Date Published: 13.11.24

By Elizabeth Greene (University of Western Ontario) and Maryl Gensheimer (University of Maryland)

Have you ever wondered if the Romans had special shoes for certain activities? The answer is, they did indeed! A current research project at Vindolanda examines one of those types of shoes: the wooden clog. The Vindolanda collection currently holds forty-four wooden clogs (whole and fragmentary), some of which preserve both the wooden clog portion of the shoe as well as the leather upper. Another twenty examples preserve just the leather upper from a clog, which helps us enormously to understand how these shoes functioned. Vindolanda has quite a few more examples than most sites and they allow us to discover new and interesting insights about this type of footwear.

Wooden clog from recent excavations at Vindolanda (W-2023-2)

Roman authors mention a specific type of shoe–called sculponae in Latin texts–that were used for visits to the bathhouse in antiquity. Bathhouses are found ubiquitously across the empire and were one of the hallmarks of Roman cultural affiliation in towns and cities of the Roman provinces. The site of Vindolanda boasts two very well preserved bathhouses, one constructed and used in the late 1st century CE and the other in the 3rd-century settlement outside the fort (a reconstruction drawing is seen below). Several of the rooms of Roman bathhouses were heated and may have required some form of shoe to protect the bottom of the foot from hot surfaces and slippery floors. Enter the wooden clog! 

 

Cutaway drawing of a Roman bathhouse

 

We often think of these shoes in simple terms: they were formed by a relatively plain wooden platform, raised about one or two inches above the ground, and secured by a leather strap over the top of the foot. This is indeed the basic form, but it turns out that there are more variations and flexibility in the form than we expected, and each of these variations impacts the function of the shoe. The arrangement of the stilts on the outer sole of clogs varied in interesting ways and it appears that the straps over the foot also came in a variety of designs. Some look much like our shoe type called “slides,” while others have more than one strap over the top of the foot and possible straps at the heel as well. The arrangement of the straps and the shape of the sole could alter the way a person walked in this footwear rather dramatically, which perhaps had an effect on the function of the shoe. The level of decoration also varies significantly. Some clogs are decorated on the top of the wooden sole with representations of the toes incised on the surface, or with chevron patterns and other geometric designs. Others, however, are completely undecorated and appear to be rather poor in terms of manufacture. The variation in styles and quality is fascinating.

Wooden clogs from the Vindolanda assemblage (W-2017-77; W-2017-105; W-2015-25)

We usually associate these Roman shoes with visits to the bathhouse, but could they have been used for something else? We think yes, some of them may have had other purposes. If we jump forward in time into the Medieval period to investigate the shoes worn a few hundred years later, we find that they had similar shoes with a wooden sole and a strip of leather upper that was used as an overshoe. A normal leather shoe was worn around the foot, which was then slid into a wooden shoe called a “patten” and held into place by the leather upper over the instep and around the heel. A reconstruction of this type of Medieval shoe is pictured below. The purpose was to protect the foot and to raise the wearer above the dirt or water on the ground. Could some of the wooden clogs from the Roman period have been used similarly? That’s what we’re exploring with the Vindolanda assemblage! This project explores how the form of the shoe allows us to reconstruct function by inserting them back into their original context of use in the past. We are examining different kinds of spaces, from bathhouses to heated dining rooms to road surfaces, to propose the full range of use and function that these shoes might have had in antiquity.

Reproduction of a Medieval overshoe used by the Rosa Mundi reenactment group (special thanks to John and Ann)

Our research is ongoing and will consider all evidence to fill out the picture of these fascinating objects. Dr. Gensheimer is scouring the art historical evidence to illuminate the Roman representation of bathing accoutrement in mosaics, wall painting, and sculpture, while Dr. Alexander Meyer, one of the project collaborators, reviews the textual sources from antiquity for discussion and description of these shoes. Dr. Greene is gathering comparative evidence from other archaeological sites to understand the full range of this object type throughout the empire. We’ll keep you updated on how this research is going as we progress!

Researcher Maryl Gensheimer examining a wooden clog