Amor Vincit Omnia | Shoes by Robert

Hundreds of 12th-century embroidered shoes were excavated in Bergen, Norway, a few decades ago. For my Laurel elevation in Feb. 2020, I decided to make a pair, replicating one of the more interesting examples from the site. Specifically, I chose a runic-scripted, Latin-phrased, silk-embroidered, skewed-toe shoe. That's quite a mouthful to say, and it took a lot of time to make, but I believe the effort was worthwhile.

The full documentation for this project can be downloaded as a PDF (26 pages, 23 mb) so I will not repeat it here on this page.

In 2022, this project was selected to represent Æthelmearc at the Pennsic XLIX Warpoint, a great honor to be sure!

The completed shoe and a matching one to make a pair.

Last updated Sept. 5, 2022.

conserved leather shoe pieces with incised lines showing where runic characters and designs were embroidered — The original shoe (source: Bergen Universitetsmuseet Fotoportal).

details of a conserved leather shoe with incised lines showing where runic characters were embroidered — A close-up of the vamp (source: Bergen Universitetsmuseet Fotoportal).

paper with runic characters and decorative elements drawn on it — My pattern to work out spacing.