The archaeological and the historical record suggests that this new fashion item was widely adopted by England’s medieval society and that, by the late 14th century, almost every type of shoe was at least slightly pointed, even in children. Shoe pointiness would eventually became so extreme that in 1463 King Edward IV passed a law limiting toe-point length to less than two inches within London.
The adoption of this latest flavour of footwear was not without its risks. Research conducted on medieval human skeletal remains from Cambridge in England, shows that hallux valgus of the big toe – commonly know as bunions – was surprisingly widespread at the time.
Modern clinical research has shown that the development of bunions is often linked to wearing tight, ill-fitting footwear. Accordingly, the research suggests that people in late medieval England paid a high price for footwear fashion – in bunions and broken bones.
