Patten (shoe)
Encyclopedia
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
until the early 20th century. Pattens were worn outdoors over a normal shoe, held in place by leather
Leather
Leather is a durable and flexible material created via the tanning of putrescible animal rawhide and skin, primarily cattlehide. It can be produced through different manufacturing processes, ranging from cottage industry to heavy industry.-Forms:...
or cloth bands, with a wooden or later wood and metal sole. Pattens functioned to elevate the foot above the mud
Mud
Mud is a mixture of water and some combination of soil, silt, and clay. Ancient mud deposits harden over geological time to form sedimentary rock such as shale or mudstone . When geological deposits of mud are formed in estuaries the resultant layers are termed bay muds...
and dirt (including human effluent
Effluent
Effluent is an outflowing of water or gas from a natural body of water, or from a human-made structure.Effluent is defined by the United States Environmental Protection Agency as “wastewater - treated or untreated - that flows out of a treatment plant, sewer, or industrial outfall. Generally refers...
and animal dung
Feces
Feces, faeces, or fæces is a waste product from an animal's digestive tract expelled through the anus or cloaca during defecation.-Etymology:...
) of the street, in a period when road
Road
A road is a thoroughfare, route, or way on land between two places, which typically has been paved or otherwise improved to allow travel by some conveyance, including a horse, cart, or motor vehicle. Roads consist of one, or sometimes two, roadways each with one or more lanes and also any...
and urban
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
paving was minimal.
Etymology
The word patten probably derives from the Old FrenchOld French
Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...
pate meaning hoof or paw.
Women continued to wear pattens in muddy conditions until the nineteenth or even early 20th century. In appearance, they may resemble contemporary clogs
Clog (shoe)
A clog is a type of footwear made in part or completely from wood.The Oxford English Dictionary defines a clog as a "thick piece of wood", and later as a "wooden soled overshoe" and a "shoe with a thick wooden sole"....
or sandals
Sandal (footwear)
Sandals are an open type of outdoor footwear, consisting of a sole held to the wearer's foot by straps passing over the instep and, sometimes, around the ankle...
, but though historical usage was apparently not always consistent, the term now is used only to describe protective overshoes worn over another pair of shoes.
Medieval period
Pattens were worn during the Middle AgesMiddle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
outdoors and in public places over (outside) the thin soled shoe
Shoe
A shoe is an item of footwear intended to protect and comfort the human foot while doing various activities. Shoes are also used as an item of decoration. The design of shoes has varied enormously through time and from culture to culture, with appearance originally being tied to function...
s of that era
Era
An era is a commonly used word for long period of time. When used in science, for example geology, eras denote clearly defined periods of time of arbitrary but well defined length, such as for example the Mesozoic era from 252 Ma–66 Ma, delimited by a start event and an end event. When used in...
. Pattens were worn by both men and women during the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, and are especially seen in art from the 15th century
1400-1500 in fashion
Fashion in 15th century Europe was characterized by a series of extremes and extravagances, from the voluminous gowns called houppelandes with their sweeping floor-length sleeves to the revealing doublets and hose of Renaissance Italy...
: a time when poulaine
Poulaine
Crakows or crackowes were a style of shoes with extremely long toes very popular in the 15th century. They were so named because the style was thought to have originated in Kraków, then the capital of Poland. They began in the late 14th century and fell from fashion after about 1480–90...
s, shoes with very long pointed toes, were particularly in fashion.
Medieval pattens were known in English by the terms: 'patyns', 'clogges', and 'galoches', but the original shades of meaning and distinction between these terms is now unclear. Medieval and Early Modern overshoes are now all usually referred to as 'pattens' for convenience.
Types
There were three main types of pattens: one with a wooden 'platform' sole raised from the ground by either with wooden wedges or iron stands. The second variant had a flat wooden sole often hingeHinge
A hinge is a type of bearing that connects two solid objects, typically allowing only a limited angle of rotation between them. Two objects connected by an ideal hinge rotate relative to each other about a fixed axis of rotation. Hinges may be made of flexible material or of moving components...
d. The third type had a flat sole made from stacked layers of leather
Leather
Leather is a durable and flexible material created via the tanning of putrescible animal rawhide and skin, primarily cattlehide. It can be produced through different manufacturing processes, ranging from cottage industry to heavy industry.-Forms:...
. Some later European varieties of these pattens had a laminated sole: light wooden inner sections with leather above and below. In earlier varieties of pattens, dating from the Twelfth-Century on, the stilt
Stilt
Stilt is a common name for several species of birds in the family Recurvirostridae, which also includes those known as avocets. They are found in brackish or saline wetlands in warm or hot climates....
or wedge variety were more common. From the late 14th century, the flat variety became increasingly common. Leather pattens became fashionable in the 14th and 15th centuries, and in London appear to have begun to be worn as shoes over hose in the 15th century, spreading to a much wider section of the public. Most London patten soles were constructed of alder
Alder
Alder is the common name of a genus of flowering plants belonging to the birch family . The genus comprises about 30 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, few reaching large size, distributed throughout the North Temperate Zone and in the Americas along the Andes southwards to...
, willow
Willow
Willows, sallows, and osiers form the genus Salix, around 400 species of deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere...
or poplar
Poplar
Populus is a genus of 25–35 species of deciduous flowering plants in the family Salicaceae, native to most of the Northern Hemisphere. English names variously applied to different species include poplar , aspen, and cottonwood....
wood
Wood
Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...
s.
In 1390, the Diocese of York
Diocese of York
The Diocese of York is an administrative division of the Church of England, part of the Province of York. It covers the city of York, the eastern part of North Yorkshire, and most of the East Riding of Yorkshire....
forbade clergy
Clergy
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....
from wearing pattens and clogs in both church and in processions, considering them to be indecorous: "contra honestatem ecclesiae". Conversely, the famous Spanish rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
Solomon ben Abraham Ibn Adret
Shlomo ben Aderet
Shlomo ben Aderet was a Medieval rabbi, halakhist, and Talmudist. He is widely known as the Rashba , the Hebrew acronym of his title and name: Rabbi Shlomo ben Aderet.The Rashba was born in Barcelona, Spain, in 1235...
, "the Rashba", (ca. 1233-ca.1310) was asked if it was permissible to wear "patines" on Shabbat
Shabbat
Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...
, to which he replied that it was the custom of "all the wise in the land" to wear them, and certainly permitted.
Since shoes of the period had thin soles, pattens were commonly used mainly because of unpaved roads and also that indoor stone floors were very cold in winter. Furthermore, refuse in cities – animal especially horse dung
Feces
Feces, faeces, or fæces is a waste product from an animal's digestive tract expelled through the anus or cloaca during defecation.-Etymology:...
and human effluent
Effluent
Effluent is an outflowing of water or gas from a natural body of water, or from a human-made structure.Effluent is defined by the United States Environmental Protection Agency as “wastewater - treated or untreated - that flows out of a treatment plant, sewer, or industrial outfall. Generally refers...
(from chamber pot
Chamber pot
A chamber pot is a bowl-shaped container with a handle, and often a lid, kept in the bedroom under a bed or in the cabinet of a nightstand and...
s)– was usually thrown directly into the street (often with minimal advance warning). Making full foot contact with such an unpleasant surface was, understandably, highly undesirable. Thus, pattens tended to only make contact with the ground through two or three strips of wood and raised the wearer up considerably, sometimes by four inches (ten centimetres) or more in contrast to clogs which usually have a low, flat-bottomed sole integral to the shoe.
Early Modern period
Gentry
Gentry denotes "well-born and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past....
or gentlemen) commonly wore high riding boot
Riding boot
A riding boot is a boot made to be used for horse riding. The classic boot comes high enough up the leg to prevent the leathers of the saddle from pinching the leg of the rider, has a sturdy toe to protect the rider's foot when on the ground, and has a distinct heel to prevent the foot from sliding...
s, thus pattens seem only to have been worn by women and working-class men in outdoor occupations. Since dress hem
Hem
To hem a piece of cloth is to sew a cut edge in such a way as to prevent unraveling of the fabric.There are many different styles of hems of varying complexities. The most common hem...
s extended down to the feet for most of this period, it was necessary to raise the hem above the ground to keep the dress clean even in well-swept and paved streets. The motto
Motto
A motto is a phrase meant to formally summarize the general motivation or intention of a social group or organization. A motto may be in any language, but Latin is the most used. The local language is usual in the mottoes of governments...
of the London Worshipful Company of Pattenmakers
Worshipful Company of Pattenmakers
The Worshipful Company of Pattenmakers is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. The Pattenmakers, who were incorporated by Royal Charter in 1670, were makers of wooden-soled overshoes. Pattens were helpful in walking through the muddy streets of London. However, with the advent of...
, the former representative guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
for this trade, was and remains: Recipiunt Fœminæ Sustentacula Nobis, Latin for Women Receive Support From Us. The 19th century invention of cheap rubber galoshes gradually displaced the patten, as did the widespread use of urban
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
paving
Pavement (architecture)
A pavement in architecture is a stone or tile structure, the pavement, which can serve as a floor or an external feature. Pavements can be made of flagstones which are used for things like paving gardens, tiles also there were mosaics which were commonly used by the Romans.When along the side of...
, especially elevated, paved pathways only for pedestrian
Pedestrian
A pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, whether walking or running. In some communities, those traveling using roller skates or skateboards are also considered to be pedestrians. In modern times, the term mostly refers to someone walking on a road or footpath, but this was not the case...
s- the now ubiquitous sidewalk
Sidewalk
A sidewalk, or pavement, footpath, footway, and sometimes platform, is a path along the side of a road. A sidewalk may accommodate moderate changes in grade and is normally separated from the vehicular section by a curb...
s or pavements.
Etiquette and Practicality
Wearing of pattens inside church was discouraged, if not outright forbidden: perhaps because of the noise they made, the oft-commented "clink" being the consensus term for the sound; Jane AustenJane Austen
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...
wrote of the "ceaseless clink of pattens" referring to life in Bath. To talk excessively and too loudly was coined to be as if one: "had your "tongue run (or go) on pattens", used by Shakespeare and others. In houses, pattens were taken off with hats (for men) and overcoats upon entering, not doing so being considered rude and inconsiderate by bringing dirt inside - literally a faux pas or wrong step. The aunt of the Brontë
Brontë
The Brontës were a nineteenth-century literary family associated with Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. The sisters, Charlotte , Emily , and Anne , are well-known as poets and novelists...
Sisters, Miss Branwell, seems to have been considered notably eccentric for wearing her pattens indoors:
Pattens were not always easy to walk in, and despite their practical intention, literary evidence suggests that they could appear, at least to males, as a further aspect of feminine frailty and dependency. Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man...
recorded in his Diary for January 24, 1660:
From the Middle Period Poems of John Clare
John Clare
John Clare was an English poet, born the son of a farm labourer who came to be known for his celebratory representations of the English countryside and his lamentation of its disruption. His poetry underwent a major re-evaluation in the late 20th century and he is often now considered to be among...
(1820s):
-
("hitops" are high boots)
From Thomas HardyThomas HardyThomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
's The WoodlandersThe WoodlandersThe Woodlanders is a novel by Thomas Hardy. It was published in 1887.-Plot summary:The story takes place in a small woodland village called Little Hintock, and concerns the efforts of an honest woodsman, Giles Winterborne, to marry his childhood sweetheart, Grace Melbury...
of 1887, though set earlier in the century:
Other uses of the term
The word could also be used as a term for a wooden soled shoe, that is a chopineChopineA chopine is a type of women's platform shoe that was popular in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. Chopines were originally used as a patten, clog, or overshoe to protect the shoes and dress from mud and street soil....
or clogClog (shoe)A clog is a type of footwear made in part or completely from wood.The Oxford English Dictionary defines a clog as a "thick piece of wood", and later as a "wooden soled overshoe" and a "shoe with a thick wooden sole"....
, as opposed to an overshoe, until at least the nineteenth century. The word was also used for the traditional wooden outdoor shoes of JapanJapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and other Asian countries. What are in effect snowshoeSnowshoeA snowshoe is footwear for walking over the snow. Snowshoes work by distributing the weight of the person over a larger area so that the person's foot does not sink completely into the snow, a quality called "flotation"....
s for mud, as used by wildfowlers, boatmen, and Coast GuardCoast guardA coast guard or coastguard is a national organization responsible for various services at sea. However the term implies widely different responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with customs and security duties to being a volunteer organization tasked with...
s may also be called pattens, or "mud-pattens". These are shaped boards attached to the sole of a shoe, which extend sideways well beyond the shape of the foot, and therefore are a different sort of footwear from the patten discussed here.
"Horse-pattens" were used on horses, especially for ploughPloughThe plough or plow is a tool used in farming for initial cultivation of soil in preparation for sowing seed or planting. It has been a basic instrument for most of recorded history, and represents one of the major advances in agriculture...
ing muddy fields. The word was also used for ice-skateIce skatingIce skating is moving on ice by using ice skates. It can be done for a variety of reasons, including leisure, traveling, and various sports. Ice skating occurs both on specially prepared indoor and outdoor tracks, as well as on naturally occurring bodies of frozen water, such as lakes and...
s, as it is in French (patiner, to skate).
The Worshipful Company of Pattenmakers
In LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, the Worshipful Company of PattenmakersWorshipful Company of PattenmakersThe Worshipful Company of Pattenmakers is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. The Pattenmakers, who were incorporated by Royal Charter in 1670, were makers of wooden-soled overshoes. Pattens were helpful in walking through the muddy streets of London. However, with the advent of...
remains the Livery CompanyLivery CompanyThe Livery Companies are 108 trade associations in the City of London, almost all of which are known as the "Worshipful Company of" the relevant trade, craft or profession. The medieval Companies originally developed as guilds and were responsible for the regulation of their trades, controlling,...
, formerly guildGuildA guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
of the Patten-makers, or Patteners, and their adopted church remains St Margaret PattensSt Margaret PattensSt Margaret Pattens is a Church of England church in the City of London, located on Eastcheap near the Monument. The dedication is to St. Margaret of Antioch.-History:...
. The first record of the guild dates to 1379, and there was still a pattenmaker listed in a London Trade Directory in the 1920s. A notice, probably 18th century, in the Guild Church still requests ladies to remove their pattens on entering; other English churches have similar signs, and in one case, a board with pegs for ladies to hang them on.
External links
- Pattens and Overshoes in 15th Century Art
- Excavated German patten
- Scroll down to Finding a Patten of John Gough for good photos of a circle-type patten, and good text on Early Modern pattens
- Several examples of 18th century women's pattens
- Pattens from Manchester Art Gallery
- Website of The Worshipful Company of Pattenmakers, history page
- Elaborate Victorian pattens
- http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?image=10405441&wwwflag=2&imagepos=3A Midwife going to a labour’, by Thomas RowlandsonThomas RowlandsonThomas Rowlandson was an English artist and caricaturist.- Biography :Rowlandson was born in Old Jewry, in the City of London. He was the son of a tradesman or city merchant. On leaving school he became a student at the Royal Academy...
, 1811]