Crusader shield designs

[Yarkshire Gamer]

Hi all,

I'm building up a Crusader Army from the 3rd Crusade period, although I would say I'm a fairly experienced Gamer I'm new to the Medieval period and wondered if you lovely people could share your knowledge.

I'm specifically looking at shield designs for foot Infantry. Most of the painted units I see online have a different shield design for each figure and I wanted your thoughts on this. I think I'm happy with the Military Order stuff it's the other units I'm interested in.

I know we are a long time before the introduction of uniforms but I would have thought that if a knight had a number of retainers / troops in his pay then he would have supplied their kit and it would have been in the colours of that knight. Because they knew each other they would not doubt have stood next to each other leading to groups of similarly kitted out guys clumped together within a "unit". The alternative seems to be that each soldier randomly painted there own shield which seems unlikely in a feudal system.

I am also interested in finding out if the Crusader states raised their own troops and if so would they wear the colours of that state ie the red with yellow cross for Raymond of Tripoli or yellow with red circles for Acre.

Any advice would be great, cheers in advance.

Regards Ken
http://yarkshiregamer.blogspot.co.uk

[levied troop]

I was interested in the same question for the Baron's Wars - what did the bog-standard feudal foot slogger have on his shield?

I suspect the answer is - no-one knows.

Later periods, 14th C onwards, show livery colours (usually entirely different from the arms borne by the relevant Lord) and badges.  The Feudal period might have had the same arrangement but I don't recall any evidence for it.

The shield might have borne the Armorial colours of the relevant Lord, but the the heraldry is relatively simple at this point and there's a danger of effectively duplicating the heraldic arms - the point of which was to stand out?

Town colours might be possible, in the same manner as football shirts  , again that's true for the later period.

Anything goes might also be an option, but as you note, perhaps unlikely in a more rigorously structured social option.  But I quite like the idea of shields painted as gaily as canal boats!

More prosaically the covering might just be plain leather or cloth.

I'd certainly be interested if anyone can point to some evidence for such shield designs, but in the absence of such I'm going to go with a mixture of all of the above, with a bias to the Armorial colours.

[nevermore]

check this website for help with shield designs  http://wappenwiki.org/index.php/Main_Page

lots of ideas to get you going.