POINTY MEDIEVAL SHOES CONFIRMS THAT BEAUTY WAS PAINFUL EVEN BACK THEN
How frequently do we hear "fashion above function" these days, rather than the other way around, in a society where efficiency and optimization are the norm? This was the case during the Middle Ages, when trends were prevalent, particularly among the upper class and nobles. This category includes the poulaine, a very long, sharp, and unpleasant shoe that demonstrates that the trend cycle is not new, if not less uncomfortable than it was in the past.
It is thought that the Poulaine shoe originated in Poland. This is made clear by the term itself, which comes from the Middle French expression "souliers à la poulaine," which translates to "shoes in the Polish way." The shoe ended in an absurdly extended toe and was worn by both men and women. Compared to their feminine counterparts, men's poulaines usually have a larger point—some can exceed five inches. According to Jennifer Ouellette for Ars Technica, they "were frequently packed with moss, wool, or horsehair" to maintain the toe's shape.
Around the time of Richard II's 1382 marriage to Anne of Bohemia, the popularity of poulaines peaked in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It is impossible to overstate the influence that the fashionable shoe had on the Middle Ages. But these impacts weren’t necessarily all great. Wearers of poulaine suffered in many ways for their fashion, as one might expect from such a drastic and painful shoe. According to a 2021 study, the popularity of these pointed shoes coincided with a rise in foot problems.
The remains of people from the 14th and 15th centuries have more evidence of bunions than those from the 11th and 13th centuries, according to Cambridge researchers. It seems that in the context of Middle Ages fashion, beauty is actually agony. The fashionable shoe caused controversy as well. Clergy and religious authorities denounced the poulaine as "lascivious" and blamed it for plague and other calamities. In 1362, Pope Urban V even outlawed the pointed shoe, although the decree was ignored. Following the Great Pestilence in 1348, "clerics said the plague was sent by God to punish Londoners for their crimes, especially sexual misdeeds," according to the London Museum.
The pigache, an earlier style of pointed shoes from a few centuries earlier, elicited a similar response. It was also attacked for its associations with effeminacy, vanity, and sexual deviance, albeit it was by no means as extreme as poulaines. It would appear that during the Middle Ages, religion and pointed shoes did not get along.
When poulaines were first worn by elites to indicate a specific rank, they got overused, which was troublesome in medieval Europe, much like with current trend cycles. The outcome? Sumptuary rules, governed poulaine toe length to differentiate between nobles and commoners. Western fashion has advanced significantly without appearing to have changed much at its foundation, from the so-called "silent luxury" that is currently popular to long, pointed shoes that are sure to create bunions.
