# How mediaeval people walked



## Brian G Turner (Sep 15, 2017)

This video makes an interesting argument - that the lack of strong shoes in the mediaeval period means people walked very differently to how we do now:


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## farntfar (Sep 15, 2017)

I always imagined elves (like Legolas tripping over the snow of Cadharas) on their toes like that.
It presumably means I imagined all the others (including shoeless hobbits and more or less medieval Gondorans) clumping about on their heels.
But apparently they should all have been on their toes. (except dwarves with great iron shoes.)


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## Dave (Sep 15, 2017)

Isn't that "mincing"? At what point did mincing become effeminate and "heel-walking" more masculine? As he says in the video, heel-walking is very lazy. I don't think British shoes are quite as "framed" as US and European shoes though - is there a shoe expert in the house? Some US shoes even have metal bars in the soles - that was why everyone had to take off their shoes at airport X-ray machines for several years. I have noticed that walking boots and walking shoes have become softer over time - less have the thick rubber sole, and more are almost like running shoes. Rock Climbing shoes are very thin, almost like ballet shoes - you need to be able to feel the rock with your toes. All very interesting!


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## HareBrain (Sep 15, 2017)

Interesting. However he contradicts himself somewhat. You can't "search" with the ball of your foot if you use the leaning-forward technique to walk, because the foot needs to come down to stop you falling -- you can't retract it easily if it does find a wasp or a slug.

I've tried the forefoot+lean technique for walking (which I learned from trying to run properly) and it feels more efficient to me, because really all you're doing with your legs is lifting them and setting them down. To go faster, you just lean further forwards, and top walking speed is probably faster than with the heel-strike technique. It does take some getting used to, though, and it probably looks a bit weird.


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## The Big Peat (Sep 15, 2017)

I'm not sure relying on a fencing manual for proof of how people walked makes sense. You don't walk how you fight and pretty much every martial art I've ever done has emphasised getting up on your toes. One national US taekwondo coach used to strap tacks on his students feet when training but I doubt he did that in his every day life.

Minor quibble aside, interesting stuff. Cheers Brian.


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## sknox (Sep 15, 2017)

Yeah, I would need to see evidence rather than just a re-imagining. I'm thinking of the use of wooden shoes, for example, which were used all across Europe. I'm trying to picture Roman soldiers marching like that for hours a day, days at a time. I'm trying to picture a Saxon shield wall on tip-toe. Also, I've seen videos of Amazon tribes people and they don't walk that way. I just did a quick search on YouTube on Amazon tribes and on African tribes. It's hard to get shots of the feet, but in the bits I found, nobody walked that way.

Just sayin'.


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## Montero (Sep 15, 2017)

Speaking as a re-enactor, I am always pleased to see how the past actually was being questioned and discussed, but I'm not convinced this guy has got it right. (Edited to add Took a while writing this sknox added the same theme in the meantime.) Herewith various thoughts

1. Barefoot running and walking - even less protection than light medieval shoes. However running and walking are two different things and it is also different if you are usually a shoe wearer but try barefeet, vs someone who is always barefeet.

Starting with running

Zola Budd - not detecting an difference in body posture in this video (I am referring to the being upright part of the Medieval video)






but not able to see the feet.

So looked at video about barefoot running and you have the balls of the feet striking first






And yes, with the kind of impact you get on your heels with running, you don't want to do heel strike. Also noting that it is in no way a mincing action.

And for a bonus - a habitual barefoot runner vs someone in shoes






Walking

Well got rather buried in instructional and aspirational lifestyle videos and gave up, but what little I could see the walking was less heel strike than in shoes, but again not seeing the extreme posture of the Medieval video.


2. Peasant walking and noble walking was very, very different. I have read that peasants were pigeon toed and maybe a bit hunched forwards as they tended to walk with heavy weights on their backs, nobles had dance training, turned out toes and upright posture.

There was a documentary about Louis the Sun King, famous for his dancing






And for a bonus - 




In the Louis documentary, and can't find it by skimming through, there was an example of a how they saw peasants dancing - it was heavy footed, clumsy and the comedy interlude.
And now in part contradicting myself on peasant posture - where people carry things on their heads, which included food vendors in the middle ages - then the posture is very good. So no one rule.

3. Shoes - the early high heeled shoes didn't have a steel shank in the instep. If you put your full weight on the heel you'd break your expensive shoe. I saw that in one of Lucy Worsley's on dance - think it was this one, but again on skimming through couldn't find the right bit.







So that is where you'd have the on the balls of the foot tending towards what could be called mincing sort of walk.


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## Montero (Sep 15, 2017)

@sknox - regarding Roman legionaries, they wore sturdy hob nailed sandals, so not cushioned, because leather sole, but fairly good foot protection. Maybe towards barefoot action, rather than full on heel-toe, but not convinced anything as fully toe as the medieval vid.


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## Montero (Sep 15, 2017)

Further thought as re-enactor - I have trundled around in reproduction leather soled shoes with hob nails - and you wore thick socks. So shoe wasn't cushioning, but the sock was.
Clogs were stuffed with hay to make them fit and keep your feet warm.


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## DelActivisto (Sep 15, 2017)

In the New Age arena, of learning to be more in tune with nature, this is referred to as "Fox walking," perhaps because foxes, being canids, are digitigrade, whereas we now usually walk in a, hmm, elephantigrade manner. In fact, some people think that because we've abandoned this way of walking, we now have more back problems, because whenever you "cow walk," you place stress directly upon your y axis, whereas Fox Walking places more of your weight into the x axis. The sole and toes of the foot are extended, and this allows you to detect hazards like he said in the video, and also allows for your weight to come down more smoothly. 

Unfortuntely, Fox walking attracts too much attention while walking through the grocery store, unless I'm wearing silks and moccasins and then I pretty much just go with it.


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## Montero (Sep 16, 2017)

Further thought occurs to me - kind of general assumption (including my posts) of people either wearing shoes or not wearing shoes. Certainly have had conversations with folks who were kids just post war of how shoes were for best - so you walked to school bare foot then put shoes and socks on just before you got there, took them off to go home again. Making sure they didn't wear out.
Now I used to go barefoot on the way home from school in hot weather - and put my shoes back on just before my house so my parents didn't see me being disreputable. It wasn't a don't wear it out thing.


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## sknox (Sep 16, 2017)

Just in case this horse needs further beating ... 

People lived in many different ways. How did a fisherman walk? How about a shepherd or a woodcutter? A fuller or a tanner? There are just far too many scenarios to make the kind of blanket statements made in that video. I wonder, too, whether biology and physics have more to do with how anyone in any era walked than does their footwear or lack thereof.

Still, I did enjoy watching Tipping Man (soon to be a milder alternative to Burning Man).


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## Montero (Sep 17, 2017)

Shepherd I think would stride out - reading I think it was one of Jane Duncan's fictionalised books about her life in Scotland, WW1 to just after WW2 - there was a comment from a hillsman about how he hated cities because you couldn't get into your stride, forever dodging people and taking big steps and little steps.


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## thaddeus6th (Sep 17, 2017)

Dave, on that note, there's a history of male (including military) fashions being adopted by women and then being seen as effeminate and abandoned by men. Berets aren't worn much by men outside of the military, (epaulettes are a bit of an exception). High-heeled shoes were, I think, originally court shoes for men. Pink used to be the masculine colour a couple of centuries ago.

It's a bit like the fashion equivalent of S and Z. Both are used in British English but because the Americans only use Z, people assume that S = British, which isn't the case.


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## DelActivisto (Sep 17, 2017)

thaddeus6th said:


> Dave, on that note, there's a history of male (including military) fashions being adopted by women and then being seen as effeminate and abandoned by men. Berets aren't worn much by men outside of the military, (epaulettes are a bit of an exception). High-heeled shoes were, I think, originally court shoes for men. Pink used to be the masculine colour a couple of centuries ago.
> 
> It's a bit like the fashion equivalent of S and Z. Both are used in British English but because the Americans only use Z, people assume that S = British, which isn't the case.



Now I'm going to, obviously, have to dress some of my medieval men in pink outfits with high heels and berets for senate/parliament meetings.


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## Danny McG (Sep 17, 2017)

Montero said:


> Shepherd I think would stride out - reading I think it was one of Jane Duncan's fictionalised books about her life in Scotland, WW1 to just after WW2 - there was a comment from a hillsman about how he hated cities because you couldn't get into your stride, forever dodging people and taking big steps and little steps.



Vague memories that was also in a James Herriot book


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## thaddeus6th (Sep 18, 2017)

Del Activisto, Sir Ulrich von Liechtenstein was a famous medieval jouster. He was also a cross-dresser, (those who've read Kingdom Asunder may recognise shades of him in Sir James Seidmore). It turns out being a cross-dressing warrior poet is something you can get away with even in medieval times, providing you're rich and hard as nails.

[This reminds me a bit of when a pair of cross-dressers were attacked a few years ago by drunken thugs. Unfortunately for the thugs, both cross-dressers were also professional cage-fighters. It did not end well for the inebriated ones].


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## Montero (Sep 18, 2017)

Doing 17th century re-enactment, gentleman's evening wear involves lace collars, ribbons on the silk jackets, long curls and pearl drop ear-rings. There has been the odd occasion when locals took exception, however one shout of "<regimental name> to me!" brings more of the regiment thundering in to the rescue. Not be at the level of cage fighters, but pike block in particular is certainly at the level of rugby players. Also, even when drunk, military habits are useful as everyone is well trained to form up into a block and march off - that is intimidating in itself.


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## Dave (Sep 18, 2017)

Fashions change over time but men and women have always cross dressed. There are many recorded complaints of women dressing too masculine in the Elizabethan period, but as rightly pointed out, the men were the peacocks then, and what the men wore and the women were copying was more like what we would think of as modern women's dress than we would men's. It is probably also wrong to think that the cross dressing was done as a kind of feminist revolt, but certainly the right clothes do have power, in the 'clothes maketh the man' way.


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## The Ace (Sep 18, 2017)

I tend to come down harder on my heels when wearing _caligae_ (I seldom wear socks), because there's no raised heel in them, and your foot is continuously flat.  I also spend a lot of time barefoot.

While I have flat feet anyway, my walking doesn't change whatever I'm wearing.


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