Flat Topped Kite Shields

[Corby de la Flamme]

Then I could look like this (see attachment)

well without the porn stache and hippy hair....

Keep working on it, I'm sure you'll end up with all three. Hell, anyone feeling generous would say that maybe you have a hippy mustache and porn hair.

[white mountain armoury]

Dont worry about the hair and burns Bryce, just be a pornstar in your heart, thats what counts.

[Thomas Gallowglass]

Some more flat-topped kite shields.

I'm curious. With a shield like that, how does the user hold it? Is it set up as a center grip, strapped, or something else?

[Oswyn_de_Wulferton]

As far as I have read, We dont know. Going by illuminations of period and the relative numbers of shield bosses, it seems to be that they had shield bosses on strapped shields as well as centergrips and normal strapped shields without bosses. I think it was the Bayeaux Tapestry that had most of the shields with bosses but they were pretty much all strapped on the backsides that we could see.

[Corby de la Flamme]

Some more flat-topped kite shields.

Cool! Anyone else notice he's wearing a mail chausse on his shield leg and a gaiter of some kind on his sword leg?

And cooler still, the gaiter looks kinda like the ones I wear.

What's the date for this sculpture, and what church is it on?

[Egfroth]

Corby,

These questions are answered on the previous page of this thread. The dating is (I think) "late 12th century".

IMHO, the statue of Roland is wearing woollen hose and an open-topped shoe on his un-armoured leg.

[Oswyn_de_Wulferton]

Just noticed, is there a band of engraved (I would assume brass) around his helm? Can anyone make out the motif, or words? Is this normal, or a "unique" thing to this effigy?

Edited: Which Statue of Roland is this? I keep getting the Bremen one with the giant COA of Germany on it when I search.

[Egfroth]

Oswyn,

As Bruno mentioned earlier, it's from the San Zeno MAggiore Duomo of Verona in Italy. There's certainly some decoration on the browband. The pic posted by Bruno on the previous page of this thread gives more detail on it - to me it looks like inset gems rather than an engraved pattern. There also seems to be some sort of raised decoration at the front ridge of the helmet.

And his word is engraved, as well. The first word appears to be "LOY" (law).

Yes, this seems to be fairly unusual in portrayals, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. It may just be that most pictures leave the decoration out. Unfortunately, we have very few actual extant examples (as usual!), so we can't really be sure.

[Wolf]

There are quite a few contemporary pics - if you know where to look. The Aberdeen Bestiary - English about 1200 - has two illustrations with them in - see the Bonnacon and the Tiger links.

Then there is the Hortus Deliciarum produced in Alsace, on what is now the French-German border in the late 12th century. The text on this link is in French, but there is an English version at http://translate.google.com/translate?h ... en%26lr%3D - unfortunately the links to the pics don't seem to work for the English version. Care needs to be taken with this one, because it is a 19th century copy - the original was lost in a fire.

Both round and flat-topped kites appear in Peter of Eboli's Liber ad Honorem Augusti - produced in Italy about 1195.

Then there are the ones I've attached below. In fact, there are plenty of representations - it's just a matter of finding them.

i would like to make a shield like the Vieux-Pouzages.jpg picture but have a few questions. is teh shield a straight triangle with rounded corners? or does it have more meat to it towards the top like a heater?

[Oswyn_de_Wulferton]

Most of what I have seen after this thread ended has been a straight triangle. There is a bit of more meat on some, but most are either triangular, or sloping the entire way down.

[Christophe de Frisselle]

Holy smoke Eg, lots of excellent pics.
As to Ermines, i can only think of the little critter

But how do you mount one on a shield?

[Egfroth]

Wolf ; My reading of the picture is that it is a straight sided shield with rounded corners, but that it is curved quite strongly (i.e. convex) about the vertical axis, to enclose the body - this feature is more obvious on the shields in the two pictures below it.

But no, as far as I can see, the edges are not curved at all.

[Tom B.]

From the Kleingbeil collection:

[Saint-Sever]

Holy smoke Eg, lots of excellent pics.
As to Ermines, i can only think of the little critter

But how do you mount one on a shield?

Clinch nails.

M.

[Egfroth]

Enrico, do you have any idea of the date of that shield?

[Alcyoneus]

You take a standard ermine, cram it with as much tallow as it can hold, rig up a simple knot, the coat the whole thing with honey and grease. Now when you throw it, it should stick. Its an ermine that sticks, its a "sticky ermine". Think of a better way to keep in on the shield, I'm all ears.

[Tom B.]

Enrico, do you have any idea of the date of that shield?

Sorry I don't have any more information other than the picture.
I got it from the same source that Talbot posted in this thread.
http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=75312

This is how they have it displayed.

Tom

[Master_Dragon_Lee]

heres a image that might help

[Oswyn_de_Wulferton]

What is the image from? Any date associated with it? It looks like one of the Opsrey images, which can be a bit un-reliable.

[Egfroth]

The front appears to be taken from one of the shields in the Mispronouncy Bible.

[Sigifrith Hauknefr]

I am necro'ing this thread because Oswyn linked to it, and besides, wouldn't you raise the dead if you could?

If you like to display heraldry, then doing so with a kit prior to the 2nd crusade is incorrect. That includes heraldry on your shield, unless your heraldry is "generic" enough to pass for the sort of random stuff you see painted on shields prior to the codification of heraldry. In chronicles of the 1st crusade, no one's heraldry is mentioned. In the second, the kings' heraldry gets described, and by the third, every nobleman's arms get listed.

Heraldry caught on fast in a big way in the 12th century--in 1130 no noble had it and in 1190 every noble did.

Also, the earliest I've been able to document a real "coat of arms"--a surcoat with the entire arms of a nobleman on them as the single large display on the surcoat--is somewhere around 1230, maybe 1215.

I read "somewhere" (probably in the midst of a wistful google search) that the raise of heraldry coincided with the rise of close-faced helms. Is this accepted dogma, or just a wacky theory? On the lines of "they started making shields smaller because their leg armor worked as good as a shield did"

[Sigifrith Hauknefr]

re: my thread on 12th-13th C legwear...

Is this dude (Templar?) on the left wearing a greave?

[Oswyn_de_Wulferton]

I personally would take it as one of two things, neither one being a greave

A) mistake by the illuminator. If you look at the guy on the right, you see the same stretch marks held by tying the back of the chausses together.

B) some sort of looser fabric/leather material designed to stop rubbing on the bottom of the leg (I am going with medieval chaps).

I personally think that A is the most likely candidate. The color is the same as the back of the leg, and the tunic and the border, aka. a vellum color. I think the illuminator honestly just overlooked it. Otherwise, why make a white greave? I would also question those cutouts if they were metal. Seems a bit odd for that.

[Clinker]

It looks like a mail "Greave" pulled tight by lacing. The Saracen's IS mail, it is a mistake of the illuminator for the Crusader's not being mail-colored. You see that laced-on mail "greave "look on several illustrations of that period.

[Primvs Pavlvs]

BACK UP TO THE TOP!

Has anyone produced a replica with the extreme depth of those depicted?

[Glen K]

Sorry I don't have any more information other than the picture.
I got it from the same source that Talbot posted in this thread.
http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=75312

This is how they have it displayed.

Tom

Holy Poop... THERE is where that helmet is (the one on the far right)... the mail HAS to be fake/ modern repro. HAS to be. I wonder where that stuff ended up?

[TrimarianNormanTemplar]

ok call me silly but what is the purpose of the strap on the shield? i currently fight with a curved plywood roundtop kite 24x48 its about 12 to 15 lbs and really not that bad .its made of 1/2 inch plywood( 2 1/4 inch sheets pressed and glued together in a shield press to get the curve ) . just curious since i am a norman crusader what the extra strap was used for?

[Keegan Ingrassia]

The long strap, that doesn't go around your arm? That's called the guige strap, and you can use it in two...make that three, ways.

When not fighting, you use the guige strap to shoulder your shield...just like a sling on a modern rifle.
When charging on horseback, the guige can go across your body, like a baldric...lessens the chance of losing it, and let's you use your shield hand on the reigns without having to juggle.
And third, once you are safe at home, the guige strap can be looped through the center-most arm strap, and then hung against the wall with a hook.

[NeeSayer]

Stupid question but for those of you who use guige straps, what do you do with them when you're fighting? Sca fighting I mean.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Well...keep it looped over your neck is one way. But, you chance getting your opponent's weapon caught on it, yanking your head forward. Also, it places a limit on how far out from your body you can position the shield.

Other option is to just let it dangle, but then you risk getting either your opponent's weapon...or worse, your own...caught.

My preference is to loop it around my shield arm once, then trap the rest between arm and shield.

[Tom B.]

Sorry I don't have any more information other than the picture.
I got it from the same source that Talbot posted in this thread.
http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=75312

This is how they have it displayed.

Tom

Holy Poop... THERE is where that helmet is (the one on the far right)... the mail HAS to be fake/ modern repro. HAS to be. I wonder where that stuff ended up?

There were at least 2 auctions for the items from that collection.
There were many fake items.
In the end auction catalogues were pretty good about identifying which items were fake.

[NeeSayer]

I just wanna say this thread is awesome. Just decided to move over to a flat topped kite and then this resurfaced from the depths of the archive.

[Egfroth]

Glad you liked it, NeeSayer. It's a fascinating period, isn't it?

[NeeSayer]

Glad you liked it, NeeSayer. It's a fascinating period, isn't it?

It really is. I've just recently started trying to actually do my SCA persona "right" so I'm having a blast with all of the research and reading up on things here on the archive. The flat topped kite is the right time and place for me and I'm excited to have corners again instead of the rounded top.