This Crakow (poulaine), from the Santa Fe monastery in Toledo, Spain, is made of goatskin leather. The shoe’s toe, tapering to a point about 20 cm long, is filled with stuffing material. The thin, sewn-on sole shows hardly any signs of wear. The shoe’s tongue is folded upwards, and the lacing is on the inside. A historical wooden last—a model foot used to make shoes—helps the shoe keep its shape. The last is covered with red velvet where it protrudes from the shoe.

This type of Crakow was fashionable in Europe from the fourteenth to the late fifteenth century. As this kind of shoe increased in popularity, dress codes were put in place to regulate the length of the toe. In Nuremberg in 1481 and Regensburg in 1485, for example, the wearing of a long toe was reserved exclusively for influential personalities. It remains a mystery who once wore this shoe with its comparatively long toe, and how it ended up in the Santa Fe monastery, a clue to which can be found on the underside of the shoe.

Robert von Hirsch (1883–1977), Frankfurt art collector and owner of the leather factory A.G. J. Mayer & Sohn in Offenbach, donated this left shoe to the Frankfurt Museum of Decorative Arts (now the Museum Angewandte Kunst) in 1927 on the occasion of the museum’s 50th anniversary.