Why Shoe Size Are As They Are Analysis

Why Shoe Sizes Are as They Are
Seemingly arbitrary, there is a crazy logic (and a lot of muddy history giving rise to tradition) behind the numbers assigned to different shoe sizes.

During the reign of England's Edward II (1284-1327), certain measurements became standardized. Most pertinent to the discussion at hand:

"Three barley-corns, round and dry, make an inch, twelve inches a foot, three feet a yard (ulna), five and a half yards a perch, and forty perches in length and four in breadth an acre."

Although strange to us today, Edward didn't pull the idea of using a barley-corn for measuring things out of his bonnet. Rather, this had been a tried and true method of measurement and a cornerstone of global trade as far back as the second
For instance, the Welsh foot at the time was considered to be 27 barleycorn while the Saxon foot was 39 barleycorn. Setting the standard at 36 barleycorn to a foot partially solved the problem, though there was still some potential variance based on the size of the physical
to the number 15, each size being the fourth part of an inch as aforsaid; so that a Shooe of the long fifteens is in length 12 inches