CHOPINE, CHOPPINE, or CHOPENNE, a high shoe, or rather clog, worn 200 years ago by the Italians.
Tom Coryat, in his Crudities 1611, p. 262, calls them chopinys, and gives the following account of them: "There is one thing used of the Venetian women and some others dwelling in the cities and townes subject to the signiory of Venice, that is not to be observed, I thinke, amongst any other women in Christendome, which is so common in Venice, that no women whatsoever goeth without it, either in her house or abroad,
Chapinay, a thing made of wood and covered with leather of sundry colors, some with white, some red, some yellow. It is called a chapinay, which they wear under their shoes. Many of them are curiously painted; some also of them I have seen fairly gilt; so uncommonly a thing, in my opinion, that it is pity this foolish custom is not cleanly banished and exterminated out of the city. There are many of these chapineys of a great height, even half a yard high, which maketh many of their women that are very short seem much taller than the tallest women we have in England. Also I have heard it observed among them, that by how much the nobler a woman is, by so much the higher are her chapineys. All their gentlewomen, and most of their wives and widows that are of any wealth, are assisted either by men or women when they walke abroad, to the end they may not fall. They are borne up most commonly by the left arme, otherwise they might quickly take a fall."