Late 14th Century Ankle Shoes

I made these shoes for my lovely wife, who wanted something appropriate to wear with a cotehardie and that would cover her ankles. They are based on shoe number 100 from Shoes and Pattens, 2nd Ed, page 66. The find these are based on dates from 1375-1400.

The patterning was done by Master Llywellen ap Daffyd, who along with the folk of the Medieval shoemaking yahoo group taught me most of what I know about making shoes.

These shoes are a single piece wrap around upper with a separate tounge which is butt-seamed on to one side of the opening. They have lacing reinforcements on each side of the vamp opening and a rand. The rand wasn't a feature of the shoe that these were based on but did appear on other shoes of the period and I wanted to see how much more difficult they made the assembly.

The shoes were not lasted since I lack the skills to make lasts and I don't turn out enough shoes of a given size/style to make learning how to build lasts worthwhile right now. They are made from 2mm veg tanned deer hide, which is wonderful stuff to make shoes out of. The leather was dyed with an iron-oxide dye (steel wool dissolved in vinegar) and heavily greased with a commercial saddle grease before assembly and after turning. The heel stiffener and lacing reinforcement are ~2mm veg tanned cowhide. The soles are ~4mm chrome tanned cowhide (I didn't have any thick enough veg tan when I made these), heavily waxed with saddle grease.

Pictures of the shoe

Click on the thumbnails for larger photos

	Slightly fuzzy shot of the shoe just prior to being soaked and turned. I don't bother dying the inside of my shoes.
	Shoe from the front. The toe is probably squarer than it should be but the picture in S&P makes it look like this. What I missed when this was patterned was that the shoe in S&P is missing chunks of toe.
	Finished shoe from the left. You can see how the laces work.
	Finished shoe from the right.
	Finished shoe from the top. The white thing inside the shoe you can see here is a size 13 10mm thick felt insole I found in an army surplus shop cut down to fit the shoe. These make the shoes much more comfortable on modern feet and make it easier to stuff things in for extra arch support if necessary.
	Back of the shoe. You can see the outline of the heel stiffener in this shot. This is a result of the heel stiffener being made from stiffer leather than the upper of the shoe. The heel stiffener is slightly squint relative to the upper. This is because the first method I tried didn't work and I'd already made the holes in it so when I turned it around it didn't quite line up properly.
	Inside shot of the butted seam that closes the upper. The black marks on this are a combination of drafting errors when I was transferring the pattern to the leather and a stray blob of dye.
	Outside of the butted seam closing the upper. Not as neat as I'd have liked but I pulled the stitching a bit tight and deer leather is very soft.
	The attachment of the heel stiffener to the upper. I should have trimmed this back closer to the lasting margin before I turned the shoe.
	The heel stiffener from the inside of the turned shoe. You can see where this is turned along with the upper.
	This bulge at the base of the heel is caused by the heel stiffener. Where this is turned there are two layers of leather being turned over the lasting seam.
	The laces. Shoes and Pattens calls these "latchet style" laces since they are cut from a rectangle of leather rather than being a thong passed through the holes like a regular shoelace.
	Detail of the lacing reinforcement on the edge of the vamp opening. This is tunnel stitched on in a similar fashion to the heel stiffener for most of the circumference, but is edge-flesh seamed on the edge closest to the tounge. I did this because it was simpler to share the holes for the butt-seam holding the tounge on.
	The lacing reinforcement on the other side of the vamp opening. Tunnel stitched all the way around.
	Inside of the butted seam holding the tounge on.
	Same seam from the outside.
	This is the lasting seam shown from the sole. These stitches go in the flesh side and out the edge of the sole to hole the upper on.
	Finished shoe from the sole. You can see the rand going all the way around the sole and covering the upper where it "rolls" out from the lasting seam.
	The rand going around the heel.
	The ends of the rand. These meet just under the arch of the foot where there will be the least wear on the shoe. I probably should have stitched these together since they don't meet cleanly.
	Toe of the shoe from the top. As noted above this should probably be more pointy.
	The rand going around the toe of the shoe. If it were more pointy I'd probably have the rand meet here rather than under the arch of the shoe.
	The rand on the inside of the unturned shoe.

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