The Armour Archive

Can anyone help me with some historical sources of similar shoes? I'm ideally hoping for evidence right at the turn of the millennium.

Also, these seem fairly easy to make ones self as I'm only seeing 4 pieces of leather. Does anyone agree or disagree with my assessment?

That is rather similar to the "Madan" shoe shown here:
http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-ca ... SLIST6.HTM

It it made from more pieces, probably to reduce the amount of waste leather generated.

well you could always ask Sir Bohemond whose site that image is lifted from. I have always found him to be quite helpful.

Halbrust wrote:
Can anyone help me with some historical sources of similar shoes? I'm ideally hoping for evidence right at the turn of the millennium.

I don't remember ever seeing anything like that in a historical source.
At least to me they look like some sort of fantasy take on "Arabia" - something out of an "Ali Baba and the 40 thieves" movie.
What was your assumption that they were historical based on?

On the site the image is from,the maker (Sir Bohemond) lists shoes of this type as being,"Found in many Middle Eastern and Eastern illuminations this shoe is popular with dancers. " (quoted from http://www.highfiber.com/~bohemond/Boot ... rsian.html ). I know he has offered these for at least 6-7 years.

Vasilii wrote:On the site the image is from,the maker (Sir Bohemond) lists shoes of this type as being,"Found in many Middle Eastern and Eastern illuminations this shoe is popular with dancers. " (quoted from http://www.highfiber.com/~bohemond/Boot ... rsian.html ). I know he has offered these for at least 6-7 years.

Doesn't mean that they are based on anything historical, however...

Advertising copy is lousy documentation.

I never said they were or that ad copy was good documentation. I was merely pointing to what the original manufacturer stated about the shoes in question.

Sasha_Khan wrote:

Vasilii wrote:On the site the image is from,the maker (Sir Bohemond) lists shoes of this type as being,"Found in many Middle Eastern and Eastern illuminations this shoe is popular with dancers. " (quoted from http://www.highfiber.com/~bohemond/Boot ... rsian.html ). I know he has offered these for at least 6-7 years.

Doesn't mean that they are based on anything historical, however...

Advertising copy is lousy documentation.

My thinking was the "fantasy representation" had to come from somewhere and these looked very plausible.

My research skills suck.

Can someone point me in the right direction to find pistures or examples of turn of the millenium Persian footwear? Shoes meant to be fought in rather than boots if that is a possibility.

Hi, Halbrust!

I would recommend that you start by checking out the timeline here:

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/?period=07&region=wai

Search for images of art from the various dynasties around your time period (Seljuk, Buyid, Ghaznavid, maybe broadening the geographical range to Abbasid). This will give you a good idea of the general profile. You might also try asking on the sca-persian yahoo! group, though many of the people there have late-period (Safavid) personas.

I did a bit of hunting myself. In general, the images I found showed pointy toed shoes or boots with no obvious closures; it's possible that the images just didn't have a bunch of details, though. Maybe somebody around here can suggest a source for pointy-toed, slip-on shoes or boots?

Some specific links:

c. 1300 plate with a Seljuq horseman wearing long pointy-toed riding boots (in turquoise glaze):

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/iselj/ho_51.53.htm

Another Seljuq plate with more riders:

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/07/wai/ho_57.36.4.htm

1330s manuscript (illustrates Mongols, shows lots of feet):

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/07/wai/ho_33.70.htm

Australian re-enactor's page on Seljuq clothing (sadly lacking in footnotes, alas, but if you want an outline to verify or argue with it's a place to start):

http://www.levantia.com.au/clothing/turk_man.html

--Ursula Georges.

If you want to do research on types of footwear to determine if these shoes are accurate then Mandragore is your friend. It's in French and your search terms will need to be in French (and spelled exactly right) but it's insanely useful.

In my research into Muslim clothing of the late 14th Century I ranged pretty far and wide and found a remarkable degree of homogeneity in geographical range and time span. I do not recall seeing curved-toe shoes of that style. Doesn't mean they didn't exist, just that I don't recall seeing them.

Halbrust wrote:My thinking was the "fantasy representation" had to come from somewhere and these looked very plausible.

You must have missed the recent argument over Scimitars.
went for over 5 pages if I rightly recall. Turned out that the fantasy "scimitar" is actualy based on Western European weapons with no Asiatic/Middle Eastern analog.