Valkenburg/Castleford style caliga step by step

[Flavius Promotus]

Martin, these caligae look great, but the construction process is even better

4-5 mm for the sole hock: No wonder you have to soak it for such a long time.

[Martin Moser]

Why the hobnails have a letter on the base? I've got some from LaPrevo and have one as well. Are so the original ones?

This is one of the things I meant when I wrote above that not all of the materials are acceptable for a 100% reconstruction (the glue I used is another of those). I went as far as I could with what was available to me at the moment and unfortunately the nails I used were the best I had. Might be they are from LePrevo, I got those 2nd hand. I find them somewhat acceptable as (besides the "R") they look somewhat like used originals, i.e. cones with worn away tips (the "R's" should be gone after a few miles).

[Martin Moser]

Martin, these caligae look great, but the construction process is even better

Thanks, Florian :-) ) The shortcomings of it will come to light once somebody tries to redo it, though, I guess.

4-5 mm for the sole

Yes, I find this to be really very good quality stuff, stood up really well with my previous shoes

[Martin Moser]

As promised, here are the tools and materials I used for the construction of this pair of caligae.



Set of punches, cutting knives, linnen yarn, 3 strengths, edge beveller, wood-carving knives (for very short and/or round cuts), straight and curved awls, blunt, flexible steel needles, bone "knife" for flattening and polishing edges, pliers, shoemaker's pitch. For the tools and material used for nailing, see above. Not shown: neatsfoot oil.



different sorts of leather (and thickness):
lace, alum tanned white goats leather for outer back seam protection fastening (ca. 1mm), vegetable tanned goats leather for inner and outer back seam protection (ca. 1mm), vegetable tanned insole leather (ca. 1-2 mm), vegetable tanned cow leather for middle/caliga upper (ca. 2-3mm), vegetable tanned and pressed sole leather, very hard and durable (ca. 4-5mm).

[Martin Moser]

As I was (only) using a pattern from van Driel-Murray's Stepping Through Time that according to the author is *based* on original finds and not an actual pattern therefore, I went after the original and found something quite interesting IMHO:




(Cool, H.E.M. Roman Castleford Vol I. The Small Finds. pp.297-298)

It seems van Driel-Murray did overlook/chose to ignore an interesting detail of the above pattern: all straps on the right side (inner side) of the shoe are quite a bit shorter than those of the left side. She copied this for her pattern in Stepping Through Time for the straps around the ankle, but not for those around the foot. The intention of the original design, however, obviously was that the ridge line would not run upwards over the center of the foot and lower leg, but rather devide the foot in a 2/3rds - 1/3rds manner with a line running straight upwards starting somewhere over the big toe. This is something not normally seen with caligae AFAIK. More interesting even is that this antcipates the design of the "Allendale" boots found at Vindolanda, which van Driel-Murray calls "reminiscent of the caligae" (Vindolanda. Vol III, The Early Wooden Forts. p.33) as well as that of many of the later carbatinae which also show decidedly different strap/lacing loop lengths for the inner and outer sides. Also note that the double back seam is indicated with this pattern.

[Martin Moser]

Epitomatores: I went through my postings once more and edited them a bit where I felt it was necessary - all yours now and TIA! :-) )

[Neuraleanus]

I completed my second attempt at the Valkenburg caligae, this time about a half inch shorter and with more properly lenghtened ankle straps, and I had a chance to try them out yesterday. I went out with Legio XXII in Cincinnati, Ohio, for a route march. We walked a little over a mile and back. I did not carry full gear as my scutum harness broke, but preliminary indications are that these new caligae are holding out quite well. I wore wool socks and there was very little sliding of my feet. The thin straps held very well.

This time I stitched the backs using the through-the-leather edge seam as Martin has described, though I only did this on the outside (I wasn't brave enough to attmept the inside). Over both sides I then tacked on layers of thin goat leather as reinforcement. I also stitiched the heels using a simple cross stitch. If you look at the cutting drawing, it looks like the heel cutout is intended to fold back into the upper. I still want to add a tunnel stitch between the out soles and the uppers, but this has to wait till my curved awl arrives.

[Martin Moser]

Hi Titus,

thanks for the update! Glad to hear yours are working, as I didn't find time yet to give mine a walkie. 40 cms of snow is another reason for stalling ... :-) )

[Tarbicus]

Epitomatores: I went through my postings once more and edited them a bit where I felt it was necessary - all yours now and TIA! Smile

Thanks Martin. Will do, as soon as RA.com is back up and running. Fantastic How-To, thanks

[Neuraleanus]

I further tested this new pair of caligae for the three days of the Fort Lafe event. One thing that I noticed is that the backs had become progressively stretched out. Almost a third of my heel had slid off of the sole. My solution has been to glue a curved piece of leather inside of the shoe behind the sole. The effect is of an upwardly curved piece of leather that cups my heel very much like that of a modern shoe. Preliminary tests indicated that these caligae are now much more comfortable. I do not know whether the romans would of done this, but it appears to work.

[Martin Moser]

Hi Titus,

could you post a pic of that, please?

[Neuraleanus]

Once I get my family moved I will be happy to provide a picture.

I stitched the backs differently than how you did it. Referring to the heel drawing of the original pattern, I simply folded the keystone shaped cutout back onto itself and stitched the upper together. I then sandwiched together the soles with the upper. When I first made these caligae there was little, if any, gap between the insole and the upper. After wearing them this gap increased to about a half an inch and as a consequence my heels were sliding off the sole. The curved piece of leather now serves to guide by heels back onto the sole where I intended them to be.

[Martin Moser]

As a postscript to this thread:

I finished the first attempt of one of the caligae fuond at Mainz and thought to be early 1st century AD (you can see the original at: [url:34b0pqkp]http://www.ledermuseum.de/DLM/vollbild/seiten/03.htm[/url])

This time I did the back seams more closely to the originals, thin yarn for the outside with 1 stitch/3mm and thick yarn for the inside with 1 stitch/6mm, see pics below. I also used thicker leather as advied by Carol vanDriel-Murray and by my own recent observations of an original, about double the thickness of the leather I used for the caligae described above, i.e. around 4mm. I again attached thin leather strips inside and outside to protect those seams, the ouside one this time with 2mm broad strips of parchment (also an interesting material to work with). I narrowed the back seam strip as much as possible, it is now only 17mm broad, which is within the upper range of the originals.

Lessons learned: the front is a bit too open I think, I will need to move the straps a bit forward in the future. Also the boot could be a little bit higher.

Here are a few pics:

outside seam



inside seam



outside seam protection

[Martin Moser]

and some more pics:

[Robert Vermaat]

They look stylish!
How comfortable are they? Don't smaller straps cut more into the skin?