Practical uses, formal traditions, and fashion injunctions: Shoes and boots in medieval Spain

Abstract

Medieval footwear, in the Iberian Peninsula as elsewhere, is above all for practical purposes, whether walking or riding a horse. For a long time, therefore, the lasts remained very traditional, between sandals or espadrilles held on the foot by straps, in monastic and popular circles, and low boots that do not extend beyond the ankle. The practice of horse riding, in aristocratic circles, brings out boots higher up, sometimes up to the knee, especially the borceguíes characterised by their narrowness, sticking to the leg. These very fine leather boots require the rider to wear wooden or cork clogs, at least until he gets on his horse, which can also be used as inner shoes (chapines). On the other hand, although some of the models that have survived, and altarpieces and manuscripts sometimes show more pointed and elongated ends, the Iberian Peninsula seems to have escaped the extravagant fashion of pigaches (12^th century) and then poulaines (14^th and 15^th centuries).