Traditional Shield Materials

 
J. Stolarz
 
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J. Stolarz
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16 October 2013 20:50
 

I am wondering what material traditional shields like you commonly see our coat of arms displayed on, were made out of?  Commonly in the movies you see them as a curved metal shield, but I find that in most places online where they show you how to make an actual shield, they’re made out of wood that is molded to that curved form.  You can see an example at the link below.

http://www.swordsandarmor.com/images/SH875_Jerusalem_Shield.jpg

 

I realize that the round shields that were used historically were in fact made out of wood, but were the later heater shields also made of wood, or were they in fact metal?  I’ve tried to do some digging myself but thought somebody here would provide a better answer.

 
Guy Power
 
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16 October 2013 23:35
 

linden wood composite and rawhide:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsZnTCQptWc

 
Guy Power
 
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Guy Power
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17 October 2013 00:11
J. Stolarz
 
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J. Stolarz
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17 October 2013 10:41
 

I didn’t get a chance to watch the second video, but the first video is still using a traditional round shield, not a heater.

 
Kenneth Mansfield
 
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17 October 2013 12:28
 

From myArmoury.com regarding the heater shield:


Quote:

Several surviving shields from the 12th to 14th century give us much detail about how the shields were constructed. One in the Landesmuseum, Zurich, dating from circa 1180, was made of lime wood covered inside and out with leather. Another shield from the late 13th century in the Armeria Real de Madrid is made from cedar-like wood with parchment covering on both sides, the parchment being thicker on the front. Both faces of this shield were painted black. Another late 13th century triangular shield bearing the arms of Von Nordech from Rabenau in the Nationalmuseum, Munich was made from three planks of wood, covered with leather and gesso (gypsum) and then painted. One of the most well-known examples of a surviving 14th century shield is the purported shield of Edward the Black Prince in the Canterbury Cathedral. This shield is thought to have been made especially for Edward’s funeral achievements as it lacks any of the attachment straps that are required for military use. The shield measures 28 3/4 inches in height and 23 1/4 inches in width. It is made of joined poplar wood planks. The wood is covered with canvas and gesso, which are overlain by parchment and finally, leather. The front is painted and the Plantagenet coat of arms, made from molded leather, is glued on top. The three vertical metal bars on the shield represent Edward’s rank in the family as first-born son. The back of the shield was painted green.

 

 
 
J. Stolarz
 
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J. Stolarz
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17 October 2013 19:57
 

Thanks Kenneth for the post and the link.  Once again Hollywood has lied to us is what you’re telling me wink

 
Guy Power
 
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19 October 2013 04:27
 

R. Ewart Oakeshott, The Archaeology of Weapons: Arms and Armour from Prehistory to the Age of Chivalry (New York: Dover, 1996), pp.274-276.


Ewart Oakshotte wrote:

The large kite-shaped shield of the kind used by the Normans was still popular in the second half of the twelth century.  In Scandinavia during this period its form remained unchanged, but further south it tended to be modified by having its upper edge made straight.  Here again it is better not to lay down hard and fast rules of deelopment, for personal preference must be considered in the shape of shields as in all else; however, the evidence of innumerable documents shows that after 1150 a type of large triangular shield with a straight upper edge predominated.  Some still had central bosses, some not.  This feature is occasionally seen as late as the mid-thirteenth centruy for instance on the monument of Wilhelm von Groitsch (c. 1240) (fig. 120).  From the early years of the thirteenth century the shield was a good deal shorter—about 30 in. from base to apex—and considerably wider, often strongly curved to enclose the body in the manner of the old Roman shields.  Towards the centruy’s end a type of very small, flat shield seems to have been popular as an alternative to the big one.  We find them on many English brasses and monuments dating between 1280 and 1325.  They appear to be rather similar in purpose to the little flat fist-bucklers which were often used for fighting on foot, but they were of the flat-iron shape associated with the horseman’s hield instead of circular like the buckler.  Incidentally, some of these small round bucklers are still preserved in Scandinavia, many of them in almost perfect condition.

The effigy of Sir Robert de Surland, thanks to the peculiarities of its design, shows very clearly the arrangement of the various straps by which the shield was held.  These are quite complex, and are as it were in two sets, each complementary to the other in handling and managing the shield.  First there is the long strap by which it was hung round the neck, called the "guige".  This consists of one long strap fixed by rivet to the inside of the shield near the top on the right-hand side and a shorter one furnished with a buckle similarly placed and fixed on the left.  By using two straps buckled together in this manner the length of the guige could be adjusted.  The second group of straps are the "enarmes", a system of loops through which the left forearm could be thrust.  This method of holding the shield is, of course, similar to what was used by Greeks, Celts, Saxons and Vikings, except that the rigid bar by which the left hand gripped the shield was replaced by a couple of straps.  Basically the enarmes consist of three straps; one to the left of the shield, one nearer to the right and a third, considerably smaller than the other tow, almost at the right edge.  The forearm passed through the first two; No. 1 on the left held the arm near the elbow, No. 2 held the wrist and No. 3 could be grasped by the fingers if they were disengaged, though the pressure of No. 2 across the wrist was enough to hold the shield if the fingers were needed to hold the reins.  The Shurland monument shows one arrangement of these straps (fig. 132), and an existing shield of the same date in the Tyrolean Museum inb Innsbruck shows another (fig. 133).  The enarmes are more widely spaced and quite separate, not crossed over and very close to each other as in the Shurland shield; one cannot help feeling that in this case all the grips are to far over the right for such a big hield.  However, personal preference may have something to do with this apparent oddity, thought we cannot rule out the possibility that here the preference may have been that of the sculptor who made the effigy, striving to show all the enarmes and so not spacing them correctly.

 

There are some well-preserved shields dating about 1190 and 1320 which show clearly how they were made.  One is in the Landesmuseum at Zurich; it was found late in the nineteenth century in a disused cupboard in the church at Seedorf, on Lake Lucerne; it bears the arms (azure, a lion Rampant argent) of Arnold von Brienz, who founded the church and monastery of Seedorf in 1179.  The church was later dedicated to the Order of the Knights of St. Lazarus.  The shield is somewhat damaged, the lower few inches of the point end being broken away and all the straps having perished, though apart from that it is well preserved.  It is made of lime-wood covered inside and out with leather, the silver lion being moulded in low relief in Gesso Duro.  Much of the silver colouring and the blue of the ground survives.

 

At Marburg (where there are extremely fine effigies of some of the Counts of Hesse) are more than twenty well-preserved shields; one of them bears the arms of Konrad von Thuringen and Hesse, Grand Master from 1120 to 1241 of the Teutonic Order of the Knights of Prussia; these arms are applied in tooled leather to the front of the shield while the inside is gilded and painted with a knight and a lady.  In the Armeria Real at madrid is an even better preserved shield of the late thirteenth century (D. 59) which came from the monastery of San Salvador de Oña at Burgos; this is made of a wood rather like cetar, and is covered on each side with parchment, thicker on the front than on the back.  The inside was painted black with a broad band of red running diagonally across it.  This feature is repeated on the back of the shield in the Tyrolean Museum at Innsbruck.)  The enarmes are made of strong dressed buckskin lined with purple velvet; part of the guige remains.  On the outside are traces of arms; on a field numerous stripes, some gilded and incised, otheres of various colours, run from the centre to the outer edges in the manner of an Escarbuncle.


When he says parchment, he refers to a thin leather similar to vellum.

 

The Konrad von Thruigen u. Hesse shield:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Complete_Guide_to_Heraldry_Fig029.png/400px-Complete_Guide_to_Heraldry_Fig029.png

 
Guy Power
 
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19 October 2013 04:43
 

Chapter VI: The Shield


Quote:

...The shield was of wood, covered with linen or leather, the charges in relief and painted. Leather plastic was very much esteemed in the early Middle Ages. The leather was soaked in oil, and pressed or beaten into shape. Besides piecing and leather plastic, pressed linen (linen dipped in chalk and lime) was also used, and a kind of tempera painting on a chalk background. After the shield was decorated with the charges, it was frequently strengthened with metal clasps, or studs, particularly those parts which were more especially exposed to blows and pressure. These clasps and nails originally had no other object than to make the shield stronger and more durable, but later on their nature was misunderstood; they were treated and used as genuine heraldic charges, and stereotyped into hereditary designs. The long strips with which the edge was bound were called the "frame" (Schildgestell), the clasps introduced in the middle of the shield the "buckle" or "umbo" (see on Fig. 28 ), from which frequently circularly arranged metal snaps reached the edge of the shield. This latter method of strengthening the shield was called the "Buckelrîs," a figure which was afterwards frequently employed as a heraldic charge, and is known in Germany by the name of Lilienhaspel (Lily-staple) or Glevenrad, or, as we term it in England, the escarbuncle….

source

 

 
Kenneth Mansfield
 
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19 October 2013 07:57
 

I believe (I am remembering from a long time ago) that parchment is goat or sheep. The bovine equivalent would be something between rawhide and leather. It is typically used for writing, so it isn’t entirely like rawhide, but is intended to "lay flat" rather more than fully tanned hides.

 
 
J. Stolarz
 
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21 October 2013 20:27
 

Wouldn’t rawhide hold better in helping the limewood to keep it’s shape and causing it to be more durable, as was shown in the first video posted about 900s age round shields?  It seems leather wouldn’t be as durable in that respect.  Also, if shields were usually constructed by pieces of wood glued together (And not a piece of plywood like most replicas you see now), how did they get the bend in the shield.

 
Jeremy Keith Hammond
 
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22 October 2013 14:10
 

J. Stolarz;100902 wrote:

Wouldn’t rawhide hold better in helping the limewood to keep it’s shape and causing it to be more durable, as was shown in the first video posted about 900s age round shields?  It seems leather wouldn’t be as durable in that respect.  Also, if shields were usually constructed by pieces of wood glued together (And not a piece of plywood like most replicas you see now), how did they get the bend in the shield.


Wood can be bent (or curved shapes created) from a number of techniques… but I suspect the medieval method involved steaming. Using heat and water, you can loosen a glue like substance that’s found in wood and make it more pliable. You clamp the wood into the shape you want (in the case of a shield, perhaps around a barrel or tree trunk) and when it’s cool it retains the shape it was bent into while hot.

 
arriano
 
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22 October 2013 16:54
 

Jeremy Keith Hammond;100909 wrote:

a glue like substance that’s found in wood


You mean sap?

 

In this authentic recreation the shields do appear to be made of wood.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV0tCphFMr8

 
Jeremy Keith Hammond
 
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22 October 2013 17:06
 

arriano;100910 wrote:

You mean sap?


Nope. I’m referring to a substance called lignin.

 
Michael F. McCartney
 
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22 October 2013 17:15
 

SOme wood is flexible—or we wouldn’t have wooden bows.  Or if necessary, you can bend wood by first streaming it.

As to leather—I’ve read that crests were often formed of boiled leather (cuir bolli with apologies for misspelling it - & don’t know if boiled in oil or water) which when dried became quite hard & durable.  Could this have also been done with the leather on a shield?

 
Nick B II
 
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22 October 2013 19:19
 

Michael F. McCartney;100913 wrote:

SOme wood is flexible—or we wouldn’t have wooden bows.  Or if necessary, you can bend wood by first streaming it.

As to leather—I’ve read that crests were often formed of boiled leather (cuir bolli with apologies for misspelling it - & don’t know if boiled in oil or water) which when dried became quite hard & durable.  Could this have also been done with the leather on a shield?

If the other side is using weapons that can pierce 50 lb of steel mail a light leather shield won’t be much help.

Mind you, I haven’t done any research into this issue because that would be work, but I suspect that it would be very difficult to attach a light leather shield to a knight’s arm in a manner that could survive repeated blows from a 3-4 lb sword. It would either be destroyed or knocked off.

 

Metal feels wrong, too, because the shield is supposed to be covered by your Coat of Arms. Which means you can’t tell when it’s starting to rust.

 

OTOH, an inch or two of Oak bent steamed for a slight bend would work great. It takes paint, or a rendering (on leather if needed for extra toughness) can be nailed to it. It’s incredibly solid, which means that a) very little will pierce the shield itself, b) most of the stuff that does will lose so much velocity it’s harmless, and c) you can attach really robust straps. Done in a single piece it would probably actually be tougher then chain mail.

 

The major problem would probably be if you had to make a shield from multiple boards. The seam between them would be a weak point.

 
J. Stolarz
 
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22 October 2013 20:19
 

Nick B II;100915 wrote:

The major problem would probably be if you had to make a shield from multiple boards. The seam between them would be a weak point.

 


However it seems that is how they did it.  In some cases depending on the glue used it could actually be the strongest point.  If they had that technology or not I don’t know.  Obviously covering it in a rawhide would greatly increase the structural integrity of the shield.

 

I guess what I’m getting hung up on now is how the shield was actually bent to give it that curved shape.  I understand how steaming works and how you could bend it into shape if it was one solid piece.  However it seems like if you tried to do that with multiple boards glued together they would just start popping apart.  I could be wrong obviously since I’ve never tried it, but that’s what logic would tell me.