[Ansteorra] [SCA-AS] period shoe polish

[Jonathan E. Feistein]

Okay, I'll take a stab at this and others can shoot me down where I'm
mistaken.

>From what I have been able to  learn, before the invention of modern shoe
polishes, meant to restore shine and color to the leather, there were
various waxes and tallow mixtures used on footwear, although their main use
was to soften and make waterproof.

Our old friend, Wikipedia (which like any encyclopedia is a good place to
start but not the end-all of authority by any means) mentions "dubbin," a
mixture of wax, oil, soda ash and tallow, as having been used since medieval
times, though Merriam-Webster does not document the use of that word until
1781 when various blacking polishes were already in fashion. I did not look
too hard but since the word comes from the verb "to dub" which goes back in
various forms to Old English and Old French, it is likely that it existed in
some form or other (the word, if not that particular mixture) as long as
anyone dubbed leather.

I would speculate that any leather worker had his own private dubbin mix,
but what I do not find in a plethora of articles on shoe design and
construction is any mention of how they were cared for.

I also came across an undocumented article that mentioned polishing shoes
with Olive Oil and citrus juice, though I am not sure I'd seriously
recommend it. Olive oil can go rancid and as for fruit juice, well, wouldn't
the acid cause the leather to wear out sooner? Okay, I'm just guessing
there. Honestly, I don't know if Olive oil and citrus (lemon? pomello?
citron?)  would work well.

Yosef Alaric

> -----Original Message-----
> From: artssciences-bounces at lists.gallowglass.org [mailto:artssciences-
> bounces at lists.gallowglass.org] On Behalf Of Stefan li Rous
> Sent: Sunday, October 20, 2013 12:10 AM
> To: SCA-Arts-Sciences maillist; Inc. Kingdom of Ansteorra - SCA
> Cc: Stefan li Rous
> Subject: [SCA-AS] period shoe polish
> 
> Does anyone know whether they used such a thing as shoe polish in period
> to refresh scuffed shoes?
> 
> I have a pair of period style shoes that were made, I believe, in a modern
> third-world country. They are made of a fairly shiny, brown pebbled finish
> leather. After a number of SCA events, the toes were getting roughed up
> and losing their color and there were some scuff marks on the heals.
> 
> I ended up using a modern liquid shoe polish from a bottle since that is
what I
> had on hand. However, while the scuff marks are now brown again, they
> aren't as shiny as the rest of the leather.  These are very soft leather
shoes,
> so I'm not sure that a paste wax would have made any difference or not.
> 
> I find it hard to believe that our period forebears wouldn't have done
> something to refresh the looks of their shoes. However, maybe the rich
just
> got new shoes and the poor couldn't afford to bother?
> 
> Thanks,
>    Stefan
> 
> --------
> THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
>    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/marksharris
> **** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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