page_title: Byzantine dress
section_title: Shoes
hierarchical_section_title: Byzantine dress / Shoes
caption_attribution_description: English: The central motif of a cross suggests that this pair of leather shoes was made for a priest, although they could also have been worn by an upper-class man. Many poor people in this period went barefoot, including shoemakers, while those who could afford to wore sandals (government officials); slippers (monks and clergy); or boots (soldiers and laborers).
context_page_description: Byzantine dress changed considerably over the thousand years of the Empire, but was essentially conservative. The Byzantines liked colour and pattern, and made and exported very richly patterned cloth, especially Byzantine silk, woven and embroidered for the upper classes, and resist-dyed and printed for the lower. A different border or trimming round the edges was very common, and many single stripes down the body or around the upper arm are seen, often denoting class or rank. Taste for the middle and upper classes followed the latest fashions at the Imperial Court. As in the West during the Middle Ages, clothing was very expensive for the poor, who probably wore the same well-worn clothes nearly all the time; this meant in particular that any costume owned by most women needed to fit throughout the full term of a pregnancy.
context_section_description: Not many shoes are seen clearly in Byzantine Art because of the long robes of the rich. Red shoes marked the Emperor; blue shoes, a sebastokrator; and green shoes a protovestiarios.
  The Ravenna mosaics show the men wearing what may be sandals with white socks, and soldiers wear sandals tied around the calf or strips of cloth wrapped round the leg to the calf. These probably went all the way to the toes (similar foot-wrappers are still worn by Russian other ranks).
  Some soldiers, including later Imperial portraits in military dress, show boots nearly reaching the knee - red for the Emperor. In the Imperial Regalia of the Holy Roman Emperors there are shoes or slippers in Byzantine style made in Palermo before 1220. They are short, only to the ankle, and generously cut to allow many different sizes to be accommodated. They are lavishly decorated with pearls and jewels and gold scrollwork on the sides and over the toe of the shoe. More practical footwear was no doubt worn on less formal occasions.
  Outside labourers would either have sandals or be barefoot. The sandals follow the Roman model of straps over a thick sole. Some examples of the Roman cuculus or military boot are also seen on shepherds.
caption: Byzantine men's shoes of partially gilded leather, 6th century, Walters Art Museum.
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