The Book of the Feet: A History of Boots and Shoes

by Joseph Sparkes Hall

The Grecian ladies, according to Hope, wore shoes or half-boots, laced before and lined with the fur of animals of the cat tribe, whose muzzles or claws hung down from the top.

Ocrea was the name this boot got among the Romans; “Ocreas verdente puella,” (Juv. vi. sat.); which Dryden, ridiculously enough, translated “Spanish leather boots,” a term of his own time, forced to do service sixteen hundred years before.

The barbarous nations with whom the Romans held war, are upon the bas-reliefs of their conquerors, represented in close shoes or half-boots. Thus the Dacians wear the shoe represented in fig. 10, which laced across the instep, and was secured around the ankle with a band and ornamental button or stud. The Gauls wear the shoe given below, of the same form as that worn by our native ancestors when Julius Cæsar made his descent upon the British islands.

CHAPTER II.
THE HISTORY OF BOOTS AND SHOES IN ENGLAND.

BEFORE the arrival of the Saxons, who have transmitted to us many valuable manuscripts abounding in various delineations of their dress and manners, we shall not find much to engage the attention where it is our present object to direct it, the history of the coverings for the feet. There is, however, little doubt that the rude skin-shoes, worn by the native Irish and the country people of Rome, was the simple protection adopted in this country in the earliest times. Shoes of this material are found in all nations half-civilized, and the ease with which they are formed by merely covering the sole with the hide of an animal, and securing it by a thong, must have had the effect of insuring its general use. Naked feet would, however, be preferred in fine weather, and when shoes were worn, they were generally of a close, warm kind, adapted to our climate; the most antique representations of the Gaulish native chiefs, as given on Roman sculpture, and which may be taken as general representations of British chiefs, may be received as good authorities, their resemblance to each other being so striking as to draw from Cæsar a remark to that effect.

The Saxon figures, as given in the drawings by their own hands, to be seen in manuscripts in most of our public libraries, display the costume of this people, from the ninth century downward; and the minute way in which every portion of the dress is given, affords us clear examples of their boots and shoes. According to Strutt, high shoes, reaching nearly to the middle of the legs, and fastened by lacing in the front, and which may also be properly considered as a species of half-boots, were in use in this country as early as the tenth century; and the only apparent difference between the high shoes of the ancients and the moderns, seems to have been that the former laced close down to the toes, and the latter to the instep only. They appear in general to have been made of leather, and were usually fastened beneath the ankles with a thong, which passed through a fold upon the upper part of the leather, encompassing the heel, and which was tied upon the instep. This method of securing the shoe upon the foot, was certainly well contrived both for ease and convenience. Three specimens of shoes are here given from Saxon drawings. The first is the most ancient and curious; it is copied from “the Durham Book,” or book of St. Cuthbert, now preserved among the Cottonian manuscripts in the British museum, and is believed to have been executed as early as the seventh century, by the hands of Eadfreid, afterward bishop of Lindisfarne, who died in 721. It partakes of the nature of shoe and sandal, and with the exception of the buttons down the front, is precisely like the Persepolitan sandal already engraved and described, as well as like the Roman ones constructed on the same model, and it is curious to see how all are formed after this one fashion.

No. 2, is copied from Strutt’s “complete view of the dress and habits of the people of England,” plate XXIX., fig. 16, and which he obtained from the Harleian MS., No. 603. It very clearly shows the form of the Saxon shoe, and the long strings by which it was tied. Fig. 3, delineates the most ordinary kind of shoe worn, with the opening to the toes already alluded to, for lacing it. But little variety is observable in the form of this article of dress among the Saxons; it is usually delineated as a solid black mass, just as the last figure has been here engraved, with a white line down the centre, to show the opening, but quite as generally without it, and these two forms of shoe or half-boot, are by far the most commonly met with, and are depicted upon the feet of noble and royal personages as well as upon those of the lower class.