Shoemakers have been attempting to spread a standardised sizing method for hundreds of years. Back in the day, when old blokes with big hands sewed cowhide in candlelit workshops, they measured their work in units defined by stitches. People literally counted the number of times the thread weaved its way in and out of the leather along the length of the sole. That seems simple enough; however, different regions – Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Britain – each had their own standardised stitch length. Since people only bought shoes locally, it didn’t really matter if the stitch lengths varied from place to place. It wasn’t as though people were dispatching carrier pigeons to Scotland for a fresh pair of brogues. So these systems became ingrained in the shoemaking heritage of each area, passed down from master to apprentice.

Then in 1324, King Edward II decided to make life a little easier when it came to the weights and measurements of the masses. He decreed that three grains of barley were equal to an inch and twelve inches were a foot – logical, right? Thanks to the imperial system of measurement, the stitch length of the monarchy was set to one grain of barley. This means that each UK shoe size increases by one-third of an inch, beginning at size 1, which is eight and two-thirds inches – or 26 grains of barley. Half sizes were slowly brought into use, as the full size increment proved too crude and hipsters of the late Middle Ages attempted to distance themselves from references to gluten.