Question

Fashion can get pretty weird. Maybe the most bizarre fashion trend ever was shoes with absurdly long toes. Historians say these fancy foot monstrosities were all the rage in Europe in the Middle Ages.

The shoes, called crakows or poulaines, made their debut in the 14th century and continued to be embraced by the fashion-conscious for 100 years. The toes were long and pointed. Some toes were so long that they had to be stuffed with hair or wool. Then, they were rigged with chains or whalebone attached to a knee bracelet. That kept them from flapping around.

The most absurd lengths were for wealthy people. They didn't do physical labor and therefore had no need to worry about getting tripped up by their extra-fancy footwear. Farmers and soldiers had to be a little more conservative with their shoes. After all, it's hard to till the soil or march for miles in the earthly equivalent of swim fins.

Historians note that there's a reason why an entire continent embraced crakows, in spite of their extreme impracticality. Before crakows became cool, Europe had been overtaken by the Black Death, a plague that started when a dozen ships full of sickly sailors pulled up to a port in Italy in 1347. Thus, the bubonic plague came ashore. It killed 20 million people in five years—about a third of Europe's population. After that, it made sense that people would need some diversion from the misery. A curator at the Museum of London says the crakow craze may have started out as just that—a fun distraction.

A hundred years seems like a really long time for a trend. But in the Middle Ages, upper-class Europeans decided what was cool. Then, the style slowly extended across towns and trickled down to the lower classes. After a century, the lengths people went to with their shoes had gotten extreme. Finally, crakows were banned in London in 1463. Not long after, the king of England passed a law that said no one could have their shoes sticking out farther than 2 inches (5 centimeters) past their toes.

The crakows went away once the crown got involved. Footwear didn't get much better, though. The next trend brought square toes so wide that the king added new limits on toe width. He even had officials out measuring people's shoes to catch lawbreakers.

Crakows gathered dust in history's closet for a few centuries. Then, in the 1950s, some musicians and their fans resurrected the look with winklepickers. These pointy-toed shoes were inspired by crakows. They were called winklepickers because the toe looked like the spike used to pick winkles, or sea slugs, out of their shells. At least the updated version didn't require knee bracelets!

Question 2


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According to the Article, which of these happened before crakows became a fashion trend throughout Europe?

A law was passed by the king of England that stated shoes could not extend farther than 2 inches past one's toes.
A plague called the Black Death overtook Europe, killing almost a third of its population within 5 years.
People wore shoes with square toes so wide that the king had officials measuring people's shoes to catch lawbreakers.
Winklepickers, named after a spike used to pick sea slugs out of their shells, became popular with some musicians.

Answer 1

A plague called the Black Death overtook Europe, killing almost a third of its population within 5 years. The passage says the Black Death hit before crakows became a fashion distraction.