Talk:Poulaine

PHALLIC
The reason behind this poulaine trend was a hint at man's virility, size of penis. Please add to article --184.161.144.204 (talk) 20:17, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Not without citations. Women wore these shoes too. Amuckart (talk) 03:33, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
 * So? Anon's not wrong. — Llywelyn II   19:21, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Isaac Asimov Citation
Isaac Asimov is not a reliable source of information on this topic. He was not an expert on historic footwear, nor an archaeologist, and like many compiled books of "facts" his contained a large share of hearsay and unverified information heavily polluted by the Victorian era's view of the Medieval period. Amuckart (talk) 11:36, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

WP:PRIMARYTOPIC
The primary topic of "Crakow" is obviously as an alternative spelling of the city. This page needs to be at Crakow (footwear) instead. — Llywelyn II   19:21, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 28 June 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Skarmory   (talk •   contribs)  15:42, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Crakow → Poulaine – That said,
 * Crakows or crackowes were a style of shoes with extremely long toes very popular in 15th century Europe. They were so named because the style was thought to have originated in Kraków, the then capital of Poland. They are also known as poulaines or pikes,[1] though the term poulaine, as in souliers à la poulaine, "shoes in the Polish fashion", referred to the long pointed beak of the shoe, not the shoe itself.[2]

is obviously completely untrue. The main name of these shoes was and remains poulaine and a single deadlink to a personal page at the University of Tulsa doesn't change that. Crakow, meanwhile, was an exceeding uncommon name for the shoe and isn't even usually provided as a synonym. See here, here, here (where the OED pointedly marks this sense of Crakow as completely obsolete prior to Wiki mistakenly pulling it back out of the closet and dusting it off), here, here (being exceedingly generous and taking any possible sense of 'crakows'), here (no, the archaism 'crakowes' isn't any more common), et multa multa multa cetera.

The single (dead personal) source was wrong or, we gave it weight and importance, and it's time to fix it already. — Llywelyn II   19:21, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Fashion has been notified of this discussion. UtherSRG (talk) 14:31, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Middle Ages has been notified of this discussion. UtherSRG (talk) 14:31, 28 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Support per nom. Johnbod (talk) 15:27, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Support per nomination and Johnbod. Would also support Crakow → Crakow (shoe). It should be noted that this entry was created 18 years ago (on 19 August 2005) as Poulaine. Six years later (on 13 September 2011), it was unilaterally moved to Crakow (shoe) with the edit summary, "The poulaine is the name of the toe of the shoe, not the shoe itself." Seven years after that (on 18 August 2018), another user unilaterally moved the main title header from Crakow (shoe) to simply Crakow, without leaving an edit summary. After a passage of another five years, this RM should hopefully arrive at a consensus. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 22:53, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Merge? 28 June 2023
Is Pigache the same topic of this and should be merged here? -- 64.229.90.172 (talk) 06:52, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Good question. Nothing to do with the move, though. Both these treat pigache as a style of sleeve, the OED doesn't even have it except as a fictional surname, and this source actually talks about that kind of shoe.
 * Currently, this article is exclusively focused on the 1350ish to 1480ish style. It mentions that there were some earlier less popular but similar shoes. Those were the pigaches. Properly, they should be distinguished and "poulaine" is currently listed there as a synonym by mistake or carelessness, assuming that article isn't trying to be any-long-toed-medieval-shoe. On the one hand, some people like to merge as much as possible until greater length of content forces a split. On the other, I'm not one of them. They're separate things and it's fine the other article is a stub for now.
 * The 'merge' would be to create an entirely new 'any-long-toed-shoe' article, which would be a disservice to the good content already at this article. (The name mistake notwithstanding.) — Llywelyn II   12:40, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

"Crakow" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Crakow&redirect=no Crakow] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. Skarmory  (talk •   contribs)  15:55, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Original sources needed
There are a few claims that get repeated around the internet without the original text seeming to exist. One is that the bans on pointed shoes started at a "Synod of Reims" in 972. Another that this was continued at a "Council of Lavaur". A third is that Urban V specifically outlawed poulains in 1362. Another is that Emperor Charles IV banned them for the poor and fined his own officials 10 florins per offense wearing them in his presence in 1368. The same source also says the manufacture was made illegal throughout France in 1470 and that there were English laws passed against them in 1336, 1337, and 1363, the last apparently a mistake for 1463 since it (mis)quotes the relevant statute of Edward III. Anyone have a reliable source for the rest? (No, the guy with a column in the NY Times isn't actually reliable for this since his 'source' is a museum outreach webpage drafted by an intern.)

For what it's worth, there's a list of more sources on the topic in the linked Chambers & al. article. — Llywelyn II   22:04, 12 July 2023 (UTC)