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Sean Manning
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Posted: Sat 07 Jun, 2008 10:03 pm Post subject: Elizabethan Targets |
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In January of 1600 CE (our calendar) Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council mustered a new levy of infantry for Ireland. Six men in every hundred were to be equipped with “good swordes and daggers” and “targettes of wood” (and probably “good murryons” as well, since all the other troops were supposed to have one). What would these shields have looked like? How large would they have been?
Interestingly, the letter grants that targets may be hard to find, so has arranged for merchants in London to bring in a special supply- an arrangement it doesn't make for muskets, bastard muskets, calivers, pikes, halberds, or corselets. It also complains about the quality of the swords and daggers which past levies have brought. There were the usual injunctions against buying cheap clothing or conscripting only the desperate and friendless.
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David Black Mastro
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Posted: Mon 09 Jun, 2008 11:01 am Post subject: Re: Elizabethan Targets |
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Sean Manning wrote: | In January of 1600 CE (our calendar) Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council mustered a new levy of infantry for Ireland. Six men in every hundred were to be equipped with “good swordes and daggers” and “targettes of wood” (and probably “good murryons” as well, since all the other troops were supposed to have one). What would these shields have looked like? How large would they have been? |
They would have been round or oval, and about 30 inches in diameter.
In 1601, an English force in Ireland consisting of 1,250 men included 112 targetiers. They were apparently effective in the guerrilla-style warfare encountered there.
"Why meddle with us--you are not strong enough to break us--you know that you have won the battle and slaughtered our army--be content with your honor, and leave us alone, for by God's good will only have we escaped from this business" --unknown Spanish captain to the Chevalier Bayard, at the Battle of Ravenna, 1512
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Sean Flynt
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Sean Manning
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Posted: Mon 09 Jun, 2008 5:46 pm Post subject: |
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OK, thanks Sean.
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Chris Last
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