Among the lesser church councils of the thirteenth century—those trivial, haphazard regional gatherings of abbots and prelates convened more for the airing of personal grievances than for matters of doctrine—none is more obscure, nor so unnecessary, as the Synod of the Left Shoe (Concilium Calcei Sinistri), held in the winter of 1249 at the Abbey of St. Guntram-the-Irascible in Lorraine.
The official records were lost, presumably because no one thought them worth preserving. What remains is a biting summary appended to the Chronicon Fabricatum of one Brother Anselm the Less:
What kind of an Ironist are You?
“In that year, the abbots and provincials gathered to resolve the matter of monastic footwear, following rumors that certain brethren of the Cistercian order had taken to putting on their left shoe before the right, in violation of the Rule of St Benedict (or, more precisely, in violation of Abbot Humbert’s copious commentaries on the Rule, which were actually a rebuttal of an infamous tractate by a long-dead bishop of Germelshausen, which itself may have been a satire).”
The debate reportedly lasted three days.
On the first, the Prior of Verdun argued that the right foot signified the magisterial nature of Christ and therefore ought to be shod first. The Abbot of Compiègne countered that leftness, as a sign of humility, was more appropriate to monks, who “must always incline toward the lesser path.”
On the second, a learned Brother Odo of Metz proposed a compromise: that both shoes be donned simultaneously. After several failed demonstrations (and one injury), this was deemed “contrary to both piety and nature.”
On the third day, a vote was taken and promptly declared inconclusive when it was discovered that no one had brought parchment to record the tally. The council dissolved in acrimony, having achieved nothing—except that a certain Minorite friar was reportedly seen afterward removing both shoes entirely and declaring himself “apostolically barefoot.”
A marginal note in a later manuscript of the Rule of Benedict, likely added by a frustrated scribe, reads:
“May God deliver us from shoes and those who argue about them.”
Modern scholars remain divided on whether the Synod ever occurred.
