The elegantly-ornamented boot here given, is copied from a Theban painting, and is worn by a gayly-dressed youth from one of the countries bordering on Egypt: it reaches very high, and is a remarkable specimen of the taste for decoration, which thus early began to be displayed upon this article of apparel.
In Sacred Writ are many early notices of shoes, when Moses exhorts the Jews to obedience (Deut. ch. xxix.), he exclaims, “Your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot.” In the book of Ruth (chap. iv.) we have a curious instance of the important part performed by the shoe in the ancient days of Israel, in sealing any important business: “Now this was the manner in former time in Israel, concerning redeeming, and concerning changing, for to confirm all things; a man plucked off his shoe, and gave it to his neighbor; and this was a testimony in Israel.” Ruth, and all the property of three other persons, are given over to Boaz, by the act of the next kinsman, who gives to him his shoe in the presence of witnesses. The ancient law compelled the eldest brother, or nearest kinsman by her late husband’s side, to marry a widow, if her husband died childless. The law of Moses provided an alternative, easy in itself, but attended with some degree of ignominy. The woman was in public court to take off his shoe, spit before his face, saying, “so shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother’s house:” and probably, the fact of this refusal was stated in the genealogical registers in connexion with his name; which is probably what is meant by his “name shall be called in Israel, the house of him that hath his shoe loosed.” (Deut. xxv.) The editor of Knight’s Pictorial Bible, who notices these curious laws, also adds that the use of the shoe in the transactions with Boaz, are perfectly intelligible; the taking off the shoe, denoting the relinquishment of the right, and the dissolution of the obligation in the one instance, and its transfer in the other. The shoe is regarded as constituting possession, nor is this idea unknown to ourselves, in being conveyed in the homely proverbial expression by which one man is said to “stand in the shoes of another,” and the vulgar idea of “throwing an old shoe after you for luck,” is typical of a wish, that temporal gifts or good fortune may follow you. The author last quoted says, that even at the present time, the use of the shoe as a token of right or occupancy, may be traced very extensively in the East; and however various and dissimilar the instances may seem at first view, the leading idea may be still detected in all. Thus among the Bedouins, when a man permits his cousin to marry another, or when a husband divorces his runaway wife, he usually says, “She was my slipper, I have cast her off.” (Burckhardt’s “Bedouins,” p. 65.) Sir F. Henniker, in speaking of the difficulty he had in persuading the natives to descend into the crocodile mummy pits, in consequence of some men having lost their lives there, says: “Our guides, as if preparing for certain death, took leave of their children; the father took the turban from his own head, and put it upon that of his son; or put him in his place, by giving him his shoes, ‘a dead man’s shoes.’” In western Asia, slippers left at the door of an apartment, denote that the master or mistress is engaged, and no one ventures on intrusion, not even a husband, though the apartment be his wife’s. Messrs. Tyerman and Bennet, speaking of the termagants of Benares, say, “If domestic or other business calls off one of the combatants before the affair is duly settled, she coolly thrusts her shoe beneath her basket, and leaves both upon the spot, to signify that she is not satisfied;” meaning to denote by leaving her shoe, that she kept possession of the ground and the argument during her unavoidable absence.
From all these instances, it would appear that this employment of the shoe, may, in some respects, be considered analogous to that which prevailed in the middle ages, of giving a glove as a token of investiture, when bestowing lands and dignities.
It should be observed that the same Hebrew word (naal), signifies both a sandal and a shoe, although always rendered shoe in our translation of the Old Testament. Although the shoe is mentioned in Genesis and other books of the Bible, little concerning its form or manufacture can be gleaned—that it was an article of common use among the ancient Israelites, we may infer from the passage in Genesis, chap. xiv., verse 23, the first mention we have of this article, where Abraham makes oath to the king of Sodom “that he will not take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet,” thus assuming its common character.
The Gibeonites (Josh. ix. 5-13) “came with old shoes and clouted [mended] upon their feet”—the better to practise their deceit; and therefore they said, “Our shoes are become old by reason of the very long journey.”
Isaiah “walked three years naked and barefoot:” he went for this long period without shoes, contrary to the custom of the people, and as “a wonder unto Egypt and Ethiopia.”
That it became an article of refinement and luxury, is evident from the many other notices given; and the Jewish ladies seem to have been very particular about their sandals: thus we are told, in the Apocryphal book of Judith, although Holofernes was attracted by the general richness of her dress and personal ornaments, yet it was “her sandals ravished his eyes:” and the bride in Solomon’s Song is met with the exclamation, “How beautiful are thy feet with sandals, O prince’s daughter!”
The ancient bas-reliefs at Persepolis, and the neighborhood of Babylon, second only in their antiquity and interest to those of Egypt, furnish us with examples of the boots and shoes of the Persian kings, their nobles, and attendants; and they were executed, as appears from historical, as well as internal evidence, in the days of Xerxes and Darius.
From these sources, we here select the three following specimens. No. 1 is a half-boot, reaching considerably above the ankle; and it is worn by