Shoes or slippers were worn in the East, but sandals, which leave the
toes bare, very seldom. The Egyptians made their shoes of papyrus or
palm leaves. The Greeks and Romans of both sexes wore rich sandals of
gold, silk, or other precious stuffs; the soles were of cork, which for
that reason was called sandal wood, and they were, in general, at least
one finger thick; sometimes they sewed five soles one over another. They
were covered within and without with leather broader than the cork.
Sandals were among the early, but not the later, Anglo-Saxons.[113]
[Illustration: ~Curious old Sandal.~]
The preceding cut is of a “very curious sandal,” in three different
views, from one made of leather, partly gilt, and variously coloured. It
was formerly in the possession of Mr. Bailey, leather-stainer, Little
Wild-street, Drury-lane, and afterwards in that of Mr. Samuel Ireland,
of Norfolk-street, by whose permission, an engraving on copper was made
by Mr. J. T. Smith, of the British Museum, and from this the present
representation is given. The age of the sandal is not by the writer
determinable, but as a remarkable relic of antiquity, its form and make
deserve preservation. It will be observed, that it belonged to the left
foot of the wearer; so that if other evidence could not be adduced, this
is proof that “rights and lefts” are only “an old, old, very old”
fashion revived.
The shoes of Bernard, king of Italy, found in his tomb, were “right and
left:” the soles were of wood, the upper part red leather, laced with
thongs, and they fitted so closely, that the order of the toes,
terminating in a point at the great toe, might easily be
discovered.[114] Stubbs, the satirist in Shakspeare’s time, describes
cork shoes or pantofles, (slippers) as bearing up their wearers two
inches or more from the ground; as of various colours, and raised,
carved, cut, or stitched; as frequently made of velvet, embroidered with
the precious metals; and when fastened with strings, covered with
enormous and valuable roses of ribband curiously ornamented. “It is
remarkable that, as in the present age, both shoes and slippers were
worn shaped after the right and left foot. Shakespeare describes his
smith as
‘Standing on slippers, which his nimble haste
Had falsely _thrust upon contrary feet_:--’
and Scott, in his ‘Discoverie of Witchcraft,’ observes, that he who
receiveth a mischance ‘will consider, whether he put not on his shirt
wrong side outwards, or his _left shoe on his right foot_.’”[115]
Some light may be thrown on the engraving by an extract from an heraldic
writer: “He beareth _or_, two sandals _sable_, buckles or tyes _argent_.
This was the ancient way of securing the feet of travellers from the
hardness of the country passage; and consisted of nothing else but a
sole, (either of leather or wood) to which was made fast 2 or 3 tyes or
latches which was buckled on the top of the foot; the better sort
adorned these latches with imbrauthered (embroidered) work, and set them
with stones.” Whence it appears that the engraving represents such a
sandal “of the better sort.” The same author mentions three sandals
_sable_, buckled and adorned _or_, on a field _azure_ “borne by
Palmer.”[116] Ladies may be amused by looking at the form, as placed
before his readers, of a shoe which the author just cited says was “of
the gentest (genteelest) fashion” of his time.
[Illustration]
This was the fashion that beautified the feet of the fair in the reign
of king William and queen Mary. The old “Deputy for the kings of arms”
is minutely diffuse on the “gentle craft:” he engraves the form of “a
pair of wedges,” which he says “is to raise up a shooe in the instep
when it is too straight for the top of the foot;” and thus
compassionates ladies’ sufferings.--“Shoomakers love to put ladies in
their stocks; but these wedges, like merciful justices upon complaint,
soon do ease and deliver them.” If the eye turns to the cut--to the cut
of the sole, with the “line of beauty” adapted by the cunning workman’s
skill to stilt the female foot--if the reader behold that association,
let wonder cease, that a venerable master in coat-armour should bend his
quarterings to the quartering of a lady’s shoe, and forgetful of
heraldic forms, condescend from his “high estate” to the use of
similitudes.