shoes&pattens4

Shoemaking and cobbling

In most villages of the realm there is some dresser or worker ofleather, and for the supplies ofsuch as have not, there are in most market towns three, four or five, and in many great towns or cities 10 or 20, and in London and its suburbs nearly 200.

(BL Lansdowne Ms. 74 No. 154, quoted in Thomas 1983, 2)

The Leather

There were several long processes which had to be gone through before a shoemaker could begin his work. The tanner would buy hides from the butcher with hooves and homs still attached. The skins were then washed, trimmed, had the hair removed and, finally, were tanned (for fuli accounts of the process, see Thomas 1983; Salzman 1923). Leather Identification (by Glynis Edwards of the Ancient Monuments Laboratory), which has been done on over sixty shoes spanning the fuli datę rangę of the collection (Table 13), as well as less precise visual and tactile examination, indicates that there was a change in the types of hides used for the uppers, probably at some time in the 13th century. Instead of cattle hide, the earlier shoes are biased towards sheep/goat (cordwain) - although it should be noted that Edwards States in her report (1986) that ‘some of those described as sheep/goat may have been deer, but we are not yet certain of the diagnostic pattern of the latter’ {cf. Reed 1972, 285 for similarities between sheep/goat and deer). Calf

71 Shoemakers and cobblers at work. a: Cutting out an upper. The half-moon-shaped knife was normally used for this purpose. b: Use of the awl to make holes, apparently in preparation for stitching the lasting-margin. Beside the shoemaker’s stool is a pair of lasts. His products clearly included side-laced boots (cf. Figs. 68-70). c: Sewing. The craftsman, in this case a cobbler, appears to be working on the lasting-margin and, having just completed a stitch, is pulling the two threads firmly apart (cf. Fig. 73). d:

Trimming. The shoemaker uses a smali, angled-back knife to finish a virtually-completed shoe; it is possible that he is paring away the rough edges of the lasting-margin. A pair of lasts lies in a rack on the wali.

(From the Mendel Housebook (Nuremberg), 15th century).

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