The Art of the Shoe. Marie-Josèphe Bossan

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      The Middle Ages

      As the Middle Ages dawned in the West, footwear remained under the influence of ancient Roman models. The Francs wore shoes equipped with straps that rose to mid-thigh. Only their leaders wore shoes with pointed tips.

      Thanks to the extraordinary degree of preservation of certain burials, we have an idea of what Merovingian shoes looked like. The tomb discovered at Saint-Denis of Queen Arégonde, wife of King Clotaire I (497–561), has enabled us to reconstruct an image of her shoes as supple leather sandals with straps intertwining the leg. Elsewhere, gilded bronze shoe buckles decorated with stylized animals discovered in a leader’s tomb at Hordaim, are proof of the attention given to shoe ornamentation during this period. Shoes were very costly during the Middle Ages, which is why they appear in wills and are among the donations made to monasteries. Costliness also explains why a fiancé would offer his future wife a pair of embroidered shoes before marriage, a lovely tradition dating to Gregory of Tours (538–594). We can get a sense of the opulence of this gift from the shoes of this era preserved in the museum of Chelles near Paris.

      The strapped or banded shoe continued into the Carolingian period, although the woman’s model became more embellished. As for the wooden-soled gallique or galoche, it too remained in use.

      From this time forward, soldiers protected their legs with leather or metal leggings called bamberges. In the 9th-century, a shoe called the heuse made out of supple leather extending high on the leg announced the arrival of the boot.

      We known from the monk of the Saint Gall monastery that emperor Charlemagne wore simple boots with straps intertwining the legs, although for ceremonies he wore laced boots decorated with precious stones. But frequent contact between France and Italy helped develop a taste for regalia and increasingly the shoe became an object of great luxury.

      At the same time, religious councils were ordering clerics to wear liturgical shoes while performing mass. Called sandals, these holy shoes were of cloth and completely covered the cleric’s foot. Pope Adrian I (772–795) instituted the ritual of kissing feet. When some clergy members deemed this rite undignified, a compromise was established. Henceforth, the papal mule would be embroidered with a cross. Kissing this cross was no longer a sign of servitude, but one of homage to Christ’s representative on earth. Regarding shoemaking, the French word cordouanier (which became cordonnier or shoemaker) was adopted in the 11th century and signified someone who worked with Cordoba leather and by extension, all kinds of leather. As in Antiquity, shoes were patterned separately for the right and left foot. Shoes made out of Cordoba leather were reserved for the aristocracy, whereas those made by çavetiers, or cobblers (shoe repairmen) were more crudely fashioned. The wearing of shoes began to expand in the 11th-century. The most common medieval type was an open shoe secured by a strap fitted with a buckle or button.

      Other types included estivaux, a summer ankle boot of supple, lightweight leather that appeared in the second half of the 11th century; chausses with soles, a type of cloth boot reinforced with leather soles worn with pattens (supplemental wooden under soles) for outdoor use; and heuses, supple boots in a variety of forms originally reserved for gentlemen, but which became common under the reign of Philippe Auguste (1165–1223). In the early 12th century, shoes became longer. Called pigaches, these shoes were forerunners of the poulaine style a knight named Robert le Cornu is credited with introducing.

      The Crusaders brought the exaggerated style with its inordinately long tip back from the East. It is based on the raised-toe model of Syrian, Akkadian, and Hittite culture, and reflects the vertical aesthetic of gothic Europe. When people of modest means imitated this eccentric fashion initially reserved for the aristocracy, the authorities responded by regulating the length of the shoe’s points according to social rank: 1/2 foot for commoners, 1 foot for the bourgeois, 1 and 1/2 feet for knights, 2 feet for nobles, and 2 and 1/2 feet for princes, who had to hold the tips of their shoes up with gold or silver chains attached to their knees in order to walk. The shoe length hierarchy led to the French expression “vivre sur un grand pied,” (to live on a large foot), denoting the worldly status represented by shoe length.

      The poulaine was made of leather, velvet, or brocade. The uppers could sport cutouts in the form of gothic church windows, although obscene images were sometimes used. A small round bell or an ornament in the shape of a bird beak often dangled from the tip of the shoe. There was even a military poulaine to go with a soldier’s amour. Interestingly, during the battle of Sempach between the Swiss confederates and the Austrians in 1386, knights had to cut off the points of their poulaines because they interfered with combat.

      Worn throughout Europe by men and women alike, as well as by certain clerics, the poulaine was condemned by bishops, excommunicated by religious councils, and forbidden by kings. But its immoral status only made the poulaine more seductive, and it was all the rage in the Burgundian court. Indeed, the poulaine would only disappear in the early 16th century, after a four century run.

      Flat-soled shoes lasted the entire medieval period, but a heel was beginning to emerge as evidenced in Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Couple. The protective wooden pattens, depicted carelessly strewn on the floor in the left of the painting, exhibit an incline: the rear heel is higher than the front support.

      Shoes were scarce and costly items in the middle ages, so protective wooden soles were used for going out in muddy backstreets. But the under soles made the shoes too noisy: it was strictly forbidden to wear them in church.

      25. Poulaine. Bally Museum, Schönenwerd, Switzerland.

      26. Liturgical shoe of plain embroidered samite. Spain, 12th century. Silk and gold thread. Historical Museum of Fabrics of Lyon, Lyon.

      27. Poulaine style shoe. Bally Museum, Schönenwerd, Switzerland.

      28. Martin de Braga. Caton in the Company of Scipion and Lelius, Standing before Him. Third quarter of the 15th century. The Hermitage Museum, Saint-Petersburg.

      29. Jan van Eyck. The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434. Oil on panel. 83.8 x 57.2 cm. National Gallery, London.

      30. Philippe VI de Valois Receives Tribute from His Vassal Edward III of England, detail of an illumination from the Chronicles of Jehan Froissart. 15th century. National Library of Paris, Paris.

      The Legend of Saint Crispin and Saint Crispinian

      Crispin and Crispinian were two brothers from a patrician Roman family who converted to Christianity under the reign of Diocletian (245–313). Pope Caius (283–296) gave them the task of converting Gaul and in 285 AD they settled in Soissons to work as shoemakers and to preach the word of God. When the Roman general Maximianus Herculeus asked them to renounce their faith and to worship pagan idols, the brothers refused, which led to their frequent and cruel persecution. They were flagellated, pierced with awls, burned with boiling oil and molten lead, and finally thrown into the river Aisne with a millstone around their neck. Then a miracle occurred: the stone СКАЧАТЬ