[Illustration: CLOG, OR PATTEN. FIFTEENTH CENTURY.] The brotherhood of the shoemakers has always included men of remarkable character and parts. Hans Sachs, born at Nuremburg in 1494, the most eminent German poet of his time; George Fox, first of Quakers, true follower of Crispin, dividing his time and energies between shoemaking and preaching; William Gifford, less remembered perhaps as a shoemaker than for his editorship of the famous _Quarterly_--these are a few only of the men "who have imparted a glory to the 'gentle craft,' as shoemaking has been called since the days of the illustrious Crispin," and invested it with distinction.[28] The universal observance by Eastern nations of the custom of removing the shoes as a mark of reverence is in obedience to the command given to Moses from the burning bush at Horeb: "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." The Western practice of uncovering the reverse end of the human anatomy presents a curious and somewhat startling contrast. Footgear began as a protection to the _soles_ of the feet, since it is the soles which necessarily demand some sort of protection until that time when the "rough places shall be made plain," although Nature provides her own protection to the soles of feet which are habitually bare, by thickening the skin. The skin of the habitually barefooted Irish lassie varies, we are told, from a quarter to half an inch in thickness, and even more. The sandal, then, may be considered as the precursor of the shoe. Most of the early nations wore sandals. The Egyptians, however, were usually barefooted, with the exception of the priests, who wore shoes of _byblus_, and were not permitted to wear any other. The Greek sandal consisted of a strip of thick hide, tanned or untanned, for the sole, with a thinner piece, assuming some ornamental form, upon the instep, the whole connected or drawn together with straps drawn crosswise over the instep and round the ankle, or a cord or thong passing between the great toe and the first of the smaller toes.