Читать книгу The Book of the Feet - Joseph Sparkes Hall - Страница 4

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IF we investigate the monuments of the remotest nations of antiquity, we shall find that the earliest form of protection for the feet, partook of the nature of sandals. The most ancient representations we possess of scenes in ordinary life, are the sculptures and paintings of early Egypt, and these the investigations of travelled scholars from most modern civilized countries have, by their descriptions and delineations, made familiar to us, so that the habits and manners, as well as the costume of this ancient people, have been handed down to the present time, by the work of their own hands, with so vivid a truthfulness, that we feel as conversant with their domestic manners and customs, as with those of any modern nation to which the book of the traveller would introduce us. Not only do their pictured relics remain to give us an insight into their mode of life, but a vast quantity of articles of all kinds, from the tools of the workmen, to the elegant fabrics which once decorated the boudoir of the fair ladies of Memphis and Carnac three thousand years ago, are treasured up in the museums, both public and private, of this and other countries.

With these materials, it is in no wise difficult to carry our history of shoemaking back to the earliest times, and even to look upon the shoemaker at his work, in the early days of Thothmes the third, who ascended the throne of Egypt, according to Wilkinson, 1495 years before Christ, and during whose reign, the Exodus of the Israelites occurred. The first of our plates contains a copy of this very curious painting, as it existed upon the walls of Thebes, when the Italian scholar Rossellini copied it for his great work on Egypt. The shoemakers are both seated upon low stools (real specimens of such articles may be seen in the British Museum), and are both busily employed, in the formation of the sandals then usually worn in Egypt, the first workman is piercing with his awl the leather thong, at the side of the sole, through which the straps were passed, which secured the sandal to the foot;

before him is a low sloping bench, one end of which rests upon the ground; his fellow-workman is equally busy, sewing a shoe, and tightening the thong with his teeth, a primitive mode of working which is occasionally indulged in at the present day. Above their heads is a goodly row of sandals, probably so placed, to attract a passing customer; the shops in the East being then, as now, entirely open and exposed to every one who passed. As the ancient Egyptian artists knew nothing of perspective, the tools of the workmen that lie around, are here represented above them: they bear, in some instances, a resemblance to those used in the present day; the central instrument, above the man who pierces the tie of the sandal, having the precise shape of the shoemaker’s awl still in use, so very unchanging are articles of utility. In the same manner, the semicircular knife used by the ancient Egyptians three or four thousand years ago, is precisely similar to that of our modern curriers, and is thus represented in a painting at Thebes, of that remote antiquity. The workman, it will be noticed, cuts the leather upon a sloping bench, exactly like that of the shoemaker already engraved.

The warmth and mildness of the East, rendered a close, warm shoe unnecessary; and, indeed, in the present day, they partake there more of the character of slippers; and the foot, thus unconfined by tight shoes, and always free in its motion, retained its full power and pliability: and the custom, still retained in the East, of holding a strap of leather, or other substance, between the toes, is represented in the Theban paintings; the foot thus becoming a useful second to the hand.

Many specimens of the shoes and sandals of the ancient Egyptians, may be seen in our national museum. Wilkinson, in his work on the “Manners and Customs” of this people says, “Ladies and men of rank paid great attention to the beauty of their sandals: but on some occasions, those of the middle classes who were in the habit of wearing them, preferred walking barefooted; and in religious ceremonies, the priests frequently took them off while performing their duties in the temple.”

The sandals varied slightly in form; those worn by the upper classes, and by women, were usually pointed and turned up at the end, like our skates, and the Eastern slippers of the present day. Some had a sharp flat point, others were nearly round. They were made of a sort of woven or interlaced work, of palm leaves and papyrus stalks, or other similar materials; sometimes of leather, and were frequently lined within with cloth, on which the figure of a captive was painted; that humiliating position being thought suitable to the enemies of their country, whom they hated and despised, an idea agreeing perfectly with the expression which so often occurs in the hieroglyphic legends, accompanying a king’s name, where his valor and virtues are recorded on the sculptures: “you have trodden the impure Gentiles under your powerful feet.”

The example selected for pl. I., fig. 1, is in the British Museum, beneath the sandal of a mummy of Harsontiotf; and the captive figure is evidently, from feature and costume, a Jew: it thus becomes a curious illustration of scripture history.

Upon the same plate, figs. 3 and 4 delineate two fine examples of sandals formed as above described, of the leaf of the palm. They were brought from Egypt by the late Mr. Salt, consul-general, and formed part of the collection sold in London, after his death, and are now in the British Museum. They are very different to each other in their construction, and are of that kind worn by the poorer classes; flat slices of the palm leaf, which lap over each other in the centre, form the sole of fig. 2, and a double band of twisted leaves secures and strengthens the edge; a thong of the strong fibres of the same plant is affixed to each side of the instep, and was secured round the foot. The other (fig. 3) is more elaborately platted, and has a softer look; it must in fact have been as a pad to the foot, exceedingly light and agreeable in the arid climate inhabited by the people for whom such sandals were constructed; the knot at each side to which the thong was affixed, still remains.

The sandals with curved toes, alluded to above, and which frequently appear upon Egyptian sculpture, and generally upon the feet of the superior classes, are exhibited in the woodcut here given: and in the Berlin museum, one is preserved of precisely similar form, which has been engraved by Wilkinson, and is here copied, pl. I., fig. 1. It is particularly curious, as showing how such sandals were held upon the feet, the thong which crosses the instep being connected with another, passing over the top of the foot and secured to the sole, between the great toe and that next to it, so that the sole was held firmly, however the foot moved, and yet it allowed the sandal to be cast off at pleasure.

Wilkinson says that “shoes or low boots, were also common in Egypt, but these I believe to have been of late date, and to have belonged to Greeks; for since no persons are represented in the paintings wearing them, except foreigners, we may conclude they were not adopted by the Egyptians, at least in a Pharaonic age. They were of leather, generally of green color, laced in front by thongs, which passed through small loops on either side; and were principally used, as in Greece and Etruria, by women.”

One of the close-laced shoes is given in pl. I., fig. 4, from a specimen in the British museum. It embraces the foot closely, and has a thong or two over the instep, for drawing it tightly over the foot, something like the half-boot of the present day. The sole and upper leather are all in one piece, sewn up the back and down the front of the foot; a mode of construction practised in England, as late as the fourteenth century.

The elegantly-ornamented boot here given, is copied from a Theban painting, and is worn by a gayly-dressed youth from one of the countries bordering on Egypt: it reaches very high, and is a remarkable specimen of the taste for decoration, which thus early began to be displayed upon this article of apparel.

In Sacred Writ are many early notices of shoes, when Moses exhorts the Jews to obedience (Deut. ch. xxix.), he exclaims, “Your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot.” In the book of Ruth (chap. iv.) we have a curious instance of the important part performed by the shoe in the ancient days of Israel, in sealing any important business: “Now this was the manner in former time in Israel, concerning redeeming, and concerning changing, for to confirm all things; a man plucked off his shoe, and gave it to his neighbor; and this was a testimony in Israel.” Ruth, and all the property of three other persons, are given over to Boaz, by the act of the next kinsman, who gives to him his shoe in the presence of witnesses. The ancient law compelled the eldest brother, or nearest kinsman by her late husband’s side, to marry a widow, if her husband died childless. The law of Moses provided an alternative, easy in itself, but attended with some degree of ignominy. The woman was in public court to take off his shoe, spit before his face, saying, “so shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother’s house:” and probably, the fact of this refusal was stated in the genealogical registers in connexion with his name; which is probably what is meant by his “name shall be called in Israel, the house of him that hath his shoe loosed.” (Deut. xxv.) The editor of Knight’s Pictorial Bible, who notices these curious laws, also adds that the use of the shoe in the transactions with Boaz, are perfectly intelligible; the taking off the shoe, denoting the relinquishment of the right, and the dissolution of the obligation in the one instance, and its transfer in the other. The shoe is regarded as constituting possession, nor is this idea unknown to ourselves, in being conveyed in the homely proverbial expression by which one man is said to “stand in the shoes of another,” and the vulgar idea of “throwing an old shoe after you for luck,” is typical of a wish, that temporal gifts or good fortune may follow you. The author last quoted says, that even at the present time, the use of the shoe as a token of right or occupancy, may be traced very extensively in the East; and however various and dissimilar the instances may seem at first view, the leading idea may be still detected in all. Thus among the Bedouins, when a man permits his cousin to marry another, or when a husband divorces his runaway wife, he usually says, “She was my slipper, I have cast her off.” (Burckhardt’s “Bedouins,” p. 65.) Sir F. Henniker, in speaking of the difficulty he had in persuading the natives to descend into the crocodile mummy pits, in consequence of some men having lost their lives there, says: “Our guides, as if preparing for certain death, took leave of their children; the father took the turban from his own head, and put it upon that of his son; or put him in his place, by giving him his shoes, ‘a dead man’s shoes.’ ” In western Asia, slippers left at the door of an apartment, denote that the master or mistress is engaged, and no one ventures on intrusion, not even a husband, though the apartment be his wife’s. Messrs. Tyerman and Bennet, speaking of the termagants of Benares, say, “If domestic or other business calls off one of the combatants before the affair is duly settled, she coolly thrusts her shoe beneath her basket, and leaves both upon the spot, to signify that she is not satisfied;” meaning to denote by leaving her shoe, that she kept possession of the ground and the argument during her unavoidable absence.

From all these instances, it would appear that this employment of the shoe, may, in some respects, be considered analogous to that which prevailed in the middle ages, of giving a glove as a token of investiture, when bestowing lands and dignities.

It should be observed that the same Hebrew word (naal), signifies both a sandal and a shoe, although always rendered shoe in our translation of the Old Testament. Although the shoe is mentioned in Genesis and other books of the Bible, little concerning its form or manufacture can be gleaned—that it was an article of common use among the ancient Israelites, we may infer from the passage in Genesis, chap. xiv., verse 23, the first mention we have of this article, where Abraham makes oath to the king of Sodom “that he will not take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet,” thus assuming its common character.

The Gibeonites (Josh. ix. 5–13) “came with old shoes and clouted [mended] upon their feet”—the better to practise their deceit; and therefore they said, “Our shoes are become old by reason of the very long journey.”

Isaiah “walked three years naked and barefoot:” he went for this long period without shoes, contrary to the custom of the people, and as “a wonder unto Egypt and Ethiopia.”

That it became an article of refinement and luxury, is evident from the many other notices given; and the Jewish ladies seem to have been very particular about their sandals: thus we are told, in the Apocryphal book of Judith, although Holofernes was attracted by the general richness of her dress and personal ornaments, yet it was “her sandals ravished his eyes:” and the bride in Solomon’s Song is met with the exclamation, “How beautiful are thy feet with sandals, O prince’s daughter!”

The ancient bas-reliefs at Persepolis, and the neighborhood of Babylon, second only in their antiquity and interest to those of Egypt, furnish us with examples of the boots and shoes of the Persian kings, their nobles, and attendants; and they were executed, as appears from historical, as well as internal evidence, in the days of Xerxes and Darius.

From these sources, we here select the three following specimens. No. 1 is a half-boot, reaching considerably above the ankle; and it is worn by

the attendant who has charge of a chariot, upon a bas-relief now in the British museum, brought from Persepolis by Sir R. Ker Porter, by whom it was first engraved and described in his interesting volumes of travels in that district. No. 2, also from Persepolis, and engraved in the work just quoted, delineates another kind of boot, or high shoe, reaching only to the ankle, round which it is secured by a band, and tied in front in a knot, the two ends of the band hanging beneath it. This shoe is very common upon the feet of these figures, and is generally worn by soldiers or the upper classes: the attendants or councillors round the throne of these early sovereigns, frequently wear such shoes. No. 3, seen upon the feet of personages in the same rank of life, is here copied from a Persepolitan bas-relief, representing a soldier in full costume. It is a remarkably interesting example, as it very clearly shows the transition state of this article of dress, being something between a shoe and a sandal: in fact, a shoe may be considered as a covered sandal; and, in the instance before us, the part we now term “upper leather” consists of little more than the lacings of the sandals, rendered much broader than usual, and fastened by buttons along the top of the foot. The shoe is thus rendered peculiarly flexible, as the openings over the instep allow of the freest movement. Such were the forms of the earliest shoes.

Close boots reaching nearly to the knee where they are met by a wide trowser, are not uncommon upon these sculptures, being precisely the same in shape and appearance as those worn by the modern Cossacks. Indeed, there is nothing in the way of boots that may not be found upon the existing monuments of early nations, precisely resembling the modern ones. The little figure here given might pass for a copy of the boots worn by one of the soldiers of King William the Third’s army, and would not be unworthy of uncle Toby himself, yet it is carefully copied from a most ancient specimen of Etruscan sculpture, in the possession of Inghirami, who has engraved it in his learned work the “Monumenti Etruschi;” the original represents an augur, or priest, whose chief duty was to report and explain supernatural signs.

With the ancient Greeks and Romans, the coverings for the feet assumed their most elegant forms; yet in no instance does the comfort of the wearer appear to have been sacrificed, or the natural play of the foot interfered with—that appears to have been especially reserved for “march-of-intellect” days. Vegetable sandals, termed Baxa, or Baxea, were worn by the lower classes, and as a symbol of their humility, by the philosophers and priests. Apuleius describes a young priest as wearing sandals of palm; they were no doubt similar in construction to the Egyptian ones, of which we have already given specimens, and which were part of the required and characteristic dress of the Egyptian priesthood. Such vegetable sandals were, however, occasionally decorated with ornaments to a considerable extent, and they then became expensive. The making of them in all their variety, was the business of a class of men called Baxearii; and these with the Solearii (or makers of the simplest kind of sandal worn, consisting of a sole with little more to fasten it to the foot than a strap across the instep) constituted a corporation or college of Rome.

The solea were generally worn by the higher classes only, for lightness and convenience, in the house; the shoes (calceus) being worn out of doors. The soccus was the intermediate covering for the foot, being something between the solea and the calceus; it was, in fact, precisely like the modern slipper, and could be cast off at pleasure, as it did not fit closely, and was secured by no tie. This, like the solea and crepida, was worn by the lower classes and country people; and hence, the comedians wore such cheap and common coverings for the feet, to contrast with the cothurnus or buskin of the tragedians, which they assumed, as it was adapted to be part of a grand and stately attire. Hence the term applied to theatrical performers—“brethren of the sock and buskin,” and as this distinction is both ancient and curious, specimens of both are here given from antique authorities. The side and front views of the sock (Nos. 1, 2) are copied from a painting of a buffoon, who is dancing in loose yellow slippers, one of the commonest colors in which the leather used for their construction was dyed. Such slippers were made to

fit both feet indifferently, but the more finished boots and shoes were made for one foot only from the earliest period. The cothurnus (fig. 3) was a boot of the highest kind, reaching above the calf of the leg, and sometimes as far as the knee. It was laced as the boots of the ancients always were, down the front, the object of such an arrangement being to make them fit the leg as closely as possible, and the skin of which they were made was dyed purple, and other gay colors; the head and paws of the wild animal were sometimes allowed to hang around the leg from the upper part of the cothurnus, to which it formed a graceful addition; an example is given upon our 2d plate, fig. 1, which is a side-view of such an ornamented boot, decorated all over with a pattern like the Grecian volute.

The sole of the cothurnus was of the ordinary thickness in general, but it was occasionally made much thicker by the insertion of slices of cork when the wearer wished to add to his height, and thus the Athenian tragedians, who assumed this boot as the most dignified of coverings for the feet, had the soles made unusually thick, in order that it might add to the magnitude and dignity of their whole appearance.

The unchanging nature of a commodious fashion capable of adoption by the lower classes, may be well illustrated by fig. 2, plate II., which delineates the shoe or sandal worn by the rustics of ancient Rome. It is formed of a skin turned over the foot, and secured by thongs passing through the sides, and over the toe, crossing each other over the instep, and secured firmly round the ankle. Any person familiar with the prints of Pinelli, pictures of the modern brigands of the Abruzzi, or the models of the latter worthies in terra-cotta, to be met with in most curiosity-shops, will at once recognise those they wear as being of the same form. The traveller who has visited modern Rome, will also remember to have seen them on the feet of the peasantry who traverse the Pontine marshes; and the older Irish, and the comparatively modern Highlander, both wore similar ones; they were formed of the skin of the cow or deer, with the hair on them, and were held on the feet by

Pl. 2

leather thongs. They were the simplest and warmest kind of foot-covering to be obtained, when every man was his own shoemaker.

There was a form of shoe worn at this early time, in which the toes were entirely uncovered, and of which an example is given in plate II., fig. 3. It is copied from a marble foot in the British museum. This shoe appears to be made of a pliable leather, which fits closely to the foot, for it was considered as a mark of rusticity to wear shoes larger than the foot, or which fitted in a loose and slovenly manner. The toes in this instance are left perfectly free; the upper leather is secured round the ankle by a tie, while a thong, ornamented by a stud in its centre, passing over the instep, and between the great and second toes, is secured to the sole in the manner of a sandal. In order that the ankle-bone should not be pressed on or incommoded in walking, the leather is sloped away, and rises around it to a point at the back of the leg.

None but such as had served the office of edile were allowed to wear shoes of a red color, which we may therefore infer to have been a favorite color for shoes, as it appears to have been among the Hebrews, and as it is still in western Asia. The Roman senators wore shoes or buskins of a black color, with a crescent of gold or silver on the top of the foot. The emperor Aurelian forbade men to wear red, yellow, white, or green shoes, permitting them to be worn by women only, and Heliogabalus forbade women to wear gold or precious stones in their shoes, a fact which will aid us in understanding the sort of decoration indulged in by the earliest Hebrew women, of whose example Judith may be quoted as an instance, to which we have already referred.

The Roman soldiers generally wore a simple form of sandal similar to the example given in plate II., fig. 4, and which is a solea fastened by thongs; yet they, in the progress of riches and luxury, went with the times and merged into foppery, so that Philopoemon, in recommending soldiers to give more attention to their warlike accoutrements than to their common dress, advises them to be less nice about their shoes and sandals, and more careful in observing that their greaves were kept bright and fitted well to their legs. When about to attack a hill-fort or go on rugged marches, they wore a sandal shod with spikes similar to that in plate II., fig. 5, and at other times they had soles covered with large clumsy nails like those of fig. 6, which exhibits the sole of a Roman soldier’s sandal, covered with nails, and which was discovered in London some few years ago; it is copied from an engraving in the Archæological album, and the shoe itself, which forms fig. 7, shows the length of these nails, and the way in which the upper leather was constructed of the sandal form, like those of the Persepolitan figures already alluded to. The Greeks and Romans used shoes of this kind as frequently as the early Persians, and in fig. 7, we have an example of such a combination of sandal and shoe as they wore, the upper leather being cut into a series of thongs, through which passes a broad band of leather, which turns not inelegantly round the upper part of the foot, and is secured by passing many times round the ankle and above it, where it is buckled or tied.

The Roman shoes then had various names, and were distinct badges of the position in society held by the wearer. The solea, crepida, pero, and soccus, belonged to the lower classes, the laborers and rustics, the caliga was principally worn by soldiers, and the cothurnus by tragedians, hunters, and horsemen, as well as by the nobles of the country.

The latter kind of boot, in form and color, as we have already hinted, was indicative of rank or office. Those worn by senators we have noticed, and it was a joke in ancient Rome against a man who owed respect solely to the accident of birth or fortune, that his nobility was in his heels. The boots of the emperors were frequently richly decorated, and the patterns still existing upon marble statues, show that they were ornamented in the most elaborate manner. A specimen from the noble statue of Hadrian in the British museum, forms fig. 8, of our plate, and it is impossible to conceive anything of the kind more elegant and tasteful in its decorations. Real gems and gold were employed by some of the Roman emperors to decorate their boots, and Heliogabalus wore exquisite cameos on his boots and shoes. Fig. 9, is a lower kind of boot, of the same make as fig. 3, but beautifully ornamented.

The Grecian ladies, according to Hope, wore shoes or half-boots, laced before and lined with the fur of animals of the cat tribe, whose muzzles or claws hung down from the top.

Ocrea was the name this boot got among the Romans; “Ocreas verdente puella,” (Juv. vi. sat.); which Dryden, ridiculously enough, translated “Spanish leather boots,” a term of his own time, forced to do service sixteen hundred years before.

The barbarous nations with whom the Romans held war, are upon the bas-reliefs of their conquerors, represented in close shoes or half-boots. Thus the Dacians wear the shoe represented in fig. 10, which laced across the instep, and was secured around the ankle with a band and ornamental button or stud. The Gauls wear the shoe given below, of the same form as that worn by our native ancestors when Julius Cæsar made his descent upon the British islands.