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Sharleyne Gay
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 Posted: Sat 12 Mar, 2016 8:44 pm Post subject: Heater Shields Medieval Europe |
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I am making a heater shield and I am having trouble getting information about it. Some websites even have different dates for the same thing.
I need to answer Who would have made it
When would it have been originally made and found
Where it would be originally made/used and found
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Craig Peters
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| Posted: Sat 12 Mar, 2016 10:00 pm Post subject: |
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Heater shields were used throughout Western Europe. They furst appear in the early 13th century; for a relatively early pictorial representation, see here: http://manuscriptminiatures.com/media/manuscr...828-9.jpg. This manuscript is dated between 1210 and 1220 AD. I don't know much about people involved in manufacturing shields in the Middle Ages, and I suspect there's not much information about them. Most of our knowledge about shield manufacture comes from closely inspecting surviving historical shields.
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Craig Peters
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| Posted: Sat 12 Mar, 2016 10:24 pm Post subject: |
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There is also more ambiguous evidence from the very end of the 12th century. If we interpret the shields in the Liber ad Honorem Augusti circa 1194-1197 AD as being an accurate representation of a real shield, then we have evidence of a shield that's not quite a heater shield nor a kite shield: http://manuscriptminiatures.com/media/manuscr.../645-7.jpg .The length of these shields is too short to be a kite, yet they're rounded at the top, which means they're not heater shields either. These shields seem to be an anomaly, rather than a common form: most of Europe at the time was using flat-top kite shields of full length.
As another example, the earliest extant medieval shield, the Arnold von Brienze shield, might have been made as early as 1180 AD. However, shortly after that it was cut down to make it into a heater shield shape, probably during the 13th century: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Schild_von_Seedorf.gif
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Sharleyne Gay
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| Posted: Sat 12 Mar, 2016 11:47 pm Post subject: |
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Do you know what the most popular designs were used on the heater shields in medieval Europe and where can I get some pictures of these designs
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Craig Peters
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| Posted: Sun 13 Mar, 2016 4:56 am Post subject: |
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Keep in mind the heraldic designs had a tendency to become more complex over time, so it depends what century and region you want to represent. Here's one of the earliest lists of heraldry, from England mid way through the 13th century: http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/Stars/Historia_Angelorum.htm
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Gregory J. Liebau
Location: Dinuba, CA Joined: 27 Nov 2004
Posts: 669
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| Posted: Sun 13 Mar, 2016 8:17 am Post subject: |
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Sharleyne,
As Craig has pointed out, heater shields were very popular throughout Western Europe during the high medieval period. It would be much easier to answer your questions if you chose to be more specific. Do you have a time period or region that interests you particularly? The broad questions of "who made heater shields, how were they made, who used them and what was their form and function" can be roughly answered in as many pages as would fill a book. There is in fact an entire book written in German focused on historical heater shields primarily from German lands. It is Jan Kohlmorgen's Der Mittelalterliche Reiterschield, and is a fine book if you can read German. It's even a good book if you cannot!
My point is that if you take some time to consider any details about what it is that you want to accomplish specifically, it will be much easier to give you detailed answers in turn.
Cheers!
-Gregory
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Sharleyne Gay
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Craig Peters
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| Posted: Mon 14 Mar, 2016 4:04 am Post subject: |
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Neither of the shields you have posted are good representations of heater shields. Both are cheap, modern versions that are sold to people who do not know what historical heaters look like. I would suggest you ask Gregory (the other poster in this thread) to show you some of his shields, which are much higher quality and much more historically accurate. You can see Greg's process of creating a heater shield here: http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewto...p;t=167321
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Gregory J. Liebau
Location: Dinuba, CA Joined: 27 Nov 2004
Posts: 669
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| Posted: Mon 14 Mar, 2016 8:07 am Post subject: |
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Hello Sharleyne,
As Craig kindly noted, I'm rather interested in the historical process of crafting heater shields and am happy to answer what questions you have. My thread that he linked should give you an idea of the involvement of the crafting process necessary to make a shield during the High Middle Ages. Also as Craig mentioned, there is virtually nothing historical about the shield you posted besides the general shape. It is a modern fantasy inspired by cheesy Arthurian films of the mid-20th century!
If you are interested in the shape and size of shields from the period between 1200-1250, there are a couple of notable originals examined by Jan Kohlmorgen in the book I mentioned above. Their dimensions are roughly three feet in height by two feet wide, and as variation is inevitable in pre-industrial crafting, this rough estimate should be as good as any for shields throughout Western Europe during that period.
It is much easier to get an idea of the expectations of shield coverage, the heraldic or stylistic designs applied to their surfaces and their functioning in combat by looking at representative artwork. I would suggest you take time to go over to the manuscript miniatures website which Craig has already linked an image from and do a search for martial imagery from the period and places you are interested in exploring. You will note many figures of knights and other fighting men armed with heater shields depicted by various artists from across Europe. Looking carefully at such contemporary art to understand the details and nuances associated with historical armament is one of the most important steps in learning about them, even among the high academic community. It is really one of the best sources of information left to us.
Please let us know if you have any specific questions! If I had an easy answer for anything you've already asked, then I would certainly have given it. Don't be discouraged by the amount of learning involved in understanding something as seemingly simple as a shield. Cheers!
-Gregory
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Len Parker
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This is a standard topic