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. This kind of _poulaine_ was
denounced as _mandite de Dicu_ (Ducange's Glossary, at the word
Poulainia) and prohibited by royal ordinances (see letter of
Charles V., 17 October, 1367, regarding the garments of the women
of Montpellier). 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. In Spanish religious pictures it was always necessary
that the Virgin's feet should be concealed, the clergy ordaining
that her robe should be long and flowing, so that the feet might
be covered with decent folds. Pacheco, the master and
father-in-law of Velasquez, writes in 1649 in his _Arte de la
Pintura_: "What can be more foreign from the respect which we owe
to the purity of Our Lady the Virgin than to paint her sitting
down with one of her knees placed over the other, and often with
her sacred feet uncovered and naked.
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