shoes with rands increases over the 12th century, from almost none at the start to almost all shoes by the end of the century.

Top binding

Most extant shoes show a row of stitches at the top of the shoe (the opening above the ankle).[Pritchard, 1991, p236] Although some authors have speculated that this might be for attachment of a lining, more favoured is the theory that some form of binding to stiffen and strengthen that edge was applied. Such a binding might be as simple as a thick cord or a thin strip of leather (“topband”) sewn on. Evidence for either theory is scant – fabric linings decay easily, as do cords or the linen stitches holding on small strips of leather. A number of 11th century examples of insitu leather strips supports that this theory. Furthermore, a number of these strips shoe additional holes indicating lines of decorative stitching and in case it is speculated baubles (most likely fake gemstones) were attached. Braided strips of leather were incorporated in such designs too.
Some 12th century artworks show a bulkiness or contrast coloured strip at the top of a shoe, most likely indicating a top binding.

Vamp decoration

A great many 12th century shoes had a decorative stripe along the vamp (figure 1) of the shoe. This possibly developed from an earlier constructional technique where the vamp was slit and resewn along the top. On most 12th century shoes with vamp decoration, a series of holes was made from the throat of the shoe to the tip of the toe and unfilled with single stranded silk thread. Scorelines could be used to mark the line of the holes, and multiple stripes (table 1) in different colours (red, and green are recorded) of reeled silk were common. A technique called plait stitch was used to make these stripes in the London examples. This stitch was particularly suited to decoration on shoes because it gives good coverage of the outer surface of the shoe while wasting minimum thread on the inside. 12th Century shoes from Norway display a variety of other stitches used on the leather.[Reid, 2001]

Table 1 Number of stripes of Vamp decoration on 12C shoes from selected London sites. (After Pritchard p230)

Number of stripes
 Number of shoes found
1
 1
2
 3
3
 7
4
 1
 
Literary evidence speaks of shoes with embroidered silken uppers and leather soles. Occasional artwork depicts shoes in the vamp decorated style with scrolling rather than linear patterns. It would certainly be easy to produce shoe in this style with cloth uppers. An extant pair of shoes from the gravegoods of King Phillip of Swabia, dating from at or before his death in 1208, are turnshoes in the vamp decorated style, but rather than embroidering stripes on the shoes, bands of fine gold brocaded tabletweaving were sewn onto the shoes. [Spies, 2000, p32, Schramm & Florentine, 1962, pl.190a] Other forms of rarer decoration include openwork cutouts and appliqué patches. [Grew & Neergaard, 1988]

Clumps

Soles of shoes were often the first part of the shoe to wear out. When this occurred, a second sole could be stitched to the first to cover any holes
.

Seams

Three main types of seams were used in 12th Century shoe construction.

Butt Stitch (figure 6)

Butt stitch was used commonly on uppers to sew the main side seam and attach inserts. Until the mid 12th century it was also used to attach soles to uppers in some cases.

Flesh-edge seam

(Figure 7) Most commonly used to attach soles to uppers, this made inclusion of a rand easier than butt stitch. Binding stitch (figure 8) Binding stitch was used to attach pieces such as heel stiffeners and reinforcement cord or topbands. The stitch doesn’t penetrate completely through the base of the leather, and thus is not visible from the outside of the shoe.

Materials

Leather Uppers

In the early to Mid 12th Century, uppers seem to be most popular in sheep/goat leather (cordwain). By the 13th century, calf leather was the predominant leather used for uppers. Occasionally calf and sheep/goat were mixed in uppers and heel stiffeners. Unfortunately after burial, leather is unable to be analysed for dye content or tanning process. [Reid, 2001, p269] Literary sources suggest tanning techniques using oak galls had existed since Anglo-Saxon times. Artworks show a high number of black brown and red shoes, although occasional exotic green or blue shoes appear, which may simply be due to artistic whim. Since cordwain is supposedly red, and oak galls black, until further evidence/reports come to light, red, mid to dark brown and black seem the most likely colours for 12th century shoes.

Soles

Soles were normally made from thick cattle leather, for extra durability, used flesh side up.[Grew & Neergaard, 1988, p49]

Thread

14th century shoes from London used waxed plied linen thread [Grew & Neergaard, 1988, p48] Unfortunately no researchers have reported on the (difficult to analyse) thread used in 12th century shoes, but plied linen thread appears likely.[http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/ ~marc-carlson/shoe/thread.HTM]

References