Twitter Shoe Trivia Answer
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Question: What country is credited with the first unit of measurement for shoe sizes?
Answer: England. Other acceptable answers include the United Kingdom, Great Britain, and Britain.
In 1324 King Edward II of England decreed that barleycorns be used to measure shoe sizes. It was determined that three barleycorns represented one inch. With this unit of measurement, shoemakers decided that the largest shoe size was a size 13 because the largest average foot measured 39 barleycorns. Then each smaller size was one third inch less than the previous. King Edward II’s foot measured a total of 36 barleycorns or 12 inches, thus equaling one “foot”.
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, shoemakers mostly crafted custom sized shoes, and the barleycorn unit varied. In England in 1688, Randle Holme recorded a description of shoe sizing methods. The industrial revolution brought the mass production of footwear and the development of improved sizing standards. American Edwin B. Simpson introduced half sizes and shoe widths in 1880. In essence, shoe sizes have evolved far from the barleycorn unit. Today shoe industries use three different sizing standards, US, UK, and European.
If you cannot get enough shoe history, read the blog post “Inhabited Chair: A Brief History of Shoes“.
