English, 1550–60.
Once belonging to a fashion-conscious resident of Elizabethan Cambridge, these shoes are striking for their elaborate slashes and decorative cuts. The design allowed the owner’s brightly coloured stockings to show through the gaps in the black leather. The shoes are worn and patched with leather. Discovered in the ‘Shoemaker’s Room’ in Corpus Christi College, they had presumably been taken in for repairs.
Image: Reproduced by the permission of the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology. Accession no. MAA-1883.692B
