by Rg Rogers

Created on: July 03, 2007

In the begining there were no shoes, just barefeet.
When things got too cold, too hot, or too rocky, people probably used what they could find. Grasses, leaves, bark, wood, animal fur, animal skins, and wool could all be used to protect early human feet. We still use these materials in shoes today.

To protect feet from the cold, shoes could be made from animal skins. Tanned animal hide with holes punched around the edge was laced with a leather strap.You put your foot on it and pull the lace to hold the hide around the foot. Figuring out how to cut the hide for a better fit led to the turn shoe, the moccasin, and the modern shoe with a sole and an upper.

For even more protection, shoes extended up the leg and were lined with moss, grass, or fur. Boots and leggings can be found throughout the northern climate.

The heroes of Greek plays often wore shoes with thick cork soles in order to appear larger. Sandals atop blocks of wood were worn all over Asia. Called "chopines" the blocks kept the feet out of the water and muck. The style spread to France and England by the 15th century. The advantges of standing above the crowd evolved into the high heel worn by Catherine de Medici and Louis XIV.

During the Middle Ages men began to wear long toed shoes. Soon the toes became so long they made walking almost impossible. Men stuffed wool and moss in the toes to keep them up. Then they tried attaching the toes to the knee with a chain to prevent tripping. This fashion lasted over three hundred years. It ended when the style was outlawed.

In the fourteenth century, you could not wear long pointed toe shoes unless you had an income of at least forty pounds a year. A prince might wear shoes as long as he liked, but a commoner could not wear pikes more than six inches long. A landowner (bourgeois) could wear up to twelve inches; knights, one and a half feet, and twenty four inches for a baron.

In 10th century China a tiny foot was a symbol of high status for a woman. Mothers bound their daughters' feet with the toes curled under to form the "golden lotus," a foot measuring just 3 inches. The "lotus" feet looked like tiny hooves and almost immobilized a woman. This practice lasted a thousand years. In 1911 the practice was banned.

The earliest footwear in Britain must have resembled the pampootie from the Aran Islands, Ireland. Few early shoes have survived. Fragments of Bronze Age footwear have been found in excavations but not enough to determine styles. But from the Roman times

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