Shield

Curved rectangular shield of the Roman legions

The scutum is the iconic large curved shield of the Roman legionary, its most marked feature a semi-cylindrical curve about 100 to 120 cm tall and 60 cm wide that wraps around the whole body. On a base of plywood, thin wooden boards glued in several cross-grained layers, it was covered with leather and cloth, the edge reinforced, and finished with an iron boss (the umbo) at the center. The umbo protected the hand gripping the horizontal handle behind it and also served as an offensive boss to ram and strike the enemy. The surviving example excavated nearly whole at Dura-Europos in Syria confirms this very plywood-and-leather construction. The true power of the scutum showed in the testudo (tortoise) formation, a mobile shield wall in which soldiers pressed their shields close to the front and overhead to stop arrows and missiles. Its combination with the gladius, the short stabbing sword, blocking with the shield and stabbing through the gaps, was the foundation of the Roman military power that ruled the Mediterranean for centuries.

Classic triangular shield of the medieval knight

The heater shield is the standard shield used by the European knight in the 13th to 15th centuries, marked by an inverted-triangle shape, wide at the top and tapering to a point at the bottom. The name 'heater' is a later term, from its resemblance to an old clothes iron (a heater), for in the Middle Ages it was simply called a shield. It is a form shrunk from the large kite shield used in the 11th and 12th centuries, the lower part that had covered the leg becoming unnecessary as leg armor developed. About 50 to 70 cm tall, it could be handled easily with one hand, and was made in a layered structure of wooden boards covered with several layers of leather and cloth, the edge reinforced with a metal rim. Above all, the face of the shield became the chief field for painting the coat of arms, letting a knight be recognized on the battlefield and tying directly into the development of medieval heraldry. After the 15th century, as plate armor came to cover the whole body, it gradually declined on the battlefield, but it continued in use in the mounted joust.

Round shield of the ancient Greek hoplite

The aspis (Greek ἀσπίς) is the large round shield carried by the hoplite, the heavy-armed citizen-soldier of ancient Greece, a heavy piece of defense some 80 to 100 centimeters across and 7 to 8 kilograms in weight. A disk of light wood, mostly poplar or willow, was hollowed deep like a bowl and faced with a thin sheet of bronze, the inner rim finished with leather or cloth. Its greatest mark was the double grip: a bronze armband called the porpax at the center and a leather hand-grip called the antilabe at the rim, which spread the weight of the shield across arm and shoulder instead of one wrist, so that a great shield could be carried long. In the phalanx, the close-packed line, each man's aspis covered his own left half and the right half of the comrade on his left, so that to throw away the shield and flee was the gravest shame, for it threw the man at one's side bare to death. It is said that the very name hoplites came from hopla, the heavy gear, of which the aspis was the greatest, and so the shield defined the identity of the classical Greek citizen-soldier.

Small fist-held round shield for active defense

The buckler is a small round shield about 20 to 40 cm in diameter, an active defensive tool held in the fist by a handle behind the raised metal dome (the boss) at the center. Unlike a large shield strapped to the arm to cover the body, the buckler was worked with a free wrist to glance a blow aside rather than block it head-on, to strike and push the opponent's weapon away or wind it up and make an opening. It also covered the sword hand, so it was a tool of attack and defense in one, blocking while at the same time mastering the enemy's blade. The 'sword and buckler' technique used with a sword was a core field of medieval European fencing, and several fencing manuals on it survive. Often made from a single sheet of metal, it was cheap, and being small enough to hang from the belt, it was used widely not only by professional warriors but as a self-defense sidearm of the medieval townsman.

Large standing shield of feudal Japan

The tate is the large wooden shield of Japan, set up on the ground and used as cover from behind, a fixed defensive piece with a philosophy of use fundamentally different from the Western shield held and moved in the hand. About 120 to 150 cm tall, it was large enough to hide a man's whole body. It was used chiefly in siege and defensive warfare as cover from which archers, hidden behind the tate, shot their arrows, and set up several in a row it formed an instant wall. A prop was set behind it to stand it at a slant, and a coat of arms was often painted on the face to mark the camp. Samurai culture had the distinctive tradition of the individual not carrying a shield in the hand, born of a way of fighting that valued two-handed weapons such as the katana and yari, the protection of the armor itself, and the great shoulder guards (the o-sode). So in Japan the shield took on the character of a defensive installation for building a position, not personal gear.

Large kite-shaped shield of the Norman knight

The kite shield is the great shield carried by the knight of 10th- to 13th-century Europe, and it took its name from its kite-like form, rounded at the top and tapering to a long point at the bottom. Standing about 100 to 120 centimeters high, on horseback it covered the rider from the left shoulder down to the knee with a single face, and so it served as a single wall to catch the spears and arrows of the enemy on the left in the heavy mounted charge that the Norman knight set as his way. A core of light wood, mostly lime and willow, laid in cross-glued planks, was covered with hide and bound at the rim with an iron strip, and on the inside were fastened the enarmes, the straps for the arm, and the guige, the strap for the shoulder, so that it could be borne well. On its face was painted, more and more clearly with time, the arms of the family, so that the knight, his face hidden under mail and helm, could be known from afar, and so the kite shield also served as the very surface on which European heraldry took shape. It is in the Bayeux Tapestry of the Battle of Hastings of 1066 that it is most clearly seen, borne alike by Norman knight and Anglo-Saxon housecarl.

Viking circular wooden shield

The round shield is the branch of shield made of a flat disk of one round face, and its clearest form is the round shield carried by the Viking warrior of Scandinavia in the 8th to 11th centuries. It was made of light wooden planks (mostly linden or fir), some seventy-five to ninety centimeters across, joined together with the grain alternating, with an iron boss at the center to cover the man's fist, and within the boss a short handle held in one hand. Weighing three to five kilograms, it was light enough to be swung freely in one hand, compared to the great kite shields and round targes of the same age, and the boss itself was used as a weapon, struck straight at the face or sword-hand of the enemy. In the shield wall (skjaldborg), in which the warriors stood in a single line and overlapped their shields slightly, the same shield held its greatest seat, while a warrior bearing one alone, with sword and axe each in a hand, flowed back and forth and fought.

Large standing shield for crossbowmen

The pavise is the great rectangular shield favored by the crossbowmen of 14th- and 15th-century Europe, a defense so large that, at 120 to 150 centimeters in height, it could hide almost the whole height of a man. Its body of wooden planks was covered with canvas and a ground of gesso on which the arms of the city or the figure of a saint were painted, and it narrowed toward the top and bore at the bottom a small prop so that it could be set up and stand on its own on the ground. Because the crossbow took long to span again after each shot, a great shield to cover the whole body of the shooter during that time was needed, and the pavise filled that place. Tradition holds that its name came from the Italian city of Pavia, and it first took root among the crossbowmen of Genoa and Lombardy, but soon spread across the Holy Roman Empire and Bohemia, leaving its most famous image as the row of shields set in front of the wagon fort of the Hussite Czech infantry.