Normally during the school year I don’t allow myself to read anything for fun. I know myself; if I start something fun, I won’t be able to stop, and then my work suffers. Yesterday, even though I know I’m still not done, I still have more work to do on my final project for this class, I thought maybe I could get away with re-reading a book I read a while ago. Maybe I wouldn’t get as sucked in since I knew what was going to happen. That didn’t exactly work and I finished the book within less than 24 hours. Yet clearly my brain was still trying to make myself think of material cultures, because I’m getting a blog post out of it.
I love what I call “trashy romance novels”, specifically of the historical romance variety. The book I read is The Deed by Lynsay Sands which is set in England in 1395. I highly recommend anything by her, by the way. Anyways, there is a scene partway through the book where the male love interest tries to apologize to the female love interest by wearing new fancy clothes for her. He had only had two shirts before and she had a tailor come to make him clothes that he hated, but he was trying to impress her. The end result is of course ridiculous and humorous.
“Amaury’s ragged hose and braies had been traded in for a fine new pair. His old tunic had been replaced by a spanking new doublet of forest green with sleeves so long they trailed on the ground. And on his head was a turban-style hat with an overlarge plume that stuck out and waved in the wind as he approached. But that wasn’t what made Blake want to laugh. It was the way his friend was walking. Amaury was stomping toward them, lifting each leg high in the air and slamming it down in an exaggerated march. Disgust was clear on his face as he cursed, muttered, and snorted his way across the bailey.
‘Have you ever seen such frippery?…And see you these crakows?…The toes are so long they near reach my thighs!’
In truth the turned-up toes of the jester-like shoes only reached to his knees where they were held by gold chains.”
This particular passage has always stood out to me just because the description is so ridiculous and I had never heard the term “crakows”. The first time I read this book I was too lazy to look them up, though I was curious. This time, I have had the benefit of a professor who is really into shoes, so I decided I would actually look them up.
Here is what Encyclopedia Britannica has to say on crakow shoes:
“crakow, also spelled crackowe, long, pointed, spiked shoe worn by both men and women first in the mid-14th century and then condemned by law. Crakows were named after the city of Kraków (Cracow), Pol., and they were also known as poulaines (Polish). Crakows were admired on the feet of the courtiers of Anne of Bohemia, who married Richard II of England. The exaggerated toes were imitated even in armour.”
I know that encyclopedia entries are supposed to be short, but honestly I feel like that entry raised more questions for me than answered. Why were they banned? So I did the unholy – I checked wikipedia. With the understanding that it is not a trustworthy source, I still have to say it was a much better article than I found in Encyclopedia Britannica. Here it is:
“Crakows or crackowes were a style of shoes with extremely long toes very popular in the 15th century. They were so named because the style was thought to have originated in Kraków, then the capital of Poland. They began in the late 14th century and fell from fashion after about 1480–90. They were worn by men and women, but men’s were the most extravagantly long.
Sometimes the point of the shoe (known as the “poulaine”[1] ) would need support from a whalebone or a string tied to the leg (just below the knee) to stop the point getting in the way when walking. (Examples from medieval London have the points stuffed with moss.[2]) Outdoors pattens or sandal-like clogs were usually worn underneath.
The Pope and the King Henry IV of England tried to stop this practice. The antiquarian John Stow wrote at the end of the 16th century that:
“ | In Distar Lane, on the north side thereof, is the Cordwainer’s Hall, which company were made a brotherhood or fraternity in the eleventh of Henry IV. Of these cordwainers, I read, that since the fifth of Richard II (when he took to wife Anne, daughter toWenceslaus [sic], King of Bohemia), by her example the English people had used piked shoes, tied to their knees with silken laces, or chains of silver or gilt, wherefore in the fourth of Edward IV it was ordained and proclaimed that beaks of shoon and boots should not pass the length of two inches, upon pain of cursing by the clergy, and by Parliament to pay twenty shillings for every pair. And every cordwainer that shod any man or woman on the Sunday, to pay thirty shillings.[3] | ” |
— which matches the evidence of contemporary art well. Richard II married Anne of Bohemia in 1382, and “the fourth of Edward IV” is 1475, when the fashion was at its peak. The tying back to the leg is however rarely seen in the art of the period – it may have been something done when moving around, with the ties removed on arrival, or the prevalence of the habit may be exaggerated by censorious commentators.
Other sumptuary laws attempted to define by class how long shoes could be – the nobility were to be allowed two-foot-lengths, merchants one, and peasants one-half.[4] Like other attempts to control fashion by legislation, these seem to have failed.
At the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396, French Crusaders were forced to cut off the tips of their poulaines in order to be able to run away.[4]“
I thought it was interesting that wikipedia specifically says that the tying back of the shoe is not seen often in images because I had just finished image searching without seeing anything that could possibly approach the knees. I had concluded from just the image search that maybe Lynsay Sands was exaggerating the ridiculousness of the shoes for comedic purposes. I even had difficulty finding images of shoes that curled back like is described. They all had the ridiculously long toe, but they just stuck out straight a few inches.I had to go to sketches to find shoes with the curled toe.
I also found some medieval art that features people wearing crakow shoes. The funny thing is, I had seen these images before and never mentally connected them. I think I just thought they had long leggings that flopped in front of their toes. Or that it was some sort of artistic license, like it was just the drawing style of the times. Or maybe I thought they were images of jesters, not regular people. It hadn’t occurred to me that people actually wore shoes with super long toes in everyday life.
Of course, what the wikipedia article has to say about sumptuary laws makes perfect sense. What a great way to show that you are a lord or lady and don’t need to work. I have the most impractical shoes – therefore I am too rich to work. The more ridiculous, the richer you must be.