Bunions in the Middle Ages

Fashionable footwear in the Middles Ages was not just uncomfortable, but downright dangerous. It turns out fashionable people paid the price for their love of very pointy shoes with painful bunions, according to new study on a series of medieval cemeteries in Cambridge. Cat is joined by archaeologist Dr Jenna Dittmar, who talks us through this insightful research, which saw 177 skeletons analysed as part of University of Cambridge’s After the Plague project. Find out why these ‘Blackadder-style’ pointy shoes became so popular, and what sort of injuries they caused.

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