At least 20 elaborately decorated shoehorns survive by the maker Robert Mindum, who worked in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Most striking about these shoehorns is that they each bear an inscription recording not only the owner’s name and the name of Mindum himself but also the year in which the horns were made. Through these inscriptions, maker and owner are linked for posterity in a single temporal moment. This example, held in the Worshipful Company of Horners’ collection, is decorated with the heraldic symbol of the crowned Tudor Rose and inscribed around the upper contour of the shoehorn ‘Robart Mindum made this shooing horne for Ricard Gibon anno Domini 1612’. How might we interpret this inscription? Since no documentary evidence on Mindum or his client Richard Gibon is known, the object itself is our most important source.
Although it is unknown who Richard Gibon was, insight into who may have owned such an object is possible through an exploration of the social context. Shoehorns were used to facilitate putting on shoes – this was particularly useful during the Elizabethan period, when soft-backed shoes in Spanish leather or textiles were fashionable. Yet shoehorns were not necessarily restricted to the wealthiest in society. In 1566, John Still’s comedy Gammer Gurton’s Needle includes a reference to ‘a slyp of bacon’ which ‘Shall serve for a shoing horne to draw on two pots of ale’. Still’s use of ‘a shoing horne’ as a comedic metaphor suggests the audience would have been familiar enough with shoehorns and that they were widely in use at this point.
Meanwhile, different materials could be used. Metal examples are recorded – in 1579, the City of Exeter records include ‘A showg horn of iron … 6d’. However, shoehorns made in natural materials like horn, such as this one, were more common. Horn was used for a variety of highly decorative objects including combs, buckles, and beakers. Yet shoehorns were not necessarily expensive; in 1612, a mason’s weekly wage could buy as many as a dozen shoehorns.
To turn to the maker, Mindum himself, very little is known about his life, and there is no mention of him in the Worshipful Company of Horners’ records. Yet it is possible that Mindum came from a different background entirely. The style of the engraving used to decorate this shoehorn notably differs from that found on other contemporary horn objects. Whilst Mindum’s engraving uses deep, thick lines, most engraved horn objects are worked by a technique similar to the scrimshaw decoration found on bone and ivory, in which thin, shallow lines are scraped away to create an effect similar to etching. This suggests Mindum was employing a different set of techniques, perhaps those of woodcut engravings, and was not a horner by trade.
Finally, the meaning of the date on the inscription may initially seem straightforward, recording the year of manufacture. But why would Mindum want to make such a reference in the first place? It is possible the shoehorn was given as a gift – another by Mindum, inscribed, ‘This is Francis Hinsons shoing horne gyven by Margareat and Elsabeath Smith and made by Robart Mindvm 1600 ER’ was evidently given in this capacity, and the date then may have commemorated an event. Yet the marking of time on this shoehorn also suggests more about the position objects were perceived to have in time. With objects occupying a much longer continuum, ideally outliving their makers or owners, we could see these dates as personal markers on the sea of time, not unlike graffiti. The date, accompanied by personal details like the owner’s names and other short inscriptions, such as ‘serve God’, becomes a message to posterity.