`  Ok, I retract my claim about British men's feet above!  English Customary Weights and Measures by Russ Rowlett describes a plausible origin whereby the natural foot (of around 9-10 inches) was initially used and 'evolved' to around 12 inches due to the length of 12 inches being a convenient multiple and subdivision of other lengths used at the time.  Apparantly, before the foot was standardised people used three different lengths: * a foot of 13 inches made from two shaftments of 6.5 inches each, * a foot equal to 12 inches, * a ``natural foot``, Latin: pes naturalis, of about 9.8 inches   has these tidbits about the measure: * the traditional Danish foot, equal to about 12.365 inches or 31.41 centimeters. * early civilizations of the Middle East had a longer foot, roughly 30 centimeters  * a Greek foot is at about 30.8 centimeters (12.1 inches) * a Roman foot at 29.6 centimeters (11.7 inches) * Swedish fot aka the Stockholm foot, equal to 11.689 inches or 29.69 centimeters * German fuss came in several versions: ** Viennese fuss was 12.444 inches (31.608 cm), ** Rheinfuss (Rhine foot) was 12.357 inches (31.387 cm) ** Bavarian fuß was 29 cm (11.41 inches) * French pied had several lengths, the best known being the royal foot (pied de roi) of 32.48 cm * Italian pie varied, 29.8 cm was one common length, but Venice used 34.8 cm and Bologna 38 cm * Spanish pie was the traditional foot of Spain and: ** in Spain was about 27.86 cm (10.97 in) ** in Argentine was 28.89 cm (11.37 in) ** in Texas was 11 1/9 inches or 28.22 cm  Finally, in 1869 Benjamin Gould measured the feet of the Chinese Terracotta Army, and found the average foot length was 25.6 cm without shoes (10.07 inches) and 27.7 cm with shoes (10.9 inches) - |  22:42, 2004 Sep 27 (UTC)`