Non-round bucklers (14th cent europe)

Aelric · Post by **Aelric** » Fri May 10, 2002 12:04 pm

Are all the 14th-15th century bucklers round? I m interested in making a heater shaped buckler for my 14th century harness but all I can find in my books is round ones. There is a heater shaped thing with what looks like a center boss on Walter von Hoenklingen's effigy just above his right shoulder but i dont know what its supposed to represent. Any ideas?

Aelric

SyrRhys · Post by **SyrRhys** » Fri May 10, 2002 1:26 pm

Believe it or not, that thing on Walter's effigy is the visor of his bascinet. I don't know of any "heater-shaped" bucklers, but if you go to www.aemma.com and look through the fighting manuals thee you will see a fair assortment of buckler types. Most are round, although there are some with odd points, hooks, etc. If you look as late as the 16th-century, Marozzo shows a square one which is kind of cool (Christopher Poor at Arms and Armor has one of these for sale).

------------------
Hugh Knight
"Welcome to the Church of the Open Field, let us 'prey': Hunt hard, kill swiftly, waste nothing, make no apologies"

Gaston de Clermont · Post by **Gaston de Clermont** » Sun May 12, 2002 6:32 pm

I've got several images of very small heater shaped shields from the beginning of the 14th century. It's in a manuscript of the book of Revalations, which describes the appocolypse. Some of the angels carry the small heaters with other weapons, mostly spears. Assuming the angels were human sized I'd guess their shields would be between 12 and 18 inches tall. Certainly take the source with a grain of salt when you're documenting heater shaped bucklers- since the book depicts a variety of multi-headed, many eyed monsters as well.

Before shields were mostly relegated to jousting and poorly armoured foot combatants they shrank. Some mid to late 14th century effigies might have shields of about the size you're looking for.
Gaston de Clermont

Destichado · Post by **Destichado** » Mon May 13, 2002 5:49 pm

Small correction: Aemma is a .org site, not a .com, that's why the link doesn't work.

IainMcClennan · Post by **IainMcClennan** » Wed May 15, 2002 4:57 pm

I've seen at least one illustration of a small centergrip heater/buckler. It was marginalia for some manuscript in the British Library, though I don't remember what book I saw it reproduced in. It might have been Barber and Barker.

Roderick has made one, he might be able to tell you what it's like to fight with one.

Iain

Aelric · Post by **Aelric** » Wed May 15, 2002 6:25 pm

I got the idea from Roderick, two other knights in my company use them because of him. I'll ask him but I dont think he had documentation for it.

Aelric