Hello,

I'm wondering if anyone has ideas as to why the predominant shield shape evolved from round shield (Viking era) to kite to heater and back to round (as the rotella).

The heater/kite shape more closely matches the shape of a person and their vital targets. So it seems to be a more efficient use of the material to protect a given area.

But what other factors influence shield shape and design.

P.S. I know that the use of cavalry is relevant, so were heaters or kites ever used on foot?

Thanks.

As I understand it, the heater did not develop FROM the round shield, but ultimately from the kite shield. That was apparently a Byzantine item, though they may have gotten it from somewhere else (don't know Byzantine stuff myself!) The kite became widely used in Western Europe by the 11th century, by horse and foot. It seems to have replaced the roundshield in most areas even before it changed into the heater (first becoming flat-topped, then shortening).

The kite itselt is a very efficient shield, helping to protect the legs of a footman and the horse of a horseman. It's nice to be able to lean on it, too! Can't do that with a roundshield or a kite.

Others will have more and better information!

Vale,

Matthew

I've alsways thought of it in a slightly different way, but hey... that's me.
The first option was the round shield, but that didn't give too much protection to the vital parts. Another option was the Roman-style table shield (or whatever its called), but that diminished mobility, so they changed the overall shape of the shield to the kite, it also fit much better on horseback, largely following the contours of the horse's neck.
Then as the effectiveness of armour itself increased, it was possible for the kiteshield to become smaller over time, until it was discarded in favor of bucklers and smaller round shields as they became more for personal protection instead of mass warfare.

But that probably has a lot of glitches in it.

As far as I gather, the logic goes as follows;
If you are fighting with a onehanded spear, you want a shield that covers you from the shoulder to the knee; typicaly 90cm+.
The resulting round shields are large and cumbersome, and are broader than stricly nessecary.
Oval shields get rid of some of the ecces weight, but the central grip stil has limitations.
Round shields with straps are known from antiquity, but can only be so large before they become unpractical.

If you where to attch straps to a oval shield, it would be quite cumbersome as well, as the straps would have to be on the upper half of the shield.
Solution to the problem is triming of the unecesary parts of the shield.
Hey, Presto! a kite.
The byzantines and normans started usings kites in the 10th century. The strategicon sets its sice to 90 cm tall, and 60 cm broad.

Larer, one found that it was nice to have a shield that was a bit broader at the top, resulting in flat top kites apparing from the late 12th century. Then the base was broadened as well; In lose formations, spears tend to sneak past narrow bottom of the kite. The result is the infantry heather, which is rarely depicted because 13th century artists almost invariably draw knights.
The cavalry heather is shows up about the same time. it is shorter, for easier handling on horseback.

Personally, I see this as the pinacle of shieldiness; After the 13th century, the lightly armoured spear and shield fighter was replaced by the armoured, two-handed spear wielding feuldal man at arms, and shields more or less dissappeared; They where not replaced by bucklers; unlike the shield, the buckler was never a field weapon, but rather served as a dueling and self defence sidearm, and backup for polearm/spear troops.

When the roundell show up in the renisance, it could partially be because the round shield strapped to the arm is familiar from greek and roman artwork. Another point worth noting is that roundellmen where only (as far as I know) fielded in conciderable numbers by the spanish, who where, in turn just finished fighting the moors, who never discarded their round, strapped to the arm shields in the first place.

A infantry heather of kite is a decidedly better shield than a small heather or roundell, all else beeing equal.
The roundell is however a lot more convenient to carry, and, since the age of the shield was 200 years past in its heyday , people with larger shields wasn't that much of a problem.

I just wrote this huge response and some wierd combination of two keys just wiped it off the screen. Such moments shorten my life.

So I'll summarize my reply.

I'm glad this was brought up because I've been interested in this subject for many years.

Personally, when sparring with hand-to-hand weapons I actually think the older type of center grip shields are better, mainly because you hold them further out. There is a lot more too this but thats the main issue.

However I think large lightly made shields were popular in the Iron Age / Migratrion period due to the showers of low energy missiles they usually faced: javelins of various types, sling stones, thrown spears and axes, and (mostly) lower energy bows. Only the "artillery" of the Romans and Greeks, and possibly the recurve bows of the Scythians and Huns were really high energy enough to be likely to just blow through a shield.

Later you have less light missiles but more hard hitting ones such as longbows, heavy crossbows, and by the 13th century, various types of primtive firrearms and cannon.

A large light shield is worthless against such missiles. Another downside of large-lightly made shields (most Viking era and Roman scuta I know of for example were made of relatively light lime or birch wood and were 1/4-1/2" thick) is that they were relatively easy to chop up. This is mentioned a lot in the Viking Sagas, it was even routine to issue 3 shields each in a duel.

The one shield of this broad era I know of which had an arm strap was the heavy, bronze reinforced Greek Aspis. This is a heavy shield initially intended mostly for close hand-to-hand combat.

Later in Europe in the medieval period, armor is more relied on to fend off light missiles, as it seemed to do quite effectively in the first Crusade.

Those shields still in use in the Medieval / Renaissance were smaller and heavier, because they were more intended for hand-to-hand combat. A very heavy shield can't be as large as the old types were (especially if it's all -metal) and especially not with a center grip. And of course the arm strap was easier to use on horseback as has been pointed out.

Personally I think the ideal shield for a one on one duel with hand weapons is a heavily made small-mediums sized center grip round shield with a concave shape.

J.

Shields work very well against polearms one on one; In a line, however, the polearms can "snipe" you. This is easier if you are carrying a small shield. The traditional tactic of holding the shield at arms length is also less usefull, because it opens you up to everyone except the guy you are pointing the shield at.

Roundellmenn against pikes work well, because they are agressive, push the pikes away, and close: In a static fight, they would be ground up.

I agree with Elling on the issue of the buckler. It was available on the battlefield, but in combination with an arming sword, as a backup weapons system for a man whose principal weapon was a bow or polearm. In skirmishing and a swirling melee it could be very useful; but I do not think it was ever used as a principal weapon for men moving deliberately into shock combat in formation.

I think we're leaving some very key elements out of this, such as armor comonly available, and the arms that the shield designed to defeat. What follows is naive speculation on my part.

For a Roman era Celt with a fist full of javelins and no armor but trousers, a barn door that you can hold at arms length is a fine defense against Roman pilum. The pilum punches through quite a little ways, so having the shield far way is key; you survive the initial volley, then toss it and charge.

A Norman knight on horseback has a very different set of requirements: he needs to protect his torso and legs from infantry attacks. If he's well equiped he has chausses, but chausses are not proof against a set spear, so you would want a long shield, but you also need to control your horse, so you'd strap the shield to your arm, and it makes a very effective passive defense.

A few years go by, and you have partial plate armor. Your legs are protected by Cuisses. A heater shield covers your vitals, but is lighter and more mobile, generally easier to defend against an opponent who is on horseback. Horse to horse combat may not have been a consideration for the Normans at hastings, but it was certainly a consideration during the crusades, correct?

As far as Buckers, yes they were used against pikes by the Spanish, but my understanding is that they used a very daring tactic of rolling uder the pikes, then popping up in the middle of the formation and wreaking havok. It worked once, on broken terrain (which was never a friend of the pikeman) and never worked again. I'm sure someone more schooled in the topic can clarify.

Anyhow, what I mean to say is context, context.

As Greg has pointed out though (and I was actually going to make the same point had he not beat me to it) there's a lot of imagery from the middle ages of knights or men at arms carrying bucklers. Granted, they do seem to be an infantry defense, but Elling's initial statement about the buckler does not seem to be supported by historical evidence.

Gavin has the right of it, but a bit more detail.

The evolution of the shield is more or less as follows, with some glaring exceptions.

In most of Europe (Greece being a major exception) the primary shield was the shield gripped by a handle, such as the Roman shield, and the Viking shield. This is excellent for a man on foot, because it is very agile, and can be quickly rotated around the body, whereas the arm strapped shield isn't as good for this.

Then, as warfare moved more and more onto the horse, shields were developed to mostly be used on the back of the horse.

Arm straps were better here, and among knights, (mostly horsemen) you saw them boing used more off the horse as well, among this group. The Teardrop was originally a shield mostly for mounted use, (Or so Oakeshott tells me.)

The teardrop developed into the heater, and then the shield went out in favor of plate. By this time you see far less use of the shield in general.... But we do have some later period images of swordsman with center gripped shields, which are of medium size in the images I have seen. In general though, by this time the idea of arm straps had more or less 'taken over' regardless of whether if it is better or worse.

Well, I don't think I can add anything on the single combat aspects of the shield. But I can say that the SCA formation of putting a rank of sword-and-shield men backed by another of polearms does not really work once "team kills" are factored in.

The Spanish rodeleros succeeded in defeating the Swiss pikemen in more than one battle, and they didn't do it by repeating the naive tactics of lying down when the pikes came and then springing up at close range. Rather, what they did was cooperate with the other Spanish troops, particularly the combat engineers. One striking feature of the battles where the Imperial forces won over the French is that they tended to be the ones where the Imperials had the chance to prepare the battlefield with field fortifications. These fortifications slowed down and broke up the masses of French gendarmes and Swiss pikemen and thus allowed the Spanish troops a longer time to fire at them on one hand and the chance to spring some close-quarters ambushes on the other.

It has also been established that the kite shield was originally an infantry shield, as the first pictorial evidence we have of it displays it being carried by Byzantine infantry. So as the current state of research stands, it's more likely that the horsemen borrowed it from the foot and that the Normans borrowed it from the Byzantines rather than the other way around.

Just throwing in my two denarii.

the pavaise in teh 15thc is still considered a shield. its usually on the large side.

its hard to do something on this subject due to time, era, area and cultural differences.

The rodeleros of the 16th and 17th centuries weren't sword-and-buckler men, though. They had swords and arm-strapped round targets. The images I remember of sword and buckler being used in war seems to have come from an earlier source--probably the 15th century.