May 4, 2021 • 33 mins
It appears many eras in history have their own version of sneakerheads. In 15th-century Europe, nobles and commoners alike went absolutely nuts for a type of pointy shoe called the Crakow -- and people desperately wanted the longest, pointiest shoes possible. In this episode, Ben and special guest Matt Frederick, co-creator of Stuff They Don't Want You To Know, explore the origin of the Crakow (and how, eventually, governments made laws dictating how long a given person's pointy shoes could be).
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. As we begin today's episode,
which is a very special episode, by the way, one
I'm quite excited about. Why don't why don't all our
fellow ridiculous historians just take a gander at our feet?
What are you wearing? Uh? You know, are you? Are
(00:48):
you going more barefoot on natural in these our days
of pandemic? Maybe you got some house sandals. Maybe you
have some l A lights or other kind of uh,
they might be called gimmicky shoes. We'll we'll update you
on what our super producer Casey Pegram and our producer
Max Williams are wearing at some point in the future.
(01:12):
But today's episode is about shoes, maybe not the way
you think. And in today's episode, I am joined, I'm ben.
I'm joined by a very special guest. You've heard him
on the show before, you've heard us talk about him
on the show before. Fellow Ridiculous Historians, please join me
and welcoming the one the Only Mr Matt Frederick. Oh wow,
(01:38):
you messed up. You messed up, And let me back
in Oh, and the crowd goes wild. Not since that
terribly recorded hotel episode, have you seen or heard of
me on this show? Well? That was you were in
character for much of that episode as well, weren't you. Yeah?
I just remember I was trying to engineer it and
(02:00):
figure out how to get my voice on it, and
it was in a hotel. That's right, we had We
have been through. Uh, We've been through some weird trenches
in this In these careers of ours, Matt, We've recorded
in hotels, We've been stuck in airports and cars together.
There are some pretty neat stories that we can maybe
(02:22):
share along the way. My first question for you, Matt,
dear dear friend, kind of shoes are you wearing? Bro? Oh,
let me check the old feet here. I've got on
some Columbia like water resistant hiking shoes right now, hiking
shoes on. Okay, I like it. Uh, Folks, you may
not know this, but Matt and I are are somewhat
(02:43):
similar in that we both were both weirdly prepared for things.
So are you weirdly prepared to take a hike? Under
my desk where I'm recording right now, there's a go bag.
So there's one in my car, and there's one immediately
here where I can reach down and grab it. Have
got I'm hiking books already. We're ready to go, throw
the kid on my shoulder, get out of here, just
(03:05):
in case the zoom meeting goes wrong. Go yeah, and
they can go very wrong, as we have all learned,
but nothing yet. So well, we'll see. It's funny. We're
we're sitting here chatting about something going wrong and an
ambulance literally went by or a police officer. I'm not
sure which siren that was, but it immediately went off
on in Ben's zoom. Yes, that's true. I am. I
(03:30):
live in a somewhat infamous part of town here in Atlanta,
as do you, Matt. Actually, now I think about it,
and you know, as a recordings sometimes this will be
the street I live on as a main artery for
the city, so we'll hear what I sometimes call non
consensual ubers that are that are taking people to and fro.
(03:50):
But today's episode is something that Matt, I had specifically
asked you to hang out with and talk about with
me here because there's a little bit of background. Um
to say it in a sentence today we're talking about
this weird tendency for people to where very very pointy shoes.
(04:11):
Like not, when we say pointy, we're not talking about
high heels that come to a point, or maybe pointy
dress shoes. We're talking about something that you have actually
seen in the modern day matt in your neck of
the Atlanta woods, right, Yes, it's it's very true. We
are talking about shoes that you may imagine only seeing
(04:33):
in ancient medieval paintings, maybe seeing gosh, where else would
you see something like this, Maybe if you've been to
a museum at some point and you've seen armor that
soldiers would wear, very specific soldiers from specific places. But yes,
in my neck of the woods there exists these types
(04:54):
of extremely pointy shoes. I cannot stress how extreme the
point is. I live on Beufford Highway in Atlanta, which
is an extremely ethnically diverse area, and there is a
place close to where I live where there are a
lot of dance clubs and music clubs that primarily are
(05:17):
for Spanish speaking clientele and audience, and lots of music
that comes directly out of Mexico and around these clubs.
Let's say at a q T that is somewhat close
to one of these clubs. If you're there at a
certain time on the weekend, on a certain night, you
will see shoes that defy both gravity and generally practical.
(05:45):
Yes that it just doesn't make any sense until you
begin to look into it, And that's what this whole
episode is all about. Right, That's that's a great way
to kick us off, because the story of weirdly elongated
point to shoe is much much older than some of
us might think today. We're talking about something that if
(06:06):
your fancy is known as crack Ow or Poulaye, these
are a kind of shoe with these dr Seussi and
like pointy tips, and they take their name and what
most people believe is their origin from the actual Crackow,
the capital of Poland. And like Matt said, if you've
ever been reading through an historical book about medieval Europe,
(06:31):
or you've looked closely at medieval art, then you've probably
seen these shoes before. You might not know that they
have a story, but visually they're they're pretty hard to miss.
They look bizarre, they look impractical, they look weird, and
they were They were super duper popular, not just in Poland,
but in England, all kinds of other parts of Europe.
(06:53):
Can we can we talk a little bit about what
the crack ow just in general looked like. Oh yeah,
imagine a shoe that is largely leather. It doesn't have
the soul the way you'd imagine maybe your shoes do
right now, doesn't have the kind of support that your
shoes have. It's almost like a a leather wrap that's
(07:15):
very hardy. Now imagine that at the end of that
leather wrap that's around your foot, right by your toes,
it extends out anywhere from six to fifteen inches, maybe
even twenty inches twenty four inches if you're real nasty,
uh and Weirdly, this is one of those fashion trends
(07:39):
that has occurred throughout history, because there there are moments
in trends where and I hate to separate it this way,
but it is very much separated this way in books
and in the research that we've got about this topic,
separating men's fashion and women's fashion. This is one of
those cases where it was mostly men, young men who
were wearing these shoes. Yea, and in the europe in case,
(08:00):
they were often a little more wealthy. They were the
leisure class, because, as you can imagine just hearing that
description these shoes, you couldn't get a lot of work
done do it wearing these? You know. Uh people the
people wore these were often considered gentlemen. They would stuff
those pointy toes with hay or whale bone support. It
(08:23):
was very important to them that they had perky points
on their shoes. Nobody wanted floppity points, which I'm sure
is the technical terms. Well, imagine the imagine the exactly
imagine the materials you're you're talking about mostly leather and
maybe a couple of other materials in there, So that
would be crazy floppy if it was just some leather
at the end. So yeah, the whale bone and also,
(08:45):
well that's pretty that's like, that's not the thing the
average peasant would have. Yes, they wouldn't. It wouldn't be
like your rid old is whalebone. Gee, But who would
have whalebone? The tailors who are making corsets right around
that time and other pieces of clothing material that used
whalebone quite often and was sold to people who are
(09:07):
wealthy enough to buy the majority of their clothes. So,
of course, the more conservative aspects of society, the rulers
of society at the time, they hated this stuff. Of course,
it had a silly name given by its opponents, these
crack ow We're called devil's fingers, which is maybe I'm
(09:29):
thinking of ladies fingers, but today that sounds like it
would be the name of a snack made by hostess
or something. You know what I mean, Devil's fingers, But that,
you know, anything that's out of the ordinary, you can
imagine a large religious institution such as the Church of
England would take issue with it, because if it's different
(09:50):
and strange, it probably has something the fare us going
on in your mind, as the Church of England. So
let's say you're back in this time. He got your
first pair of pikes, as they might have also been called,
(10:10):
and you're thinking, who do I need to thank for
these amazing shoes? I am officially ankled down like one
of the coolest people on the planet. Who should I
send the thank you card? Too? Well, that would be
count Folk of Andrew. At least that's what a lot
of historians say that he is the source of this
(10:31):
in Europe, and the story about why he's the source
of this in Europe is speculative, but sad. The idea
is that he started poo lanes as a trend because
he had some sort of foot deformity. Yeah, and that's
kind of the right. That's like maybe the origins of it.
(10:51):
But we can't tell for sure, because we do know
that pointed toad shoes were a thing well before this.
It was it was something that was happening prior to
count Folk. Count FULK. I really like count FULK. It
sounds like a villain. Just the name Folk sounds sort
of like if he were in the Marvel universe, he
(11:13):
would be a villain. Yes, yes, yes, but so so
before we count FULK. In the in what would be
considered the Middle East or the Near Middle East, there
has been a tradition of somewhat pointed shoes since good
Lord with three thousand b C. Three excuse me, excuse me,
(11:34):
not BC anymore? What is it? D c E. There
we go before a common era, the Istanbul not Constantinople,
kind of kind of situation going on BC and b C. Yeah,
you're right. It was around for millennia literally, and Folk,
it was also sometimes known as Folk of Jerusalem, went
(11:57):
on a crusade in eleven twenty and he stayed in
the Middle East until his death twenty three years later
in three So this leads historians to conjecture it's possible
that crusaders in the twelfth century were influenced by the
trends they saw in the Middle East, and then when
they came back to the West, they carried some of
(12:20):
these fashions with them, which is pretty common during those
sorts of regional conflicts. Oh yeah, what do you bring back?
Spices for sure, because if you control the spice, you
know how it goes. Then, um, fabrics of any kind.
We know the history of silk and how it ended
up going across the world, and really other types of
(12:40):
clothing that were just would be considered highly unique, somewhat
bizarre to the rest of society in a different part
of the world. Yeah, and this happens during, of course,
the many branches of international trade over history to games
like what we would recognize his chess today, migrate along
trade patterns. I love that you point out spices and
(13:03):
food that kind of stuff, especially I would say spices
or more commodity at this point than they are considered
a food stuff, right, Like this is a species that
used peppercorns for currency once upon a time. It's true
we dig spices. I mean you think about the first
time something like Gara Massala made its way across. I
(13:25):
remember the first time it made its way across to
my palate. I haven't been the same since. Yes, it's
a very specific change. We had a meeting about it
at work. Uh so, yeah, I I know exactly what
you mean there. And this is something that people still
experience today. It's a very common part of human psychology.
(13:47):
You want to be unique, you want to make a statement,
and you also want to be up on the newest
cool thing, whether it's the modern era or the Middle Ages.
Everybody kind of wants to keep up with the Joneses
and stay in front of the other, whomever the not
Joneses are or the count folks in his in his crew. Yeah,
(14:09):
and so there's an issue here of exaggeration that occurs
because even the longest pointy toad shoes in the Middle
East had nothing on what was happening in Europe once
they found out about this pattern. Because the Middle Eastern
shoes didn't have points that were more than half of
(14:31):
the length of the foot they were, they were usually
they were just like a modest point about two inches
beyond the longest toe. That's it. That's it. So they
look they look cool, they look distinctive, but you can
also do stuff in them. Yeah, for sure, for sure.
And and it's it's something we should point out that
(14:54):
the style of shoe was pretty dang popular until century.
And it's not like it just showed up, made a
huge splash everybody wore and then it went away. It's
just one of those trends that it became popular and
it continued on and around that time, kind of early
on in the trend in the Western world with these
(15:15):
pointed shoes. It wasn't like they were going ham in
the West either about this. They weren't trying to go
two feet out from the foot like some of the
craziness we mentioned at the top of this episode. They were.
There was a pretty standard thing. It was just okay,
well there's a pointed shoe and it looks pretty good.
But it never really went away. It just kind of
stuck around for a while until the fourteenth century. Okay,
(15:39):
the fourteenth century. They are these Western merchants who were
trading in the Baltic region. They travel to areas of
the Baltics where these shoes are quite popular, and they say, oh,
we've discovered these, and so they call it the Poland
fashion or poo lane to style, and they take it
back to Western Europe. According to the Museum of London,
(16:03):
the term Polane evolves from French term that just means
from Poland. So they were basically calling them Poland shoes
or later Krackow shoes. That's right. And as it became
more and more popular. How this as the trend grew,
so did there we go, Yes, there's a toe based
(16:26):
arms race here to be the coolest kid. You could
literally say that with the foolish lengths for fashion, the Polanes,
we think, oh and shout out to our research associate Gabe.
That's that's that's one of the things he really wanted
to hit. So they have a Gabe. If Gabe ever
puts in a pun or writes writes a cool turner phrase,
(16:50):
we're very quick to platform and we were at no
pun left behind show. You know, sometimes that doesn't always
work out, but it's about the principle. So so the
ones we think of today when we think of point
issues in in historical documents and in illustrations from the time.
They probably did come about in forty or roundabouts in
(17:13):
Poland and crack out. And then Polish nobles came to
visit the Polish wife of the British King Richard the second.
And when these nobles came, of course they showed out.
They're wearing their best, their coolest gear, right, you know,
the good cloak, the clean breaches, and of course they're
(17:35):
going to rock the crackhouse. What are you talking about? Yeah, dude,
they show up in court and you know how English
court went at that time, you know, like and we're
not talking about a court like with a judge. They're
just in these massive rooms where everyone is just displaying
and hanging out. And one they're just having so much
merriment because they don't have to do anything. All of
(17:55):
their servants are doing everything for them. They just get
to have a good old time. And you, oh, there
were some English dudes over they're going good. God, do
you see the points on those shoes? The audacity audacity
do not have a power for us? What what what?
What would be? What's the reason for this? But certainly
(18:17):
they're doing something with those points, right, I know, it's not,
but they have flexed too hard. You're right, You're right.
We must make we must make our own and much
more pointy. Yeah, indeed, and that is a that is
a you know, obviously a historical, accurate, historical reenactment. We
(18:44):
translated that from the dialect of the time. It's true.
And the thing is, they would have known a little
bit about slightly pointy shoes, just that ridiculously pointy shoes,
because they've they had that. Um, do you remember I
(19:04):
Like Big Butts by Serve Mix a Lot. No, I
can't remember that song at all. It's just my mantra
for every day, right, because you're never constantly singing that
whenever we're not on air. Yeah, the I've picked her.
Maybe those two, those two folks in court are like
the two women at the beginning of I Like Big Butts.
(19:25):
Oh my god, Becky, look at her, Oh my god, Becky,
look at his shoes. They're so pointing and they are big.
So you know, I guess it really does mesh up.
Do you think he's one of those Polish nobles boyfriends.
I'm gonna do the whole thing. No, No, we're not
(19:45):
gonna get to the verse but uh, but maybe right,
write the lyrics if you'd like, we'd love to hear
from you. You can post them at Ridiculous Historians on Facebook. So, yeah,
this is something they've never seen it taken to this level.
And so for over a century, actually a ton of
mainly as you said earlier, Matt, a ton of male
(20:07):
nobles were wearing these in Europe, and it became such
a craze that every person who could afford shoes wore
some form of polis. Though in general we're talking about
the big tippers. They really are the realm of nobility
because those folks can just walk around. I'll say it.
(20:29):
I'll say it clown shoes there when they get to
that point, and not a comment on any current trends,
but when they get to that point in medieval Europe,
they are like clown shoes. They're hard to walk it.
It almost seems as though they are purposely designed to
have comedic effect. There's the perfect time to talk about
(20:56):
the walking styles of people's before the advent of shoes,
modern shoes, with the types of heels that we have,
even even with the you know, the most lowly of
the shoe. Right now that you can find anywhere to
the fanciest of shoe. There is a style that we
(21:16):
really have, and it affects the way humans walk because
these shoes make us walk on the heel of our
foot a lot of times. But if you're wearing the
types of shoes that a lot of the folks will
be wearing back then you're going to be walking on
the ball of your foot right up there by your toes.
So it's a very different walking style. And you can
see some videos online, by the way, like Historical Body
(21:39):
Mechanics by Roland. I don't know how to say it correctly,
but cha, I think brilliant stuff really shows you the
difference in the way people walked back then as opposed
to the way they walk now. And these giant pointed
shoes really would have had an effect on your ability
to walk around. Yeah, you're a slowly right. It's strange
(22:01):
because there are so many things in the history of
fashion that seemed purposely designed two exhibit the fact, or
to draw attention to the fact that the person rocking
these fashions does not have to work the same way
that other people do, you know what I mean. And
some of those traditions can be quite horrific, like the
(22:23):
practice of foot binding right in China. So this this
isn't to that level. But it's clearly it's just silly.
It's clear like your fleet. You clearly want people to
know that you are, you know, like you're down with
polish shoes. And you also don't have to have a
(22:43):
job almost but well, yeah, it's pretty much that you don't.
You at least don't have to walk in in any distance.
You can go from one side of the room to
the other. And if you shuffle a little bit, if
you you don't have to move your feet a little differently,
that's fine. But you're not going down to the market ever.
In those carriage, right right right, it better be a
(23:06):
good carriage, and in the driver of the carriage must
also have plains, but they can't be as big as mine,
says the noble. And that's actually that's the next thing
that's really weird about this. So we know that fashion
trends often not always, They evolve the number of different
ways through societies. But fashion trends can often or trends
of any sort can often start in the upper echelons
(23:28):
of society and then they filter down and as they
filter down increasingly toward whatever the you would think of
as the commoner. At that point in that society, they
become less important and less prestigious to the people who
are there in the first place. This happens today with
all sorts of things. We do have one important difference
(23:48):
though here in the modern day in the US, as
no one is going to make a law that's like
if if for some reason, silly hats very particularly, what
are those hats that like go on the back of
your head. Kids wear them and they have a little
propeller you know I'm talking about. I have no idea
what those are called? Um de bops spinning hats, Yeah,
(24:13):
deally bops. Okay, so what so like let's say, uh,
let's say the current president and La Musk and like
Dame Judy Dench Angela Merkel, they all just start wearing
those deily bops and no one says anything. It's just
super cool. Is it called a propeller hat or know
(24:34):
what it's called? I honestly have no idea spinner hat,
spinner hat. So so just for this example, which I
think I might have paid us into a quarter here, okay,
we'll try to sew it up. So imagine that happened
in one and then other people for some reason also
thought it was cool and they were like, I want
to be like the Titans of industry. Queen Elizabeth's got
(24:57):
one too, why not? And they're like, I want to
wear one in these Well, then now you totally could.
There would probably still be that same pattern where it's
where in the the well to do like these hats,
less and less is more and more people rock them,
and the spinners get larger and larger and larger and longer,
and soon we don't need cars or helicopters. Thousands die.
(25:22):
But but the difference here is that at this time
in Europe, the authorities were capable of making things called
some story laws, which meant that if they didn't like
other people rocking their style, they could make laws that
told certain classes of society, based upon where they were
in a larger hierarchy, what they were allowed to wear
(25:44):
or do or say often as well or eat. That's
a good one based right, yeah, yeah, exactly, So we
have the breakdown, right, Yes, if you're a commoner, you
must you can wear a pool, but it must be short,
very short. I think you go up to how off
of a foot for a commoner? Now that's all you get,
that's correct. Now, if you've leveled up and you are
(26:07):
a bourgeoisie, you may have a round of foot, let's
say one foot. Now if you are a night oh goodness,
well you may have one and a half feet. Now
that's great. One and a half feet for a night,
really functional, really great for the battlefield, really good for
just everything. Jousting, sword battles, even archery. Has really helped
(26:33):
out with the old poutine, poutine and then let's do
it the hats. The shoes were also often stuffed with
with kurds and grady and can you imagine the smell?
Not only is it old leather, but all that stuff
in it. Have you ever you've ever smelled poutine and thought,
(26:55):
I wish this smelled a little bit more like feet,
like unwashed feet. You know, I really have just add
some blue cheese in there, like you know, get a
little off the road and do that. But we're not
done here. So nights are great. Nights are awesome. But
what if you're a noble, Oh my god, you may
have all the way up to two feet. But if
(27:16):
you're here hanging out with the royalty, and maybe you're
a prince two and a half for you, pal, guess
what you win? You win the crack owl game. You've
got two and a half feet of extra leather just
flopping around unless you get that great whalebone in. In
this case, you're noble, so you've definitely got the bones
two and a half feet straight up. Points son, that's
(27:39):
how they talk. No, you're right like that at that point.
Just physically structurally, those whalebone inserts might not be the
best choice. So some of these princes these top of
the top of the shoe game, they had to use
these gold or silver chains attached from the tip of
the shoe to their knees in order to walk. This
(28:00):
looks even more clownish, but it's the origin of this
French expression. And my French is terrible. I'll have to
ask Casey later. But it means they're very to live
on a large foot. So it's literally it's very on
the nose, are very on the toe. It is referring
to that, and and people knew it was extravagant, and
(28:22):
they knew it wasn't practical, and that was part of
the peel you would. You would also want to this
is so weird. So we okay, we know about novelty
footwear in the modern day. Like I had Rebot pumps,
I had l a lights when I was a kid.
I like that. They did this too, but these were
(28:43):
grown ups. They had like a little bell on the
on the shoes sometimes when they were you know, at
a party, at a soiree, or they would even make
an ornament in the shape of a bird beak and
the's a dangle from the tip of the shoe. So
everywhere they were walking, they were not only flopping he
flopping around, but it was also like a coming throughs. Yeah, sorry, sorry,
(29:10):
that's perfect. I really really wish we had our friend
Jonathan Strickling on the show right now because he has
so much experience just in the Middle Ages. Uh man,
He's just been around everywhere he goes. He goes out
in the middle of Georgia and just time travels at
least once a year. Careful, careful, men. It's it's like
(29:32):
beetlejuice rules, you know. Yeah, we just have to be careful,
that's all I'm saying. It's he's always listening. Is the issue.
I don't know how. I'm just saying I think he's
played a character before where he had one of those
one of one of those pointy shoes and then he
had the thing tied around his knee. I'm pretty sure
I've seen him in that get up. Yeah, you know,
(29:54):
he kills it at Renaissance, at the annual Renaissance Fair
Renaissance Festival. Oh yeah, the that's the rural time travel
thing I was talking about. Cool. I'm glad they're the
same thing. I thought I was picking up what you
were putting down, but I didn't want to presume. Oh
no worries. So don't say Jonathan Strickland again. You're saying, yeah, seriously,
(30:14):
that it happened. This is something that happens on this show.
I should have mentioned this earlier. Sometimes we get so
into an idea, a strange story that we're exploring that
we end up making a two part episode. And that's
what you and I have just done. Man, this is
this all this right now is just part one. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
(30:38):
So somehow we have warped into the first episode of two.
I really thought this was all one big thing. Like I.
If you would have you know, if you were to
just say this to me in the middle of nowhere,
like it's happening right now, I'll be so confused. So yeah,
that's the that's that's the that's on me. You know, honestly,
(30:59):
I can't put on Casey or Max or Andrew. That
one's on me. But I can't wait for us to
continue on part two. Are you gonna stay for part two?
I guess? I mean if if you'll have me, Are
you kidding? Please? If we didn't have you on part two,
then it would be like a crack owl without without
(31:21):
the toe. What's the point? Oh wow, that did not last.
That did not last. I think it would be like
it would be like the crack owl without the whale bone.
It would just be real floppy. Yeah, that is Thank
you for saving everyone from a floppity part two. We're
gonna call it a day here, folks. Thanks as always
(31:42):
to our super producers Casey Pegram, our guest producers Andrew Howard,
Max Williams, and Alex Williams, who composed this banging track. Matt,
thank you so very much for joining us today. Sir.
The last word goes to you. It could be any
word you watch and then after that word, if the
(32:03):
spirit so moves you maybe could tell the rest of
our fellow ridiculous historians where they can find more of
your work. Last word, Jonathan, don't don't, don't do do
do do it seriously don't? Okay, alright, fine, fine, fine, um.
How about strange arrivals. That's it. That's really it. That's
(32:27):
all we got. And campell and ephemeral sees it two
and stuff they don't want you to know. If you're
not listening to stuff they don't want you to know,
get ready for something awesome that's about to happen on
that feed. So make sure you're over there. That's right, Yes, yes,
So Matt and I started stuff they don't want you
to know years and years ago, and we've done some
(32:49):
very weird things over our time on that show. We
have something extra special for you. This is Oh, it's
a weird way. Okay, we can't tell. We can't divulge
much for about that, other than we hope you tune
in for part two of kraw I don't know why
(33:09):
I've been saying it in an increasingly stentious accent off air.
Uh for pointy shoes. Yep, pointy shoes. Too extra point
you know, I don't know. Oh yeah. Just join us. Please,
we'll see you ex time. For more podcasts for my
(33:32):
heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. As we begin today's episode,
which is a very special episode, by the way, one
I'm quite excited about. Why don't why don't all our
fellow ridiculous historians just take a gander at our feet?
What are you wearing? Uh? You know, are you? Are
(00:48):
you going more barefoot on natural in these our days
of pandemic? Maybe you got some house sandals. Maybe you
have some l A lights or other kind of uh,
they might be called gimmicky shoes. We'll we'll update you
on what our super producer Casey Pegram and our producer
Max Williams are wearing at some point in the future.
(01:12):
But today's episode is about shoes, maybe not the way
you think. And in today's episode, I am joined, I'm ben.
I'm joined by a very special guest. You've heard him
on the show before, you've heard us talk about him
on the show before. Fellow Ridiculous Historians, please join me
and welcoming the one the Only Mr Matt Frederick. Oh wow,
(01:38):
you messed up. You messed up, And let me back
in Oh, and the crowd goes wild. Not since that
terribly recorded hotel episode, have you seen or heard of
me on this show? Well? That was you were in
character for much of that episode as well, weren't you. Yeah?
I just remember I was trying to engineer it and
(02:00):
figure out how to get my voice on it, and
it was in a hotel. That's right, we had We
have been through. Uh, We've been through some weird trenches
in this In these careers of ours, Matt, We've recorded
in hotels, We've been stuck in airports and cars together.
There are some pretty neat stories that we can maybe
(02:22):
share along the way. My first question for you, Matt,
dear dear friend, kind of shoes are you wearing? Bro? Oh,
let me check the old feet here. I've got on
some Columbia like water resistant hiking shoes right now, hiking
shoes on. Okay, I like it. Uh, Folks, you may
not know this, but Matt and I are are somewhat
(02:43):
similar in that we both were both weirdly prepared for things.
So are you weirdly prepared to take a hike? Under
my desk where I'm recording right now, there's a go bag.
So there's one in my car, and there's one immediately
here where I can reach down and grab it. Have
got I'm hiking books already. We're ready to go, throw
the kid on my shoulder, get out of here, just
(03:05):
in case the zoom meeting goes wrong. Go yeah, and
they can go very wrong, as we have all learned,
but nothing yet. So well, we'll see. It's funny. We're
we're sitting here chatting about something going wrong and an
ambulance literally went by or a police officer. I'm not
sure which siren that was, but it immediately went off
on in Ben's zoom. Yes, that's true. I am. I
(03:30):
live in a somewhat infamous part of town here in Atlanta,
as do you, Matt. Actually, now I think about it,
and you know, as a recordings sometimes this will be
the street I live on as a main artery for
the city, so we'll hear what I sometimes call non
consensual ubers that are that are taking people to and fro.
(03:50):
But today's episode is something that Matt, I had specifically
asked you to hang out with and talk about with
me here because there's a little bit of background. Um
to say it in a sentence today we're talking about
this weird tendency for people to where very very pointy shoes.
(04:11):
Like not, when we say pointy, we're not talking about
high heels that come to a point, or maybe pointy
dress shoes. We're talking about something that you have actually
seen in the modern day matt in your neck of
the Atlanta woods, right, Yes, it's it's very true. We
are talking about shoes that you may imagine only seeing
(04:33):
in ancient medieval paintings, maybe seeing gosh, where else would
you see something like this, Maybe if you've been to
a museum at some point and you've seen armor that
soldiers would wear, very specific soldiers from specific places. But yes,
in my neck of the woods there exists these types
(04:54):
of extremely pointy shoes. I cannot stress how extreme the
point is. I live on Beufford Highway in Atlanta, which
is an extremely ethnically diverse area, and there is a
place close to where I live where there are a
lot of dance clubs and music clubs that primarily are
(05:17):
for Spanish speaking clientele and audience, and lots of music
that comes directly out of Mexico and around these clubs.
Let's say at a q T that is somewhat close
to one of these clubs. If you're there at a
certain time on the weekend, on a certain night, you
will see shoes that defy both gravity and generally practical.
(05:45):
Yes that it just doesn't make any sense until you
begin to look into it, And that's what this whole
episode is all about. Right, That's that's a great way
to kick us off, because the story of weirdly elongated
point to shoe is much much older than some of
us might think today. We're talking about something that if
(06:06):
your fancy is known as crack Ow or Poulaye, these
are a kind of shoe with these dr Seussi and
like pointy tips, and they take their name and what
most people believe is their origin from the actual Crackow,
the capital of Poland. And like Matt said, if you've
ever been reading through an historical book about medieval Europe,
(06:31):
or you've looked closely at medieval art, then you've probably
seen these shoes before. You might not know that they
have a story, but visually they're they're pretty hard to miss.
They look bizarre, they look impractical, they look weird, and
they were They were super duper popular, not just in Poland,
but in England, all kinds of other parts of Europe.
(06:53):
Can we can we talk a little bit about what
the crack ow just in general looked like. Oh yeah,
imagine a shoe that is largely leather. It doesn't have
the soul the way you'd imagine maybe your shoes do
right now, doesn't have the kind of support that your
shoes have. It's almost like a a leather wrap that's
(07:15):
very hardy. Now imagine that at the end of that
leather wrap that's around your foot, right by your toes,
it extends out anywhere from six to fifteen inches, maybe
even twenty inches twenty four inches if you're real nasty,
uh and Weirdly, this is one of those fashion trends
(07:39):
that has occurred throughout history, because there there are moments
in trends where and I hate to separate it this way,
but it is very much separated this way in books
and in the research that we've got about this topic,
separating men's fashion and women's fashion. This is one of
those cases where it was mostly men, young men who
were wearing these shoes. Yea, and in the europe in case,
(08:00):
they were often a little more wealthy. They were the
leisure class, because, as you can imagine just hearing that
description these shoes, you couldn't get a lot of work
done do it wearing these? You know. Uh people the
people wore these were often considered gentlemen. They would stuff
those pointy toes with hay or whale bone support. It
(08:23):
was very important to them that they had perky points
on their shoes. Nobody wanted floppity points, which I'm sure
is the technical terms. Well, imagine the imagine the exactly
imagine the materials you're you're talking about mostly leather and
maybe a couple of other materials in there, So that
would be crazy floppy if it was just some leather
at the end. So yeah, the whale bone and also,
(08:45):
well that's pretty that's like, that's not the thing the
average peasant would have. Yes, they wouldn't. It wouldn't be
like your rid old is whalebone. Gee, But who would
have whalebone? The tailors who are making corsets right around
that time and other pieces of clothing material that used
whalebone quite often and was sold to people who are
(09:07):
wealthy enough to buy the majority of their clothes. So,
of course, the more conservative aspects of society, the rulers
of society at the time, they hated this stuff. Of course,
it had a silly name given by its opponents, these
crack ow We're called devil's fingers, which is maybe I'm
(09:29):
thinking of ladies fingers, but today that sounds like it
would be the name of a snack made by hostess
or something. You know what I mean, Devil's fingers, But that,
you know, anything that's out of the ordinary, you can
imagine a large religious institution such as the Church of
England would take issue with it, because if it's different
(09:50):
and strange, it probably has something the fare us going
on in your mind, as the Church of England. So
let's say you're back in this time. He got your
first pair of pikes, as they might have also been called,
(10:10):
and you're thinking, who do I need to thank for
these amazing shoes? I am officially ankled down like one
of the coolest people on the planet. Who should I
send the thank you card? Too? Well, that would be
count Folk of Andrew. At least that's what a lot
of historians say that he is the source of this
(10:31):
in Europe, and the story about why he's the source
of this in Europe is speculative, but sad. The idea
is that he started poo lanes as a trend because
he had some sort of foot deformity. Yeah, and that's
kind of the right. That's like maybe the origins of it.
(10:51):
But we can't tell for sure, because we do know
that pointed toad shoes were a thing well before this.
It was it was something that was happening prior to
count Folk. Count FULK. I really like count FULK. It
sounds like a villain. Just the name Folk sounds sort
of like if he were in the Marvel universe, he
(11:13):
would be a villain. Yes, yes, yes, but so so
before we count FULK. In the in what would be
considered the Middle East or the Near Middle East, there
has been a tradition of somewhat pointed shoes since good
Lord with three thousand b C. Three excuse me, excuse me,
(11:34):
not BC anymore? What is it? D c E. There
we go before a common era, the Istanbul not Constantinople,
kind of kind of situation going on BC and b C. Yeah,
you're right. It was around for millennia literally, and Folk,
it was also sometimes known as Folk of Jerusalem, went
(11:57):
on a crusade in eleven twenty and he stayed in
the Middle East until his death twenty three years later
in three So this leads historians to conjecture it's possible
that crusaders in the twelfth century were influenced by the
trends they saw in the Middle East, and then when
they came back to the West, they carried some of
(12:20):
these fashions with them, which is pretty common during those
sorts of regional conflicts. Oh yeah, what do you bring back?
Spices for sure, because if you control the spice, you
know how it goes. Then, um, fabrics of any kind.
We know the history of silk and how it ended
up going across the world, and really other types of
(12:40):
clothing that were just would be considered highly unique, somewhat
bizarre to the rest of society in a different part
of the world. Yeah, and this happens during, of course,
the many branches of international trade over history to games
like what we would recognize his chess today, migrate along
trade patterns. I love that you point out spices and
(13:03):
food that kind of stuff, especially I would say spices
or more commodity at this point than they are considered
a food stuff, right, Like this is a species that
used peppercorns for currency once upon a time. It's true
we dig spices. I mean you think about the first
time something like Gara Massala made its way across. I
(13:25):
remember the first time it made its way across to
my palate. I haven't been the same since. Yes, it's
a very specific change. We had a meeting about it
at work. Uh so, yeah, I I know exactly what
you mean there. And this is something that people still
experience today. It's a very common part of human psychology.
(13:47):
You want to be unique, you want to make a statement,
and you also want to be up on the newest
cool thing, whether it's the modern era or the Middle Ages.
Everybody kind of wants to keep up with the Joneses
and stay in front of the other, whomever the not
Joneses are or the count folks in his in his crew. Yeah,
(14:09):
and so there's an issue here of exaggeration that occurs
because even the longest pointy toad shoes in the Middle
East had nothing on what was happening in Europe once
they found out about this pattern. Because the Middle Eastern
shoes didn't have points that were more than half of
(14:31):
the length of the foot they were, they were usually
they were just like a modest point about two inches
beyond the longest toe. That's it. That's it. So they
look they look cool, they look distinctive, but you can
also do stuff in them. Yeah, for sure, for sure.
And and it's it's something we should point out that
(14:54):
the style of shoe was pretty dang popular until century.
And it's not like it just showed up, made a
huge splash everybody wore and then it went away. It's
just one of those trends that it became popular and
it continued on and around that time, kind of early
on in the trend in the Western world with these
(15:15):
pointed shoes. It wasn't like they were going ham in
the West either about this. They weren't trying to go
two feet out from the foot like some of the
craziness we mentioned at the top of this episode. They were.
There was a pretty standard thing. It was just okay,
well there's a pointed shoe and it looks pretty good.
But it never really went away. It just kind of
stuck around for a while until the fourteenth century. Okay,
(15:39):
the fourteenth century. They are these Western merchants who were
trading in the Baltic region. They travel to areas of
the Baltics where these shoes are quite popular, and they say, oh,
we've discovered these, and so they call it the Poland
fashion or poo lane to style, and they take it
back to Western Europe. According to the Museum of London,
(16:03):
the term Polane evolves from French term that just means
from Poland. So they were basically calling them Poland shoes
or later Krackow shoes. That's right. And as it became
more and more popular. How this as the trend grew,
so did there we go, Yes, there's a toe based
(16:26):
arms race here to be the coolest kid. You could
literally say that with the foolish lengths for fashion, the Polanes,
we think, oh and shout out to our research associate Gabe.
That's that's that's one of the things he really wanted
to hit. So they have a Gabe. If Gabe ever
puts in a pun or writes writes a cool turner phrase,
(16:50):
we're very quick to platform and we were at no
pun left behind show. You know, sometimes that doesn't always
work out, but it's about the principle. So so the
ones we think of today when we think of point
issues in in historical documents and in illustrations from the time.
They probably did come about in forty or roundabouts in
(17:13):
Poland and crack out. And then Polish nobles came to
visit the Polish wife of the British King Richard the second.
And when these nobles came, of course they showed out.
They're wearing their best, their coolest gear, right, you know,
the good cloak, the clean breaches, and of course they're
(17:35):
going to rock the crackhouse. What are you talking about? Yeah, dude,
they show up in court and you know how English
court went at that time, you know, like and we're
not talking about a court like with a judge. They're
just in these massive rooms where everyone is just displaying
and hanging out. And one they're just having so much
merriment because they don't have to do anything. All of
(17:55):
their servants are doing everything for them. They just get
to have a good old time. And you, oh, there
were some English dudes over they're going good. God, do
you see the points on those shoes? The audacity audacity
do not have a power for us? What what what?
What would be? What's the reason for this? But certainly
(18:17):
they're doing something with those points, right, I know, it's not,
but they have flexed too hard. You're right, You're right.
We must make we must make our own and much
more pointy. Yeah, indeed, and that is a that is
a you know, obviously a historical, accurate, historical reenactment. We
(18:44):
translated that from the dialect of the time. It's true.
And the thing is, they would have known a little
bit about slightly pointy shoes, just that ridiculously pointy shoes,
because they've they had that. Um, do you remember I
(19:04):
Like Big Butts by Serve Mix a Lot. No, I
can't remember that song at all. It's just my mantra
for every day, right, because you're never constantly singing that
whenever we're not on air. Yeah, the I've picked her.
Maybe those two, those two folks in court are like
the two women at the beginning of I Like Big Butts.
(19:25):
Oh my god, Becky, look at her, Oh my god, Becky,
look at his shoes. They're so pointing and they are big.
So you know, I guess it really does mesh up.
Do you think he's one of those Polish nobles boyfriends.
I'm gonna do the whole thing. No, No, we're not
(19:45):
gonna get to the verse but uh, but maybe right,
write the lyrics if you'd like, we'd love to hear
from you. You can post them at Ridiculous Historians on Facebook. So, yeah,
this is something they've never seen it taken to this level.
And so for over a century, actually a ton of
mainly as you said earlier, Matt, a ton of male
(20:07):
nobles were wearing these in Europe, and it became such
a craze that every person who could afford shoes wore
some form of polis. Though in general we're talking about
the big tippers. They really are the realm of nobility
because those folks can just walk around. I'll say it.
(20:29):
I'll say it clown shoes there when they get to
that point, and not a comment on any current trends,
but when they get to that point in medieval Europe,
they are like clown shoes. They're hard to walk it.
It almost seems as though they are purposely designed to
have comedic effect. There's the perfect time to talk about
(20:56):
the walking styles of people's before the advent of shoes,
modern shoes, with the types of heels that we have,
even even with the you know, the most lowly of
the shoe. Right now that you can find anywhere to
the fanciest of shoe. There is a style that we
(21:16):
really have, and it affects the way humans walk because
these shoes make us walk on the heel of our
foot a lot of times. But if you're wearing the
types of shoes that a lot of the folks will
be wearing back then you're going to be walking on
the ball of your foot right up there by your toes.
So it's a very different walking style. And you can
see some videos online, by the way, like Historical Body
(21:39):
Mechanics by Roland. I don't know how to say it correctly,
but cha, I think brilliant stuff really shows you the
difference in the way people walked back then as opposed
to the way they walk now. And these giant pointed
shoes really would have had an effect on your ability
to walk around. Yeah, you're a slowly right. It's strange
(22:01):
because there are so many things in the history of
fashion that seemed purposely designed two exhibit the fact, or
to draw attention to the fact that the person rocking
these fashions does not have to work the same way
that other people do, you know what I mean. And
some of those traditions can be quite horrific, like the
(22:23):
practice of foot binding right in China. So this this
isn't to that level. But it's clearly it's just silly.
It's clear like your fleet. You clearly want people to
know that you are, you know, like you're down with
polish shoes. And you also don't have to have a
(22:43):
job almost but well, yeah, it's pretty much that you don't.
You at least don't have to walk in in any distance.
You can go from one side of the room to
the other. And if you shuffle a little bit, if
you you don't have to move your feet a little differently,
that's fine. But you're not going down to the market ever.
In those carriage, right right right, it better be a
(23:06):
good carriage, and in the driver of the carriage must
also have plains, but they can't be as big as mine,
says the noble. And that's actually that's the next thing
that's really weird about this. So we know that fashion
trends often not always, They evolve the number of different
ways through societies. But fashion trends can often or trends
of any sort can often start in the upper echelons
(23:28):
of society and then they filter down and as they
filter down increasingly toward whatever the you would think of
as the commoner. At that point in that society, they
become less important and less prestigious to the people who
are there in the first place. This happens today with
all sorts of things. We do have one important difference
(23:48):
though here in the modern day in the US, as
no one is going to make a law that's like
if if for some reason, silly hats very particularly, what
are those hats that like go on the back of
your head. Kids wear them and they have a little
propeller you know I'm talking about. I have no idea
what those are called? Um de bops spinning hats, Yeah,
(24:13):
deally bops. Okay, so what so like let's say, uh,
let's say the current president and La Musk and like
Dame Judy Dench Angela Merkel, they all just start wearing
those deily bops and no one says anything. It's just
super cool. Is it called a propeller hat or know
(24:34):
what it's called? I honestly have no idea spinner hat,
spinner hat. So so just for this example, which I
think I might have paid us into a quarter here, okay,
we'll try to sew it up. So imagine that happened
in one and then other people for some reason also
thought it was cool and they were like, I want
to be like the Titans of industry. Queen Elizabeth's got
(24:57):
one too, why not? And they're like, I want to
wear one in these Well, then now you totally could.
There would probably still be that same pattern where it's
where in the the well to do like these hats,
less and less is more and more people rock them,
and the spinners get larger and larger and larger and longer,
and soon we don't need cars or helicopters. Thousands die.
(25:22):
But but the difference here is that at this time
in Europe, the authorities were capable of making things called
some story laws, which meant that if they didn't like
other people rocking their style, they could make laws that
told certain classes of society, based upon where they were
in a larger hierarchy, what they were allowed to wear
(25:44):
or do or say often as well or eat. That's
a good one based right, yeah, yeah, exactly, So we
have the breakdown, right, Yes, if you're a commoner, you
must you can wear a pool, but it must be short,
very short. I think you go up to how off
of a foot for a commoner? Now that's all you get,
that's correct. Now, if you've leveled up and you are
(26:07):
a bourgeoisie, you may have a round of foot, let's
say one foot. Now if you are a night oh goodness,
well you may have one and a half feet. Now
that's great. One and a half feet for a night,
really functional, really great for the battlefield, really good for
just everything. Jousting, sword battles, even archery. Has really helped
(26:33):
out with the old poutine, poutine and then let's do
it the hats. The shoes were also often stuffed with
with kurds and grady and can you imagine the smell?
Not only is it old leather, but all that stuff
in it. Have you ever you've ever smelled poutine and thought,
(26:55):
I wish this smelled a little bit more like feet,
like unwashed feet. You know, I really have just add
some blue cheese in there, like you know, get a
little off the road and do that. But we're not
done here. So nights are great. Nights are awesome. But
what if you're a noble, Oh my god, you may
have all the way up to two feet. But if
(27:16):
you're here hanging out with the royalty, and maybe you're
a prince two and a half for you, pal, guess
what you win? You win the crack owl game. You've
got two and a half feet of extra leather just
flopping around unless you get that great whalebone in. In
this case, you're noble, so you've definitely got the bones
two and a half feet straight up. Points son, that's
(27:39):
how they talk. No, you're right like that at that point.
Just physically structurally, those whalebone inserts might not be the
best choice. So some of these princes these top of
the top of the shoe game, they had to use
these gold or silver chains attached from the tip of
the shoe to their knees in order to walk. This
(28:00):
looks even more clownish, but it's the origin of this
French expression. And my French is terrible. I'll have to
ask Casey later. But it means they're very to live
on a large foot. So it's literally it's very on
the nose, are very on the toe. It is referring
to that, and and people knew it was extravagant, and
(28:22):
they knew it wasn't practical, and that was part of
the peel you would. You would also want to this
is so weird. So we okay, we know about novelty
footwear in the modern day. Like I had Rebot pumps,
I had l a lights when I was a kid.
I like that. They did this too, but these were
(28:43):
grown ups. They had like a little bell on the
on the shoes sometimes when they were you know, at
a party, at a soiree, or they would even make
an ornament in the shape of a bird beak and
the's a dangle from the tip of the shoe. So
everywhere they were walking, they were not only flopping he
flopping around, but it was also like a coming throughs. Yeah, sorry, sorry,
(29:10):
that's perfect. I really really wish we had our friend
Jonathan Strickling on the show right now because he has
so much experience just in the Middle Ages. Uh man,
He's just been around everywhere he goes. He goes out
in the middle of Georgia and just time travels at
least once a year. Careful, careful, men. It's it's like
(29:32):
beetlejuice rules, you know. Yeah, we just have to be careful,
that's all I'm saying. It's he's always listening. Is the issue.
I don't know how. I'm just saying I think he's
played a character before where he had one of those
one of one of those pointy shoes and then he
had the thing tied around his knee. I'm pretty sure
I've seen him in that get up. Yeah, you know,
(29:54):
he kills it at Renaissance, at the annual Renaissance Fair
Renaissance Festival. Oh yeah, the that's the rural time travel
thing I was talking about. Cool. I'm glad they're the
same thing. I thought I was picking up what you
were putting down, but I didn't want to presume. Oh
no worries. So don't say Jonathan Strickland again. You're saying, yeah, seriously,
(30:14):
that it happened. This is something that happens on this show.
I should have mentioned this earlier. Sometimes we get so
into an idea, a strange story that we're exploring that
we end up making a two part episode. And that's
what you and I have just done. Man, this is
this all this right now is just part one. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
(30:38):
So somehow we have warped into the first episode of two.
I really thought this was all one big thing. Like I.
If you would have you know, if you were to
just say this to me in the middle of nowhere,
like it's happening right now, I'll be so confused. So yeah,
that's the that's that's the that's on me. You know, honestly,
(30:59):
I can't put on Casey or Max or Andrew. That
one's on me. But I can't wait for us to
continue on part two. Are you gonna stay for part two?
I guess? I mean if if you'll have me, Are
you kidding? Please? If we didn't have you on part two,
then it would be like a crack owl without without
(31:21):
the toe. What's the point? Oh wow, that did not last.
That did not last. I think it would be like
it would be like the crack owl without the whale bone.
It would just be real floppy. Yeah, that is Thank
you for saving everyone from a floppity part two. We're
gonna call it a day here, folks. Thanks as always
(31:42):
to our super producers Casey Pegram, our guest producers Andrew Howard,
Max Williams, and Alex Williams, who composed this banging track. Matt,
thank you so very much for joining us today. Sir.
The last word goes to you. It could be any
word you watch and then after that word, if the
(32:03):
spirit so moves you maybe could tell the rest of
our fellow ridiculous historians where they can find more of
your work. Last word, Jonathan, don't don't, don't do do
do do it seriously don't? Okay, alright, fine, fine, fine, um.
How about strange arrivals. That's it. That's really it. That's
(32:27):
all we got. And campell and ephemeral sees it two
and stuff they don't want you to know. If you're
not listening to stuff they don't want you to know,
get ready for something awesome that's about to happen on
that feed. So make sure you're over there. That's right, Yes, yes,
So Matt and I started stuff they don't want you
to know years and years ago, and we've done some
(32:49):
very weird things over our time on that show. We
have something extra special for you. This is Oh, it's
a weird way. Okay, we can't tell. We can't divulge
much for about that, other than we hope you tune
in for part two of kraw I don't know why
(33:09):
I've been saying it in an increasingly stentious accent off air.
Uh for pointy shoes. Yep, pointy shoes. Too extra point
you know, I don't know. Oh yeah. Just join us. Please,
we'll see you ex time. For more podcasts for my
(33:32):
heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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