Historical Soldiers that Used Both Shield and Pike -- myArmoury.com

Benjamin H. Abbott

I'm trying to get a feel for how widespread and practical the combination of shield and pike was. I'm interested in any units that used pikes - long infantry spears held in both hands - as well as shields. For the earliest example, historians generally present the ancient Macedonian soldier as wielding sarissa in both hands with a shield strapped to the left arm. This position appears explicitly in Roger Daniel's 1625 translation of Adam Breen's 1618 infantry manual; I've attached four relevant images below. Maurice of Nassau's pikeman carried shields according to Sir Edward Cecil, though it's not clear from his description that they used shield and pike together as in the images. More than half a century earlier, Raimond de Beccarie de Pavie, baron de Fourquevaux, wanted pikeman to carry shields on their backs to sling down to wield alongside their swords when pikes became unusable in the press. Sources on the Battle of Flodden Field 1513 indicate that the mostly pike Scottish force included shields (pavises) but it's not written how they used them. The one woodcut I know of the battle doesn't feature shields.

What other sources are out there?

Benjamin H. Abbott · Posted: Tue 26 Nov, 2013 8:30 am Post subject:

The pikemen of Charles the Bold apparently carried a small leather shield on their left arms.

I'm also curious how much protection shields offered, era Renaissance-era shields. Cecil wrote that target favored by Maurice of Nassau only weighed 6lbs. I've been looking at surviving steel targets. For example, this sixteenth-century Italian target weighs exactly 6lbs and is 21-5/8ths inches in diameter. That suggests of a thickness of approximately 1.45mm. It's listed as iron. If that means wrought iron, by Alan Williams' numbers it would only take about 50 J to pierce it with an arrow point. This strikes me as insufficient protection against pikes. On the other hand, this 23-inch-diameter parade shield is approximately 1.8mm and made from medium-carbon steel overall. It would require about 150 J to pierce. A shield owned by Sir John Smythe and possibly part of a light cavalry kit has a similar thickness. Heavier targets could get up to 4mm or more and weigh 18lbs or more at 22 inches in diameter. Fourquevaux didn't describe the target he wanted for his pikemen in any detail, but he did describe the pikemen as heavily laden and "rescued" by the halberdiers behind them in an extended melee.

William P · Posted: Tue 26 Nov, 2013 4:55 pm Post subject:

it's been pretty solidly insisted that byzantine oplitai used a combination of the pikeand some sorm of shield, most assume it to be you standard teardrop shield, i think they mostly used the sheild via the guigestrap, how actively they held both im not too sure
it's been suggested that macedonian phalangites did a similar thing with their shield, strapped to the arm via he porpax and the rest of the weight of the shield supported by a neckstrap

Joel Minturn · Posted: Mon 02 Dec, 2013 8:54 pm Post subject:

Don't have too much to add but I was wondering where you found the images of those plates from? This time period interests me and trying to find more books on it.

Kurt Scholz · Posted: Wed 04 Dec, 2013 7:24 am Post subject:

I concur, it is assumed for sarissa phalanxes of Macedonian tradition and Early to High Medieval Byzantine troops that were rather static. You can also check the very many pictorial sources from ancient China. The Qin and Han army combined crossbows and 4m/12' long spears.

Benjamin H. Abbott · Posted: Wed 04 Dec, 2013 7:57 am Post subject:

The images are from Roger Daniel's 1625 Mars His Field, or the Exercise of Arms. They're copied from Adam Breen's 1618 manual.

Matthew Amt · Posted: Wed 04 Dec, 2013 8:26 am Post subject:

William P · Posted: Wed 04 Dec, 2013 5:06 pm Post subject:

byzantine troops on the other hand might have been a bit more static due to tactical doctrines of the day making them stand in big hollow squares (read here, oversized napoleonic infantry squares) with archers sandwiched between rows of pikemen as a sort of mobile fortress base for the striking arm of the skirmishers and cavalry. as well as a place for the medical staff, and the emperor to do their thing.

but they COULD move around, one Australian group, the NVG did some experimental drills quite a number of years back, so it WAS possible that they could act aggressively,
They did however, according to what I've heard they tended to be more defensive in the bigger battles, letting the horsemen do most of the damage and themselves fending off the enemy cavalry in turn which, now that i thunk of it, was similar to the tactics used by latin crusaders, archers keep away the horse archers who are in turn protected by rows of spearmen.
It was the horsemen, particularly the barded horsemen aka eastern cataphracts, which seemed to be the main threat on the eastern frontier. (the threat of those aforementioned heavy horse might have likely been the major driving force behind the creation of the menavlion bearers as specialist troops)

Kurt Scholz · Posted: Fri 06 Dec, 2013 5:30 am Post subject:

The famous Battle of Alcácer Quibir might be a good starting point.
The term Moorish pike is found in the various naval armaments of this era for a short pike and I remember reading that the Moors combined pikeman and javelinmen by adding javelins to the pikemen. It would be likely that this goes along with an adarga shield - an arms combination similar to the Iphicratean peltast/hoplite that preceded the Macedonian phalanx or to the Flemish with their leather shields.

The Battle of Flodden Field mentions several blocks of pikemen, one of them by Highlanders, only protected by their targes and suffering heavily from English arrows.

My bad for not mentioning more clearly that the only Byzantine pikemen are described as a rather static force in the texts we have.

William P · Posted: Mon 09 Dec, 2013 4:43 am Post subject:

i pln on getting in touch with the guys who did those byzantine test drills, I'll see what their thoughts were on the subject.

Dan Howard · Posted: Mon 09 Dec, 2013 5:22 am Post subject:

The Sumerian phalanx used shield and pike. So did the Macedonian phalanx.

Benjamin H. Abbott · Posted: Wed 23 Jul, 2014 1:28 pm Post subject:

In this text William Patten described Scottish pikers in the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh 1547 as holding their pikes in two hands with a "buckler" on the left arm.

Stephen Curtin · Posted: Sat 18 Oct, 2014 4:20 am Post subject:

Hi guys. I was going to start a new topic to discuss why bucklers weren't carried by 17th century pikemen and musketeers. But after finding this thread, it seems that something similar was attempted, but it didn't catch on. We do know that pikemen often ditched parts of their armour in order not to have to carry around the extra weight, so it makes sense that they wouldn't like the idea adding a steel target to their kit. I'm still left wondering why 17th century infantrymen didn't carry smaller bucklers, like was done in previous centuries?

Stephen Curtin · Posted: Sat 18 Oct, 2014 4:34 am Post subject:

Matthew Amt · Posted: Sat 18 Oct, 2014 6:09 am Post subject:

Benjamin H. Abbott · Posted: Sat 18 Oct, 2014 7:14 am Post subject:

Stephen Curtin · Posted: Sat 18 Oct, 2014 8:35 am Post subject:

informative reply as usual Matthew.

Lafayette C Curtis · Posted: Mon 20 Oct, 2014 6:12 am Post subject:

Matthew Amt · Posted: Mon 20 Oct, 2014 7:00 am Post subject:

Stephen Curtin · Posted: Thu 27 Jul, 2017 2:43 pm Post subject:

Hi Benjamin. I don't know if you're still interested in this topic, but in case you are, I thought I'd share another image of a pikeman with a shield. The image is of a Basque pikeman, and comes from the Codice de Trajes dated to 1547.

http://warfare.ihostfull.com/Renaissance/Codice_De_Trajes-11r.htm