Posts: 2,167
Wed 08 Jan, 2020 10:03 pm
Re: Sir Ralph's Tiny Heater Shield
Pedro,
There are examples of smaller kite
shields that were used alongside the more common flat-top kite shields in the later 12th and early 13th century. Calling them a "transition" shield may be a bit misleading, insofar that the other style of shields (both kites and flat top kites) continued to persist.
One example of this are the kite shields in the
Morgan M.724 Psalter from 1155-1160 AD. Some of the shields shown here are unambiguously shorter than most of the contemporary shields. Presumably, these shields are not merely based upon the illustrator's imagination, but reflect actual shields that really existed. What's noteworthy is that this is right around the time when flat top kite shields were starting to become common, and these latter shields dominated probably until around circa 1200 AD. So this is certainly one instance where calling shorter shields "transitional" could be misleading.
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4684/12322/
As for the Kingdom of Heaven shields, the most likely historical inspiration for the shape (if they were inspired by historical research) is from the
Liber ad honorem Augusti sive de Rebus siculus, an Italian manuscript (likely southern) dating from 1194-1196 AD:
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/3966/11577/