How pointy shoes created a moral panic in medieval London

In a complete change from the very pointed toe favoured at the end of the 15th Century, Henry VIII liked a broad square shoe.

According to the V&A Museum, the wide shoes “echoed the line of fashionable dress for men, who wore broad-shouldered padded doublets”.

And so European footwear pivoted into the wide, box-toed shoes – and obviously, the public responded by aping the regal style with a flourish.

The width became exaggerated during Henry’s reign – with some soles being more than 17cm (nearly 7in) wide.

Faced with a new class of rich merchants with the wealth to buy clothes and shoes above their social status, and always keen to keep the gap between royalty and other classes, Henry updated the earlier sumptuary laws in a 1509 act governing the wearing of costly apparel.

One of the apparel acts restricted the width of these blocky shoes – only men of status were allowed to wear shoes of certain width.

Four later revisions of the Acts of Apparel continued to prevent the common people from emulating the court.

The king is even said to have had men who would go around trying to catch people, measuring the width of their toes.