poulaines

Updated: May 18, 2025

Great lords and ladies continued, however, to wear poulaines." In Louis XL's court they were still worn of a quarter of an ell in length. Spain, ever tenacious of ancient ideas, appears to have preserved longer than other countries the ancient classic traditions in regard to the foot as a focus of modesty and an object of sexual attraction.

Havelock Ellis - Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 : Erotic Symbolism; The Mechanism of Detumescence; The Psychic State in Pregnancy

At a first glance it is not easy to see why these shoes terminating in a lion's claw, an eagle's beak, the prow of a ship, or other metal appendage should be so scandalous. The excommunication inflicted on this kind of foot-gear preceded the impudent invention of some libertine, who wore poulaines in the shape of the phallus, a custom adopted also by women.

Havelock Ellis - Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 : Erotic Symbolism; The Mechanism of Detumescence; The Psychic State in Pregnancy