MEDIEVAL LIFE
Why were pointed shoes popular in medieval times?
Let’s get to the point: from the 12th to 15th centuries, shoes were all about status. Both men and women wanted to put their best foot forward – as far forward as possible, in fact. Pointed shoes, known as poulaines or crackowes, may have been inspired by the new Gothic style (all high, pointed windows and arches) or by the slippers seen in the Middle East by crusaders. Generally, they protruded a few centimetres beyond the toes – but the higher the status, the longer the point. Laws limited length based on class, so only the highest nobles could galumph around in the silliest shoes, up to 60cm long. To maintain their shape, they had to be stuffed with moss, wool, hair or grass, braced by whalebone, or tied to the shins with a chain.
Such shoes were codpieces for the feet. As such, Church leaders condemned them as sinful, complaining that they made kneeling for prayer difficult. They were similarly impractical in battle, though they were worn during clashes, and special sabotons – armoured foot coverings – were designed to go over longer shoes. At the battle of Sempach in 1386, the knights of Leopold III, Duke of Austria, found that their footwear so hampered their movement that they cut off the tips of their shoes when they dismounted.
When was the worst time to live in Britain?
British people have endured their fair share of sorrow, suffering, famine, disease and political chaos. But the worst period for the island must surely have been the mid-14th century, when the Black Death ravaged the land. The bubonic plague, which killed millions across Europe, arrived in southwest England in June 1348. It spread rapidly, thanks to unsanitary living conditions and fleeing refugees, and by autumn 1349 the epidemic had reached Ireland and Scotland.
Telltale symptoms of this agonising (and, then, untreatable) disease were buboes –
inflamed boils in the armpits and groin – and vomiting blood. Few people survived more than three days after symptoms appeared.
Terrified parents abandoned dying children. One contemporary report des
