1. Significance and history
Within the clothing trade and the whole body of crafts and trades in the early modern period, shoemakers (also: cordwainers) constituted one of the largest occupational groups [5]. As early as 1383, a Nuremberg census counted 81 shoemakers (New Latin calciatores), the largest number of masters [6. 103]. In many large European cities, the number of shoemakers increased until well into the 19th century; around 1828, for example, there…