Renaissance and Medieval Footwear

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Renaissance and Medieval Footwear The right footwear is the finishing touch on any medieval or Renaissance kit. This page covers our full range of historically accurate leather shoes and boots, from practical medieval ankle boots and laced calf shoes through to the wide-toed Landsknecht shoes of the Renaissance. Browse by period below. What Did Medieval and Renaissance People Actually Wear on Their Feet? Leather was the standard material for footwear across the full medieval and Renaissance period, used by every social class. What varied was the quality of the leather, the construction, and the style, all of which signaled rank and status in ways that were sometimes legally enforced. In several countries, sumptuary laws dictated the length of shoe toe a person could wear based on their social standing. Nobility were permitted extravagantly long points; peasants were not. The dominant construction method throughout the medieval period was the turn shoe: a shoe sewn inside out and then turned for use, keeping the seams on the inside and away from moisture. It was simple, durable, and used consistently from the early medieval period through to the 16th century. Medieval Shoes and Boots The medieval period produced a wide range of footwear styles, varying by century, region, and social class. For everyday practical wear, ankle boots and laced calf boots were the standard across most of the period. Close-fitting, laced up the front or side, and made from sturdy leather, they worked for everything from field work to courtly dress depending on the quality of the leather. For the upper classes, the poulaine was the defining style of the 14th and 15th centuries. A low-cut leather shoe with a dramatically pointed toe, it was fashionable, impractical, and deliberately so. The longer the toe, the higher the status. At its most extreme, poulaine toes were stuffed and tied to the knee to keep them from dragging on the ground. By the 1480s the style had fallen out of fashion entir