Wooden Shoes.

Wooden shoes, also known as Sabots by the French and Clogs by the Dutch were footwear for peasants. The wooden shoe that many people associate with the Dutch, was in fact widely used through Europe and the British Isles including Cymru and other Celts.
Wooden shoes were relatively inexpensive to buy, they protected the feet from the wet and from sharp objects so were excellent for work shoes.

18th century French sabot.

18th century French sabots.

Three different styles of French sabot.

Dutch girls clogs with leather uppers and iron treads.

These are wedding shoes and I would guess at Dutch.

No date on these but I thought the ice cramps interesting. There seems very little difference to wooden shoes made in the 18th century to ones made later on.

I find this one interesting. Using a wooden shoe to deliver water to the stone seems to have been common practice among knife grinders. This chap is also wearing wooden shoes.

From Diderot, 1750s. A white cooper's shop. Note the wooden shoes on the floor.

Detail of the white cooper's shop by Diderot.

http://siftingthepast.com/2012/06/04/departure-from-a-french-inn-grimm-1775/ http://www.freewebs.com/spun_measured_and_cut_elbows/shoes.html http://historyofwoodenshoes.blogspot.com.au/2009/05/clogs.html