This week, for fantasy work-in-progress, I wondered how—or whether—a couple of characters should be shod for a summer spent on foot. I've borrowed the banner title from Shoes in the Middle Ages because I love seeing its example of bare feet and a possible shoe. It was one of a handful of websites I looked at for the lazy author's approach to research. Two others were Medieval Shoes and Pattens and Cordwainer, Shoemaker, Cobbler?
If shoemaking were an important element in a piece of historical fiction, I would feel obliged to look deeper at serious scholarship and primary sources. Too much reliance on shallow research repeated endlessly by non-specialists leads to silly conventions and misbegotten certainties. But, hey! for an imaginary world? How satisfying to be able to some quick prompts, think a moment, and move on.
In case you're curious, my fourteen-year-old probably goes barefoot and her father wears boots, but I don't think I'll mention the matter in the story after all. All the same, it was worth thinking about: the better you know your world, the more verisimilitude you can achieve.