Different Shields for Different Tasks

Hello military history enthusiasts,

I hope you had a good start into the new year.

Today’s newsletter is all about various forms of medieval shields: why different shapes were developed in the first place, and how they held up in combat.

I hope you will find it interesting and useful – and may you not need a shield in 2023, except for enjoyable purposes and recreation.

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Round Shields, Domed and Flat

At all times, military equipment was designed to meet the requirements of the specific combat contexts fighters had to deal with. Shields are no exception in this regard. Their various forms reflect the kind of fighting a given military was trained for. For example, Frankish armies favoured domed round shields which, due to their excellent deflective qualities were perfectly suited for fighting from horseback and in large formations.

In contrast, contemporary Viking war bands preferred the flat round shield which, in close combat, could be used as a weapon in its own right, e.g. to lever open or pin an opposing shield with the edge – a quality that can be played out in single combat, small scale skirmish and hit-and-run attacks. These are exactly the kind of combat contexts the highly mobile Scandinavian raiders excelled in, while generally avoiding large scale battles against Frankish and Anglo-Saxon forces.

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Light weight, yet durable?

Modern audiences and museum visitors are often surprised by the delicacy of historical shield boards. The thickness of the laminated construction consisting of a wooden core and layers of animal hide, sometimes reinforced with sinew, hardly ever exceeds 10 mm, with the edge often trimmed down to half this thickness.

Considering that, according to historical depictions, pretty much all medieval shields were used offensively at times, a light weight construction makes sense (here is a free article on fighting with kite shields, for instance). A heavy, cumbersome shield that tires out your arm too quickly is apparently not a good choice. However, this begs the question, how durable and resistant historical shields actually were. After all, a lot of effort went into their making (just take a look at this interesting article).

Historical shield repairs and damages have occasionally been recorded by archaeology. Small sheet metal patches on Germanic Iron Age shields from Illerup Ådal, and superficial cuts on the 12th century kite shield from Szczecin (see more photos here) suggest that careful distance management was just as important in shield fighting as in combat without shields.

However, what happened when missiles were fired, or when ranks broke, and your shield was the last line of defence? Members of the Finnish living history group Hirdmenn have once again run according tests with carefully reconstructed flat Viking Age shields, and they have kindly compiled the respective videos in a playlist. You can find additional info (e.g. on how easy it was to repair shields after the tests) in their blog post. The test results will be published in an academic format by archaeologist Sakari Saaristo (on the left in the above photo) in due course.

Go to playlist

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Fighting with Heater Shields

And while we are at it, here are some training fights with high and late medieval heater shields, recorded at the Berlin Buckler Bouts in November 2022. Despite being busy with working on our up-coming sword & buckler online course, Cornelius Berthold found the time to edit a video for you.

Go to video

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New Buckler Book

Finally, I would like to bring to your attention a brand new publication on historical bucklers. Building up on his ‘Book of the Buckler’, swordsman and researcher Herbert Schmidt presents ‘The Medieval and Renaissance Buckler’ with a contribution by Danish archaeologist and shield expert Rolf Warming.

See the book

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I hope you found this newsletter interesting. If you enjoyed it, tell your friends about it. They can sign up here. Thank you for your time and your interest.

Yours,

Roland

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