Late Medieval Shields: I was WRONG!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ต.ค. 2024
- I was wrong about late medieval shields in one important way. But I also learned a lot!
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This seem like pretty good example of why "living history" and "experimental archaeology" are so important, to actually give what we think we know a "reality test".
Those small bucklers always make me think that at some point someone decided to get rid of the shield and just use the boss.
This is Thrand, Love the Video Matt excellent and in my opinion shields are always in fashion! Its always better to put something in the way than trust ones armour as the only defense!
th-cam.com/video/hPW8H894KD0/w-d-xo.html just cause back then you'd remember these. Been through a few channels since. 2 minutes of fire in Vermont.
As PG Wodehouse once said (admittedly on a different subject), "Everything added to what you've got makes just a little bit more."
@@silverjohn6037 "encumbrance" said a jester...who lived.
Yes, as your handle says. This is Big Guy. Not sure you needed to preface your comment with an establishment and pronouncement of one's handle. Doesn't affect my life, don't really care, it's just odd enough to be a smart ass about. This was Big Guy.
Why does a Big Guy need to comment on something he doesn’t care about? Thrand always greets people with his name, even when they’re expecting him. It’s just one of his ways of living life.
Oh, and I’m not the man lifted from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but that’s where the name comes from.
Moral of the story: Always test your kit before you go into battle. 😄
Train in what you intend to fight in.
If it can't be deployed or secured quickly your opponent will take the opportunity.
your shield is very boss
Knight of the Golden Tit
i giggled
Gripped
One might call it strapping.
Clever👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Matt: "I was wrong!"
We really need more people who can say that...
Matt was wrong. There.
He was wrong about plenty more but hasn’t acknowledged it yet
Being wrong just means you learned something, and became smarter and now know more. It's ok to be wrong sometimes, just not a lot of the time.
@@romailto9299 Oh dear.
@randysavage1
I have learned how to keep my percentage up. I have learned how to say "I don't know. Let's find out."
Chaos ensues. Great fun.
8:40 It makes me wonder if the increased use of longbows and crossbows during the period led people to change the way they held the shields. Todd's Workshop did some videos where reproduction shields could be penetrated a few inches (in one case it even penetrated a piece of mail armor he'd placed on the back of the shield) before the friction of the shaft passing through the shield stopped it. By using a boss gripped shield and holding it slightly away from the body you reduce the amount of your arm and body that's close enough to the shield to still be penetrated.
Longbows were mostly used by the English though, and it's hard to say that crossbows were more widely used in 15th century compared to, say, 13 and 14th.
The thing about that though is if you’re wearing plate armor, and using a shield, any arrow that goes through the shield isn’t going through the plate.
@@lscibor longbows were used widely by the French (and Burgundians, Flemish, etc). Composite bows were being used by the Italians as well, and possibly by the Swiss.
@@Specter_1125 Well, that depends. Not every man at arms or even some of the poorer knights would be able to afford the latest tempered steel. There were a lot of people still using brigandines or coat of plates with mail to cover less vital areas. And even with the plate sets the steel in the arm or legs wouldn't have been as thick as the helm or breastplate.
@@Specter_1125 unless it goes into your arm where the elbow hole is or deflects up under visor into your face or neck it or deflects down behind your leg guards into groin/kidneys , a lot of plate just has cloth or mail in some regions and it dose have gaps in it and arrows like to skate & most knight armours designed to not be open to stabing up so its neciseraly open to projectiles and blows coming downwards sharply enough
also if your arm is against a shield and a crossbow bolt comes through it will probably go strait through plate because it dosent have enough friction time and pin your sheild to your arm. stronger crossbows where known to go right through the shield then forarm into breatplate and pin your arm to breastplate
That heater's boss looks a bit small for a gauntleted hand.
Looking good in that picture. Lindy sighting
wheres that comic lloyd
You should keep the straps for sure. Just yank the pad and saw a hole leaving a vertical bit for boss grip. The late pavises seem to often have both. Being able to sling the shield on the arm for riding or marching is good but with full armor a side strapped shield seems really bad. Why? What is your biggest danger in full armor on foot? Being wrestled. A side strap shield provides your enemy a huge lever to control your body. It actually makes you much MORE vulnerable to a grapple than if you had no shield. it's a huge lever and handhold for your enemy and you cannot reliably remove your arm from the shield when it's being used against you (20 years of doing exactly that in EMP competition). A center grip does the opposite. It makes you harder to grab. Grabbing the shield edge gives your opponent no control at all of your body and in fact makes them vulnerable, plus, if it gets bad, you just let go your grip and are instantly free. The center grip helps you hold space between your oppoent and you so you can use your weapon. It reduces their ability to judge your foot and body movement because you can maneuver independently of the shield, unlike a side strapped shield which moves relatively congruent with your body and helps your opponent judge your position.
Experimental archeology via a reenactment route, all good.
Your usual insightful content, cheers Matt.
As you point out, the straps aren't in the way of the boss having a grip.
I've always thought my ideal shield would have both.
I seem to recall a depiction of a heater with loose straps that could be worn around the gauntlet or gripped (the straps being long enough to be held together in one hand). Not sure if that was historical or a recreation.
@@chrisroberts2843 I have also seen shields where the straps can be grabbed together and work as a handle.
I have absolutely no idea of the historicity of that, but it's a simple enough concept...
This seems like a genuine historical/archaeological insight. It's definitely a fascinating hypothesis.
Glad to see that a teacher is always learning themselves. Confirmation bias is an evil thing; great video.
Great video Matt. You're the BOSS!
Hehe, sounds like you need to plan out a week to live on your harness to discover all the things you can and cannot do while plated up!
It’s always fun to be “wrong” if it means making a new discovery. Cheers Matt
This is Thrand, Love the Video Matt excellent and in my opinion shields are always in fashion! Its always better to put something in the way than trust ones armour as the only defense!
@@Thrand11 He mate, even if you replied here by accident, just wanted to say great to see you back around! Keep up the awesome testing dude.
It would be funny to see that but I think knights and men at arms rarely stayed in their harness that long if at all.
I love all the pictures from the event. It's soooo cool to see people wearing historical armor, especially the late medieval types, because you don't see it that often.
Fascinating. A couple of questions: 1 - Do you think it would be possible to modify the strapping system to be specifically suited for your arm harness? 2 - Your hypothesis about bossed shields working best with full plate arm harness as opposed to strapped shields is interesting, but do you find iconographic justification to support it? I'm confident there still are quite a few illuminations with knights in plate where we see the strapping, but I haven't reviewed them all. Thanks for the upload.
1) That makes a lot of sense. Also, you could severely injure your elbow and/or shoulder if you were unable to slip your arm out.
2) Also, it just occurred to me that a buckler is basically just a boss without the rest of the shield. I wonder if that's how they were invented.
"No, I want a _really big_ buckler. The biggest you've ever seen."
I cannot begin to express how much I love Matt, this channel, THIS COMMUNITY, and the crap we're trying to explore.
I was a grown woman in high school screaming at the top of my lungs to the "sword boys" in the late nineties, trying to gather resources and share with them "how to fight with a longsword."
It's a cathartic dream come true that we're HERE today. I'm no less sane, and in fact my autoimmune disease prevents me from practicing as much as I want, but even just two months ago after my hip replacement I was teaching my occupational therapist the techniques I used from Liechtenauer longsword and how it VERY efficiently trains the whole body. It's such a great joy to finally be able to step a bit, gathered/passing and more. My left side unterhau is still a travesty that I think I'll carry to my grave,
but the very fact that I can talk to some of you here and you know what I'm saying and might even learn from my stupidity?
It's all been so much worth it. Matt, you and your channel is a lifesaver, thank you.
Thank you all.
when you cut the hole in the shield for the hand hole i like to leave the top of the hole as a flat, this gives the glove / hand / gauntlet an easier surface to spin around on when needed for a hand turn rather than the whole arm, where the hole is fully circular at the top i find the hand etc can get caught on the dropping parts of the circle.
This is my guess as well, and exactly you can see it on some later medieval art, with knights blocking from an upwards blow for example. I think there were lots of hybrid shields, with both straps and center grip, straps to more easily put it on your arm on horseback lance, and center grip when dismounting.
I suddenly wanna check manuscript miniatures and see what the art showdls
Having a center grip and strap on the same heater makes it an excellent piece of kit.
This a very good example of practical historical work. And I have to add I had quite a bit of difficulty with my professors with my historical interest because they always told me my work had no value for research. It did not impact modern problems. But I enjoyed this. Others will to. I no longer feel I need to produce work that addresses issues of race and gender in our time to produce work that people will find useful.
One could argue that history doesn't have impact on modern problems. Understanding of the past doesn't automatically leads to solutions of current problems. There is the exception about impact/usefulness/applicability: political agenda hidden behind history, or any other science.
Boss gripped shields where found from the stone-age, the early medieval round shield evolved a point on the bottom in Norman times and developed the straps, keeping the boss for a good 200 years
No substitute for practical history! Great insights.
Couple years ago I was at a renaissance fair and tried to put on a strap shield while having 15th c. Gauntlets on. Same experience as you to a tee.
Very cool, how you experience the pieces in situ and realize the actual mater of fact way it was used. Smart man.
For a strapped heater shield if you move the arm strap to about the mid forearm it works better with arm harness and gives your shield more flexibility of movement. Putting the back strap at the elbow locks the shield more static which limits changing the angles for defense. For boss grip shields always mount the handle vertical. The horizontal grip is easier to carry around on marches but is much weaker in combat. The angle and position of your shield is critical in defense so being able to get it there easily and effectively is a must.
sometimes I feel bad to klick on a video after it is up one Minute as if I was addicted or something.
But sometimes it just happens!
I just wrote almost same comment on History Calling (channel) newest upload ... :)
In the SCA you are see a lot of boss held heater / kite shields of a smaller size being used .
Sca also has rules about max shield size, though. It definitely comes into play.
I FEEL VINDICATED!!!!! For S&B, i made a buckler that is heatershield shape with a boss and center grip it is the size of a buckler about 12 inch by 18 inch. I absolutely love it and it fits well with bolognese style i fight as a stand in for a targa. The heater shape instead of round gave me hat better control over thrust focused weapons like rapiers i absolutely love it. But i kept getting "that's not historical!" I did find ONE pic where it looked like two people were fighting stick and buckler unarmored with what looked like center gripped bossed buckler size heaters, but hopefully this catchws on so i can start using it more in competitions. ❤
lol was that lindybeige looking majestic right behind you!!
Interesting insight. Experience is always the best teacher.
It takes a real dedicated and mature person to admit the times they are wrong(tho it doesnt happen often for this channel) and shows real passion and dedication for the subject! i also was guilty of thinking that straps were superior so this has been enlightening
You should go to a couple of SCA practices. They have figured out the shield and armor set up pretty good.
Great video! It's very neat to see how we can learn the process and context of things 100s of years ago by trying them today!
This might be a stupid question, but if you're holding a shield in your left hand, couldn't you just forgo putting an armored gauntlet on that hand since it's already protected by the shield? If the shield is strapped, wouldn't that make it more difficult to lose and lessen the need to have an armored gauntlet on that hand?
Sounds ok if wearing a long mail sleeve
It would depend a lot on how you were going to fight and what you ecpected to face. The fact is that a shield is far from impenetrable, and a chain sleeve could likely still be penetrated by an arrow that hit the shield. Tod's workshop has done a lot of videos about warbow arrows vs various armor and shield materials.
I think to would be more likely that, as was mentioned in this video, a knight may have chosen a different style of arm plates to allow a strapped shield to be used more easily. Or you use a boss gripped shield to allow you to use basically any armor with the shield.
You COUOLD, but if you had to drop the shield for whatever reason, you'd be bare handed. And on the battle field there's all sorts of reasons why you might have to ditch a shield. They WERE disposable to some degree after all.
Yes, you do see that in art
This is how the dedicated targeteers equipped with a "Targe" (in this case a reasonably large curved shield) in Adam van Breen's 1618 manual appear: they have arm harness on the right arm but not on the left.
I recommend you to see the pictures of the Battle of Agincourt. The image have good details of the shields.
My first thought on boss grip vs straps, ESPECIALLY for fighting from horseback, was, "At least with a boss grip you can let go." If you're galloping along at 40kph and your shield snags on something, you'd really like to drop the shield and... keep your arm!
Also, with a boss grip, you have a better chance of reaching forward with the shield to protect your horse's head from various angles and elevations, or hold it behind your head, or use the shield for an umbrella, or cook a little soup or biscuit in the boss cup, oh so many ideas. While I realize that "buckler is also a stewpot" isn't the primary concern in military gear design, it never hurts to get some extra utility out of your kit :)
Yoiu can accomplish the same point with one of the strap shields in a corned for the hand gripp and a guige on the neck and that was done so you have the control the and the drop ability of a boss , Stocatta made a video about . Also, Shadiversity make a video a while where he demonstrates that least a Viking Style boss gripped is extremely unwieldy to use on horsback, he even had a prop horse and everything.
@@PJDAltamirus0425 Thanks for the suggestions. I'll look through Shad's videos to see if I can find that comparison, too.
@@animisttoo3890 Yeah, at least for large norse rounds, there is just way to much wood ahead of your hand and boss grip to grip the reins properly.
@@PJDAltamirus0425 Oh, I was already assuming the person could ride 1-handed. I guess it depends on your horsemanship skills, but these guys were supposed to be professionals.
@@animisttoo3890 .....You do. But you have to be able to hold the rein, use a spear, swing a sword and manipulate a shield deftly. Unlike wht hollywood protrayed, knights didn't just attack in straight lines.
With the right arrangement of straps, you can hold an earlier strapped heater shield either on the arm, or with a "buckler grip" by holding the straps in your hand.
Yes I agree if the straps are configured correctly. you can put your arm thru the straps or hold the two straps in one hand to use the shield in a boss fashion.
The moment you said there was a problem with your shield I immediately guessed it didn't fit with the arm harness.
I actually switched my arm harness on my left arm to a floating cop and no vambrace use a strapped shield, so I feel your pain.
Even in the major battles, not everyone is charging into a sea of arrows. You have lighter cavalry and mounted archers trying to flank each other in skirmish. Professionals would configure their kit for the situation, even in the midst of battle. Battles like that for the Isl of Ely make one wonder how they managed with all that metal on.
On top of the boss gripped heater shields, I imagine the use of the guiche could also explain the peculiar stance of those shields beging held out but also being at an angle in manuscripts, while also providing added structure to a block.
Although it does seem blindingly obvious in hindsight, I have to admit that I didn't think of it either when you were talking about this shield and late Medieval bossed shields in an earlier video.
Failure is the best teacher. Solid effort mate. Catch you next vid
Lots of tangents early on, thick and fast. Matt is very excited by this discovery.
When I was doing HEMA and trying to use a strapped shield, the (non-period) safety kit we used for full-speed sparring made it a pain to get the enarmes on - so I started just using the straps as handles and using the thing like an oversized bucker or an anachronistic targe. Once I got the straps set to the best length, it worked pretty well.
I do personally doubt that most fighters who had full plate harness would bother with a full-sized shield, though - because of the whole "try walking around with it all day" issue. If there's one thing that's been true about soldiers for the last 10,000 years, it's that they'll ditch equipment at the slightest excuse. I'm sure there were a few nobles who didn't get into a lot of personal fights riding around in full harness with a shield hanging off the saddlebow; and of course a bazillion foot soldiers in lighter armour carrying some kind of shield. But it just feels intuitive to me that a lot of men-at-arms would be all "the effort of humping this damn thing around isn't worth it now that I have nice shiny plate armour on my arms."
And tangental to this - I'm always very concerned about over-reliance on period illustrations (other than in the equivalent of a manual of arms or technical document) to form opinions on "how it worked." There are plenty of examples in modern fiction where things are just wrong - imagine trying to judge how an F-14 worked from watching "Top Gun" - and even well-researched things like "Saving Private Ryan" or "Apollo 13" sacrifice some details for production expediency. Even non-fiction can make mistakes - there's a popular history book about how 3 men who all lived on the same street in Winnipeg won Victoria Crosses in WW1, but the author describes how one of them fired 7 shots from a "colt revolver," then reloaded and did it again, and killed or wounded 12 Germans in the process. A good story, but it's very clear from the description that this was done with a Colt M1911, and that is *not* a revolver.
And this is not a "modern" problem, there are examples from the 18th and 19th centuries that are prioritsing "rule of cool" over technical accuracy just as much as any Jerry Bruckheimer movie. So I'm quite certain that artists from older times would have done the same.
I'm certainly not trying to argue that a knight in full harness never used a heater shield; but I would want to have more evidence than portraits, effigies, and marginalia - all of which are intended for aesthetic effect, not technical accuracy - before I'd be willing to accept it was commonplace. Of course, I haven't watched your video on that subject so I should probably go do that before I really commit to a position. :)
Pietro Monte did write about using heavily armored infantry with large shields as a part of a way to counter Swiss/German pike formations. So there's some textual evidence for soldiers in considerable armor using shields in the late 15th century. Monte also mentioned that men-at-arms arms could have a small shield. In the 16th century, Machiavelli similarly recommended using heavily armored targeteers, & Raimond de Fourquevaux modified this into a plan to have all the regular pikers (who wore three-quarters harness & mail hose) have shields on their backs to sling down in the melee.
What did we learn?
Knights didn’t use strap-ons. They took their boss from behind and grabbed a thick shaft in the middle, of their 🛡️. Minds out of the gutter.
One Internet for this person.
Could we also hear something about penetration? Preferably overpenetration.
@@johnladuke6475I don’t think you want your shield overpenetrated
@@oscaranderson5719 In that case we need bayonets in the video so we can make sure to grip the butt and swing it forward.
my mind went in the gutter when you advised to keep it out, but not before.
i am about to knock up a late 15th century heater shield and would have made the same mistake thanks for the tip all the best richard
Great video. Is there also some relationship between shield type and whether the man-at-arms is mounted or not? The shift to strapped 'kite' shields seems to be directly related to the use of cavalry in combat, with more need to protect the leg, and less need to make the shield mobile as is clearly useful in hand-to-hand combat on foot. It seems logical that if a knight is fighting entirely on foot, as was often the case in the later period, then a more mobile, boss-gripped shield would be preferable. But if you are riding, you need the reins in at least one hand, and while you *can* grip a boss shield and reins at the same time, allowing you to have a weapon in the other, it is not as easy as it simply being strapped, where you can open your hand completely if need be (I think Jason did a vid on this - and if not, why not???)
Nice work.
Idea about strap grips though, what if you replaced the arm strap with a rigid metal "upside down hook" so that the rear "grip" of the shield just hangs over the arm? That would remove the issues of getting the arm through the strap while still retaining most of the extra control gained from having the 2 point hold.
Very interesting discussion Matt- thank you for sharing your experience!
Very interesting! I wonder if a boss gripped heater shield would need to be designed with balance in mind?
Any chance on a video about the English/Scottish border reavers. particularly during the time in and around 16-17th century. those clans caused an awful lot of trouble for the monarchs. If I recall they caused so much trouble they will eventually be encouraged to relocate to Northern Ireland and became the Ulsters or Scotch Irish as we call them in the States. Also very interesting when hearing about horseman in English/Scottish history.
It would make quite a bit of sense to have a shield with that boss mounted grip as you suggest while also retaining a "sling" strap for freeing the hand for marches or riding, and for fatigue purposes (just as a modern rifle). If I'm not mistaken, you can see "floating" shields on the shoulders of knights on horseback in period artwork, allowing their left hand to grip reigns. Just another consideration I feel is useful to account for.
Hi Matt, I saw you pass by at Arundel Castle Joust (I was part of the reenactment camp) wanted to say hi but didnt in the end. Anyway glad you're addressing this I found the commentary pretty annoying too especially after 6 days!! "re enactment armour made of pressed steel vs bespoke jousting armour" 🙄
@scholagladiatora Why does the scutum have a horizontal grip? It seems harder to hold in combat and likely to rotate downwards and expose the user if struck near the base.
Thanks for the video! Interesting formulation of a theory.
Hey Matt, do you have any information about the sallet of the man to your left in the group photo? 0:29 The visor's profile is quite interesting and reminds me more of the visors of armets. Cheers.
Have you considered gripping the enarmes together in your hand like a boss grip and adding perhaps a guige? I have no documentation for this but it seems like you might be able to do that without modifying the shield.
Thank you for the insight and discussion.
Llyod aka Lindy harness looks fancy. Shiney, be a bugger to keep sparkly.🐨🐨
Nice looking wahaika on the wall. Where'd you get that? Any chance of a video on short patu some time?
You can use a strapped shield by gripping the straps with fingers and thumb. I've never tried it while wearing my plate harness, but works fine with mail.
The scutum with plate armour sounds an interesting design base for a fantasy or scifi heavy armour as an interesting foundation
The "boss grip" shield as you call it seems to make more sense and be easier to deal with because getting it on and off is faster and if you lose yours well pick up another.
However I also wonder about something.....I have heard that one of the ideas behind a wood shield is you can trap a blade in it if it cuts into it,but that also means you now have a sword sticking out of your bloody shield,and if it's stuck tight I imagine you won't have time to muck about trying to yank it out might be time to drop it and look for another? And pole arms getting stuck in a shield would be worse,if such a thing happened
Always entertaining and informative.
Double strapped shields also have a big drawback in that they can be used to pull the wearer off balance.
The hand pavises in the triumph of maxillmilian have a wide variety of grips
But matt, while this hypothesis may seem sound overall i would say that we have depictions of norman kite shields still with bosses and those are enarmelld as well so...
Looking forward to the potential "gun shields" video!
What a great insight! Putting it all to the test can be very enlightening, whatever the topic.
I did Roman reenacting and rally liked my boss grip Scutum. They are a nice looking shield.
Bosses on enarmed shields were used to hold holy relics, and quite probably other protective talismans--magical charms and such. See The High History of the Holy Grail (aka Perlesvaus), Branch XVIII, Title IV.
I've seen some examples of shields with metal hooks on the back rather than straps. I always assumed it may have been a version for hanging on a wall but this makes me wonder whether they may have originated for solving the problem of being used with armour. The user wouldn't have to try to get his armoured hand through straps just hook the shield over his arm and still have some benefits of a strapped shield like being able to hold reins with his shield arm.
I ran into this exact problem in the 1990s. In Europe, I was allowed to fight wtihout a left arm vambrace and couter behind my heater shield. But when I moved back the US, I had to fight with my full armor. The couter got in the way of my shield strap. I didn't know about the boss so I just stopped fighting with a shield and used a polearm or spear.
Just going to say it. You could have run both strap tongues through the buckle for the hand strap putting the angle of the forearm strap out of conflict with the couter.
I would also leave the straps on as it makes the shield more generally useful but I would move the forearm strap closer to the hand and angled The angling is a compromise between stability and ease of wear.
bouche style shields sometimes have cut-outs on the sides... perhaps to make space for the elbow couters?
Excellent example our historical understanding vs practice, happens in our trainings all the time, we check historical manuals for new technique and then test it and if it does not work we go back to studying it as that usually shows that we misunderstood something about it.
One thing I think is the reason for this whole issue is: 'strapped' shields are very rarely shown in sources to be strapped to the arm when on foot.
Unless you are on horseback or climbing a siege ladder then, with a few exceptions, we often see heater shields held farther out precisely as you say. That could in some circumstances be due to having a boss grip not shown in art (but doesn't explain what they did in the centuries bosses are almost gone in art), but it can also just as easily be because the straps are gripped.
If you extended those two straps enough so that you can hold them both tightly with one hand, you actually get quite good handling qualities and more importantly - you can drop it! In an age where almost every man has some experience with grappling and wrestling, it's incredibly risky having a large grippable piece of wood strapped to your arm :)
It's how I fight with my heater shield now both in HEMA training and when reenacting 13th century.
Give it a try at HEMA practice and let us know what you think.
This must certainly correspond to men at arms fighting more on foot again. I notice that late plate armors started to have shields attached to the armor and not the arm, but I will need to research whether this was a purely sporting (jousting) development.
"Now this boss, but we'll get to that later. OK, about this boss, well, I'll come back to that in a bit. Finally, the boss...stay tuned, I'll get around to it, but first a digression." 😄
The next question is, which way round do you put the boss handle relative to the shield? Horizontal so you can stab the point at the enemy or vertical to allow you to flip sides accordingly?
The Lord of Arms is here🗿🗡🛡💯
I've asked this question to a historian here on youtube his channel is called schwerpunkt and he has a PhD in medieval warfare. I believe he said by the second half of the 15th century they were rarely ever used on the battlefield.
Friend, I have some questions avout shields but is for ancient age ones: did the hexagonal shaped shields on pretorians (at least as equites) already had a name for their kind? Are them a copy of celtic shields? Do you think they deflected strikes a little less that scutums because their "frontal" composition or what are your thoughts? If you have already a video answering these, please, link here! I love your work.
The interaction of straps and arm harness is the reason most of my shields have a boss.
You could cut and sew a hole in the padding and attach a flat grip to be able to use the shield in more ways and fighting styled without having to alter all the time.
The boss has to have more meaning and use then just a suitable place to put a grip and hand.
Many early and later depicted shields, like the kiteshields on the famous 1066 battle tapestry, have very small bosses that can’t accommodate a grip and hand. There has to be, as I ponder, a offense/defense purpose as well besides fashion/ritual/religion or other. Any thoughts, clues or evidence on that?
Have asked this more often here and there but only crickets answered sadly…
when I went to did reenactment i went for a horizontal grip with a solid wooden handle and a 2" wide strap which worked with my 1390 armour
Do your boss grip, and have 2 pads to either side for when you use straps.
Experience is the best teacher.
I would thick two straps forming an X would be wiser, metatron did a video on that and it was done on heaters and since straps lay flatter than bars, you could potentially used the through the arm and boss grip arrangement.
Boss move, Mr. Easton. Boss move indeed.
I was under the impression when the kind of full-plated armor you wore to the reenactment became more widely used, shields of the type you're describing became way less used, to the point of extinction? That's what the Perry Brothers put in their leaflets for their Wars of the Roses (and even Agincourt!) miniatures boxed sets.
Apparently the spike on the top of the ww1 german helmet was to deflect a downward cut.
I used a heater shield with my mitten gauntlets and i guess a standard arm. It was SCA fighting and never had a problem
Ahh my favourite Yorkist from the company of my favourite Yorkist!
In Eastern Europe and Ottoman empire shields (oversized bucklers) were used well into 17th century.
5:29 Is that the hoplon and peltast you're referencing? Possible Celtic ones?
Is it impractical to grab such a shield on both straps, when figthing in armor? I always thought that this was sometimes done in late medival times, but I don't remember where I got this information.
I don't want a big couter wing over the left elbow if I'm carrying a shield. That's what the shield is for.
But I do want straps to prevent the shield from pivoting around in my hand. I don't want to let go and pick up and repeat with a shield. I want it on, and I want it to stay there.
Buhurt Tech has even gone so far as to create a specialized shield hand gauntlet that uses the bare minimum of plate and a maximum amount of connective fabric, to reduce redundancy and mutual interference on the left side.
Lindibeige in armor looks like Don Quixote