Why Did Medieval People Wear Such Pointy Shoes?

It was certainly an era of weird and wonderful fashion trends, and perhaps none is more peculiar to our modern eyes than the fad of wearing extravagantly pointed footwear. These pointy shoes were known as cracows or poulaines, both names referring to the origin of the footwear in Krakow, Poland, where it first emerged around 1340. The trend spread across Europe during the 14th century, and became particularly in vogue in England following the wedding of King Richard II and Anne of Bohemia in 1382, during which Anne sported a pair of poulaines.

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Fashion is often about social display; this is true now and was perhaps even more so back in the Middle Ages. Medieval society was highly stratified, and clothing was one of the most obvious ways for a person to demonstrate their social status, whether through towering hats, billowing sleeves, or pointy shoes. When poulaines became popular, it was among the higher classes, who soon found that shoe length could correlate directly with social rank. Only the nobility and wealthy merchants could afford to purchase such extraordinarily long shoes — and the longer and more costly they were, the more wealth and status they displayed. It was not uncommon for the points to extend 4 inches (10 centimeters) beyond the toe, with the extending area stuffed to keep it rigid. In a text from 1394, a monk from Worcestershire, England, claimed that some people wore shoes with pointed toes “half a yard [45 centimeters] in length, thus it was necessary for them to be tied to the shin with chains of silver before they could walk with them.” It was very expensive to have such elaborate shoes made, so it was only the lords and, to a lesser extent, ladies of medieval Europe who could afford to wear them. This was especially true for the more lavish — and lengthier — varieties of pointy shoe, which were made by specialist master shoemakers for a pretty penny. The fact that lengthy poulaines were highly impractical and hard to walk in didn’t seem to bother their fancy owners, who were willing to suffer for fashion. Researchers from Cambridge University found that cases of bunions increased significantly in the late medieval period, and placed the blame squarely with the rise in poulaine shoes.

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