Cordwainer "cobbler" have often been considered not interchangeable, according to a tradition in Britain that restricted cobblers to repairing shoes. In this usage, a "cordwainer" is someone who makes new shoes using new leather, where as a "cobbler" is someone who repairs shoes. Medieval cordovan leather was used for the highest quality shoes, but cordwainers also used domestically produced leathers and were not solely producers of luxury footwear. In the historic London guild system, the cobblers and cordwainers were separate guilds, and the cobblers were forbidden from working in new leather. Historically, cobblers also made shoes, but only using old leather
Cordwainer by the guild of corvisors or corvysors. The term "cordwainer" entered English as "cordewaner(e)", from the Anglo-Norman "cordewaner" (from Old French "cordoanier", "-ouanier", "-uennier", etc.), and initially denoted a worker in cordwain or cordovan, the leather historically produced in Moorish Córdoba, Spain in the Middle Ages, as well as, more narrowly, a shoemaker. The earliest attestation in English is a reference to “Randolf se cordewan[ere]”, "ca." 1100. According to the "OED", the term is now considered obsolete except where it persists in the name of a trade-guild or company, or where otherwise employed by trade unions. The terms "cordwainer" and