Spurred by another interesting topic/debate thread taking place on this site at present, I'm stepping into
an area/ time period beyond my main interest. A few weeks back on either TLC or the Discovery Channel,(can't remember which) was a program
about Vikings and their culture. Many things from ship building to sword making were talked about. They did testing on different chain mail, weapons and shields. One thing that stuck was the opinion that Vikings painted their shields not only for decoration, but also to hide the wood grain from opponents in battle. The test they did was using a axe against a shield and cutting at different angles against and with the wood grain. The results presented seem common sense in that cutting across the grain the sheild held up, but cutting with the grain splintered it quite easily.

Just though some of you Norseman scholars may help to clarify these opinions and just one of those little facts that seem to get lost in the hype of things.

Thanks,



Bill

Hi William,

I saw this same show few months back on the Discovery channel. I do remember the shield test and the mail test (I had issues with the mail test and some conclusions made, but that is another debate).

I was/still am confused about the whole shield thing. I was under the impression that viking and shields in general are made from 2 or more plies of wood laid on top of each other (like sandwich) with the grains running perpendicular to each other. If that were the case, no mater how the axe is aligned, one or the other ply of wood will hold against the blade (at least it is not going to get splintered).

I cannot remember if they explained the construction of the viking shields or not. I could also be very wrong about the construction and the defensive properties of the shields (according to some of the norse sagas, shields were broken left and right).

So while we are at it can we clarify the construction as well as the painting on the viking shields.

Alexi

Based on what we've been able to find out Viking shields/round shield were made from planks of wood glued or pinned and glued together . There are Roman shield finds that have ply type construction but we haven't turned up anything on round shields ( if anyones got anything regarding this we'd love to hear/fined out about it ) built this way. Alot of the archelogical round shield finds indicate that they were faced in either vegitable tanned leather or rawhide. This served
several purposes 1) with plank construction one can reduce the spliting factor by facing the boards in a layer of one piece material 2) leather is very cut resistant 3) leather was more easily painted than wood . As for the particulars of what was painted and why there's several theories including simple unit/household identification (given the sketchy information this makes sense anyhow) .

Greetings All,
Kev the carpenter here, aka "johnny speculation". First timer.
I've wondered how the heck one can tell the diff. betwixt 1000 year old skin, whether it was leather or rawhide. Given a choice I'd rather save my veg tan for new shoes, because I plan on living through, and use hard as a rock , easier to make rawhide on, as I hear, a disposable shield.

It also seems like one of the good things about a round shield is that it could be rotated enough, if one were needing to statically block an incoming blow, so that the edge could be stopped with cross grain, or alternatively trapped with the grain as the warrior found prudent. Or if one side became chewed up it could be rotated.

I haven't been paying much attention but the pictorial examples I have seen have, IIRC, shown the grip perpendicular to the boards and probably held some function of keeping these together.(one might be tricky and set the handle at a diagonal, never parallel with the center board, probably not, but could depend on how great the role as joinery device the handle played) Whether the crosspiece was presented horizontal or vertical would seem to me fairly fluid, and much easier/quicker to alter than the angle of an oncoming attack.

I have to admit the most complete thing I've read about these is Peter Beatson's article. He says "possibly" glued together of the Gokstad's, which I assume means they were at least closely jointed. Other than Roman, I have only heard of early Anglo-Saxon planes, no Viking planes have been found, I hope that's wrong, I'd love to see one.

Some questions might be, how many planes were in use during this era? (a near must have for hide glue joints) Did war shield makers use them? If they did, was the joinery/ finish, sufficient enough for paint to conceal the joint.

If the Gokstad burial shields were just ornaments it could be they were carefully jointed and glued up by special status craftsman whereas the utilitarian shields made by more average craftsmen, without planes, were closely fitted (not jointed)and held together by the cross piece, leather lamination and rim.

If it is a time/economics issue, if not all were made of glued together boards, I think the effort would be better spent in leather/rawhide lam rather than carefully jointing with a rare, expensive, specialized tool, and in the end still have a much stronger defense.

chemical analysis of fragments of the leather found as well as analysis of the microscopic structure of the fragments of leather was used .

Hello, this will be my first post here. I'd like to offer a scenario here, because I seem to remember a sword review that mentioned the concept of a sword being used against a shield, and it got me searching the forums on the subject. This is slightly going in the direction of Off Topic, but it's not too bad. My scenario is this: what about a plate-armored knight, wielding a two handed cutting sword? In this case, he probably isn't too worried about his opponent even being able to harm him. Would it be feasible for him to concentrate on destroying his opponent's shield, assuming that once it is destroyed, he will become a sitting duck to the knight?

+ JDM IV

hehehe. i hit a free standing kite shield at hasitngs with a danish 2 handed axe. as hard as i could i could only see a lil ripple in the back of the shield. it is 2 layers of 3/8 inch ply.

now, at TFBO this year, a friend of mine got an axe thru a shield, not sure on teh thickness.

as far as we now, most vikign shields were planked. all we can go on is the finds and speculation

Why did vikings paint their shields?

Why did they ornament their swords?

Why do military pilots paint the nose of their aircraft?

Why does anyone ornament their weapon's and armor?

Because that's what you do when you go to fight. Some of it is intimidation, some is a phsychological self boost, some is identification.

Chuck is right, the discovery family of stations are not a creditable source of information. The bulk of the TV that I do watch happens to be those stations, but I avoid any of the shows on topics that I happen to be passionate about. You have to figure that their prime focus is to entertain, not educate. The experts they have on those programs can be very bad, and many times the reason they are on there is because they have a good story that they come up with to tell. So many times these are the scientist/ researchers who are on the fringe of educational community. Another thing I have noticed about their experts is that many times they will be talking as if they are really an expert on the subject, but their back ground has no connection to the subject at all.

Another part of it is that the actors in these shows may be reenactors from one period doing a totally different period. Just yesterday I watched a program on bog bodies and there was a 15-16th century two handed sword used in a segment on one of the iron age bog bodies. All that it amounted too was the fact that the shot looked good to them.

Shane

Here's that article Kevin was referring to: Viking Shield

If it's the show where they tested various weapons and armour at a ballistics lab in England then I saw that show on the National Geographic Channel; if I remember right they found that when the planks were oriented horizontally they were best able to withstand strikes from a weapon. According to the above article, and some pictures I've seen, it seems that for the most part round shields from that period of time and in that region of the world were constructed from a single layer of wooden planks with the slat forming the grip attached perpindicular to the boards, so that when the shield was held the planks would already be oriented more or less in the most advantageous way: horizontally. So there really wouldn't be a need to "hide" that fact; most everyone else was also making their shields the same way. It just seems more intuitive to place the slat across the planks rather than in the same direction, and by doing so I imagine it helped to contribute to the overall stability of the shield, along with the attachment of the boss and the rim. When you add in that most shields were also faced with leather, then there really woldn't be a need to hide anything with paint. The primary reason behind painting would seem to be ornamentation; whether as a form of heraldry or identification. for religious or cultural reasons, or just personal preference.