SHOES OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES.
Musée de Cluny.
A number of examples of shoes of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries are given from the interesting collection in the Musée de Cluny, and will serve, far better than any written description, to give an idea of the character of the footgear of these periods. The two child's shoes given on [p. 291] are of leather, and are typical of the shoe worn during the greater part of the fifteenth century. The side view shows the point turned upwards. The man's shoe is short-toed, richly worked in stamped leather. The ladies' shoes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries given on [p. 293] are of various materials, and for the most part richly embroidered; two of the three lower ones show the clog of leather which was fixed from the heel to the toe, the centre one of the three having a sharp pointed heel and a rounded sole, surely a most uncomfortable thing to wear. Sir Thomas Parkins ("Treatise on Wrestling," 1714) says: "For shame, let us leave off aiming at the outdoing our Maker in our true symmetry and proportion; let us likewise, for our own ease, secure treading and upright walking, as He designed we should, and shorten our heels."
CARVED WOODEN SHOE, FRENCH (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY).
During the reign of the Tudors the character of the shoe suddenly changed from the long pointed toe to the broad-toed shoe, made either of various cloths, kid, or velvet, slashed and puffed with silk, an example of which will be seen in Holbein's picture of the "Two Ambassadors." The shoes of this period afford a minimum of protection to the feet, the whole of the instep being uncovered. It was again found necessary for legislation to step in—this time, however, to restrict their breadth, instead of the length of the toes, as heretofore.
Bulwer's "Pedigree of the English Gallant" says: "In the reign of Queen Mary, the people in general had laid aside the long points they formerly wore at the end of their shoes, and caused them to be made square at the toes, with so much addition to the breadth, that their feet exhibited a much more preposterous appearance than they had done in the former instance; therefore," says the author, "a proclamation was made, that no man should wear his shoes above six inches square at the toes." He then tells us that "picked shoes soon after came again in vogue, but they did not, I presume, continue any great time in use."
In the figure of the exquisite of 1670, after Mitelli ([p. 129]), the squareness of the toes is emphasised, the two corners even projecting from the flat edge. There are small bunches of ribbons at the toes, an abnormally large stiffened bow at the instep, and, by way of "piling Pelion upon Ossa," the bend of the stiffened bows is supplemented by smaller bows, representing the very acme of whimsical extravagance.
Usually these bows or ribbons were allowed to fall loose, in which case, however, they never reached such extravagant proportions as in the before-mentioned instance. A square-toed shoe of a Dutch officer of the Guards, 1662, is given, having a loose bow, also a shoe of a musketeer with a small buckle on the instep and a large tongue or flap in front.
