Poulaine

Poulaines, also known by other names, were a style of unisex footwear with extremely long toes that were fashionable in Europe at various times in the Middle Ages.

After becoming more common as women's footwear and expanding to awkward lengths, poulaines fell from fashion in the 1480s (see duckbill shoe) and were seldom revived, although they are considered an influence on some later trends such as the 1950s British winklepicker boots.

[12] Shoes with pointed, curled, and/or elongated toes are documented in the archeological record back to at least 3000 BC[13][14] and have passed in and out of fashion over time.

[22] As a returning papal legate, the former professor Robert de Courson banned other faculty of the University of Paris from wearing them in August 1215.

[24][25] Guibert of Nogent blamed the origin of the pigache on footwear exported from Islamic Cordoba,[21] Orderic Vitalis on the promiscuous Fulk of Anjou's attempts to disguise the deformity of his bunions.

[29] The arrival—or resumption—of this fashion in England is traditionally associated with the marriage of Richard II and Anne of Bohemia, daughter of the emperor Charles IV, in 1382.

In his entry for the year 1362, the Malmesbury monk who wrote the Eulogium Historiarum states that "Moreover they have beaked shoes a finger in length that they call cracows.

[37] The c. 1440 morality play Castle of Perseverance includes the footwear in the "advice" that Humanum Genus ("Mankind") gets from Superbia ("Pride"): "Look that thou blow mickle boasts with long crakows on thy shoes".

[39][40] In 1465, they were banned in England altogether, so that all cordwainers and cobblers within the City of London and environs were prohibited from making shoes with pikes more than 2 inches long.

[28]: 117 [41] By the 1480s, poulaines had generally fallen from fashion in favor of the wide duckbill shoes supposedly popularized by Charles VIII of France owing to his own six-toed foot.

Additionally, the practice is mentioned by the antiquarian John Stow in his 1698 publication A Survey of London, where he wrote: In Distar Lane, on the north side thereof, is the Cordwainer's Hall, which company were made a brotherhood or fraternity in the eleventh of Henry IV.

[44] Emma McConnachie of the College of Podiatry noted that the findings "highlight these have been around for quite some time" and "the fashion choices of the 14th century inflicted similar issues from footwear as we see presenting in clinics today.

During the period that poulaines were in fashion, the sabatons sometimes became similarly awkwardly long or pointed and interfered with soldiers' ability to walk or run.

A surviving pair of sabatons belonging to Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, have extremely long ends for use on horseback but these are detachable if fighting on foot became necessary.