buckle or button passing round the ankle secured it to the foot. The boots and shoes worn during the fourteenth century, were of peculiar form, and the toes which were lengthened to a point, turned inward or outward according to the taste of the wearer. In the reign of Richard II., they became immensely long, so that it was asserted they were chained to the knee of the wearer, in order to allow him to walk about with ease and freedom. It was of course only the nobility who could thus inconvenience themselves, and it might have been adopted by them as a distinction; still very pointed toes were worn by all who could afford to be fashionable. The cut here given exhibits the sole of a shoe of this period, from an actual specimen in the possession of C. Roach Smith, F. S. A., and was discovered in the neighborhood of Whitefriars, in digging deep under ground into what must have originally been a receptable for rubbish, among which these old shoes had been thrown, and they are probably the only things of the kind now in existence. [Illustration] [Illustration] Two specimens of boots of the time of Edward IV., are here given to show their general form at that period. The first is copied from the Royal MS., No. 15, E. 6, and is of black leather, with a long upturned toe; the top of the boot is of lighter leather, and thus it bears a resemblance to the top-boots of a later age, of which it may be considered as the prototype. The other boot, from a print dated 1515, is more curious; the top of the boot is turned down, and the entire centre opens from the top, to the instep, and is drawn together by laces or ties across the leg, so that it bears considerable resemblance in this point to the Cothurnus of the ancients. Fashion ran at this time from one extreme to the other, and the shoes which were at one time so long at the toe as to be inconvenient, now became as absurdly broad, and it was made the subject of sumptuary laws to restrain both extremes. Thus Edward IV. enacted that any shoemaker who made for unprivileged persons (the nobility being exempted) any shoes or boots, the toes of which exceeded two inches in length, should forfeit twenty shillings, one noble to be paid to the king, another to the cordwainers of London, and the third to the chamber of London. This only had the effect of widening the toes; and Paradin says that they were then so very broad as to exceed the measure of a good foot. This continued until the reign of Mary, who, by a proclamation, prohibited their being worn wider at the toe than six inches. [Illustration: No. 1.] [Illustration: No. 2.]