The Armour Archive

I have a question for those of you that do the Byzantine re-enactments. what would have been the most likely colors of dyed leather shoes from around the 1190s that would have been available as either trade goods or that the middle class of the time might have had access to?
any info or links would be helpful as I plan on ordering a pair of custom made boots that I want to be as accurate as is possible.

thank you

Elias

Well, firstly, DON'T wear RED shoes! They were reserved for the Emperor and his immediate family (and I'm not even sure about them. Wearing red shoes would be a good way to get arrested.

The Madrid Skylitzes Chronicle, which dates to quite close to your period, shows just about everyone in black shoes, though I'd be wary about making that "jet" black - I'd be going for a very very dark brown, which was possible with the dyes available at the time.

Other representations also show black as common, though dark brown, reddish brown, white and even blue appear here and there. See the representations in the Dovecote Church and the Hidden Church in Kappadokia. Also, there are quite a few military Saints here , but keep in mind that they are military, and they are saints, so may not be typical.

Another (quite amazing) source is here . Just get onto the galleries and see all the fantastic pics of Byzantine life. You need to do a bit of work searching through all the links to get the most out of this site, but it's well worth it.

Good luck with it.

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Egfroth

"I can hear the word money from a distance of fifty miles, if the wind's in the right direction"

Major Dennis Bloodnok, Queen's Forty-Third Deserters (retd.)

see my webpage at www.geocities.com/egfrothos

[This message has been edited by Egfroth (edited 09-16-2002).]

what many re-enactors are using these days to dye leather with is "Cod liver oil" it gives it a nice brown colour makes the leather nice and soft to wear. The smell does go away after a short time, only problem with it so far is a few days after you use the oil, the excess starts to come back out and you need to wipe all that yucky stuff away ..but again it stops and looks great.

This is very common with re-enactors in Europe and with some groups in Australia

Ian
Byzantium is that anywhere near Essex?

Egfroth, you are far more the Byzantine expert than I, but when I was researching a (Western) Roman costume for an event, I found that red boots/shoes were okay for Senators. In certain periods. I gave up on figuring which periods, because the sumptuary laws varied so much from emperor to emperor. I decided I liked them, that they would go well with my 3" wide purple stripes, and made them!

The emperor can have my boots when he pries them from my cold, dead, toesies.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Alcyoneus:
Egfroth, you are far more the Byzantine expert than I, but when I was researching a (Western) Roman costume for an event, I found that red boots/shoes were okay for Senators.

Oh, we're not talking about that degenerate, brutish bunch of Frankish wannabe's, are we? What would they know?

<B> In certain periods. I gave up on figuring which periods, because the sumptuary laws varied so much from emperor to emperor. I decided I liked them, that they would go well with my 3" wide purple stripes, and made them!

The emperor can have my boots when he pries them from my cold, dead, toesies.</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It's a date!



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Egfroth

"I can hear the word money from a distance of fifty miles, if the wind's in the right direction"

Major Dennis Bloodnok, Queen's Forty-Third Deserters (retd.)

see my webpage at www.geocities.com/egfrothos

Then may the Catalan Veangence come upon him!