12th, 13th century shield designs?

[Breazer]

Hey everyone,

I have this question that I keep running into and it sets me back in my projects quite often so i figured I'd ask here since there seem to be some really smart folks over here.

If i were a common guy fighting in a medieval army/ force in the 12th or 13th century and I had my spear and aquired a bit of armor what would my shield look like? I figured you had to manage your own gear but I'm still curious what would be seen on the shield. Also how did people distinguish their friends from their foes asuming in a large force you can't know everyone on your side.

I hope some of you can help me out here, thank you!

[Breazer]

Thank you Humakt, this helps a lot already.

[rumacara]

Like Humakt said there is no historical evidence but lets face reality and its easy to transport it to a game.

Lords/nobles - well equiped, well dressed and with Money to have the best weapons/armours/decorations.

Men at arms/soldiers - depending on the noble they serve (more or less Money to equip them) they are armed and armoured following (or not) the nobles blazon/coat of arms perhaps on a simpler way (a not so elaborated simbol on the shields perhaps)

Rest of the army -  the common folk like spearmen and archers with even less protection or none at all just a simple tunic with no identification of the noble (shields if any with a simple color and no drawings on it)

[Maxromek]

This is entirely depended on the country, exact period (12th and 13th century are VERY different in terms of equipment) and whether you were a professional (a.k.a. "mercenary", good video over here btw ) or a levy.

I'm a late 12th century re-enactor so I can shed some light on this period. Fortunately we have a record of something called "The Assize of Arms" which was Henry II method of equipping his man (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assize_of_Arms_of_1181). This gives us a glimpse at what different people (difference based on wealth and class) would HAVE to own.

The question of shields is a slightly more problematic one and again, this is entirely dependent on who you are and where you lived. If you were a freeman living in a city, you may carry city's colours, just like the local garrison would. However if you were living on a knight's fee, being pledged in service to someone else (like a landed knight) you may carry his colours (but probably not his coat of arms). This is a really tricky question to be honest and we don't really have that much evidence to say definitely what was and what wasn't on shields. Add to this the fact that heraldry was still in it's very early stages in the 12th century. If I was to make an educated guess I would say this: think about what the person you want the shield for is: is he a freeman or is he pledged in service? Does he live in a city or a small town or maybe even on someone's estate? If he lives in a rural area, is his house his own or is he a tenant? Is he a professional soldier, being paid for his services or is he being levied into the army? Who is his direct overlord? Based on these answers you should come to some sort of a conclusion

I can't really help you that much with 13th century, but we have one amazing source from 1247 - the Maciejowski Bible. You can look through it online and get some inspiration from there. I just wanted to reiterate that between early 12th and late 13th century there is very little in common in terms of equipment! A lot of things changed at the turn of the centuries.

[Arlequín]

The only men who might be issued weapons would be a lord's paid retainers. Everyone else was supposed to own weapons and armour according to their income/possessions/value of land. The Assize of Arms of 1181 sets out the standards as follows;

Knights Fee - Mail coat, helmet, shield and lance; the same to be supplied for each additional fief held.

Freemen with up to 16 marks - Mail shirt, helmet, shield and a lance.

The above two classes were the only ones required to have shields. Horses are not mentioned, but in light of later legislation, these two classes were almost certainly mounted.

Freemen with up to 10 marks - hauberk, iron cap and a lance.

All other freemen - A gambeson, iron cap and a lance.

An additional clause ordered anyone who had more than the above to sell or exchange them with another, who was able to 'do the King service'; there were to be no stores of arms in other words. Oddly to our eyes, a hauberk was less substantial than a mail shirt. Latin/French 'lance' means 'spear' in English.

The Statute of Winchester of 1285 revised this slightly and was then to remain pretty much unchanged in law until the 16th Century.

£15 land or 40 marks chattels - A hauberk, a helmet of iron, a sword, a knife and a horse.

£10 land or 20 marks of chattels - A haubergeon, a helmet, a sword and a knife.

100 shillings of land - A doublet, a helmet of iron, a sword and a knife.

40 shillings of land up to 100 shillings - A sword, a bow, arrows and a knife.

Less than 40 shillings - Scythes. gisarmes, knives and other small weapons.

Less than 20 marks in chattels - Swords, knives and other small weapons.

"all others who can do so shall have bows and arrows outside the forests and
within them bows and bolts".

Most noteworthy is perhaps there being no mention of shields or spears/lances at all, so ownership of these probably passed 'out of law' to become optional. Forest dwellers' 'bows and bolts' means crossbows; carrying a common bow in a forest was unlawful. The clause against owning more than was specified is absent, so presumably these became 'minimums' rather than 'set kit'.

Hauberk has also transformed to our usual understanding of it as a 'mail coat', with the Haubergeon as 'mail shirt'. Doublet probably serves as a catch-all for any padded or stuffed protection.

In both cases individuals had to present all these items twice yearly to assessors, who would swear the had them; defaulters were fined. We can be pretty sure therefore that almost everyone had these items and in a serviceable condition.

The shields question then comes down to asking 'how many people would have owned them if the law said they did not have to?' The answer is probably similar to the percentage of people in the present, who didn't wear seat belts, or wear motorcycle helmets, until the law said so.

The quality of individual armour might also compare favourably to the numbers of scooterists and motorcyclists today who don't wear top of the range leather and kevlar, go sort of halfway, or just ride around in t-shirt and shorts.

[Maxromek]

Breazer

I have put your question up for discussion with my re-enactment group. It's a very respectable organisation, choke-full of history masters and researchers. I will update you with whatever they say

[Arlequín]

I think Maxromek is pretty much on the money for me.

The owner of a coat of arms would be the only one bearing it on a shield; his hirelings might all bear 'his' colour(s) and a device, especially if he was subsidising the cost of equipment. Likewise civic contingents were usually raised by lottery and paid for by subscription, civic pride being what it was, you would expect the 'colours' of the municipality to feature on city-subsidised shields.

I imagine only rural levies would please themselves as to what was on their shield, if they had one.

[Maxromek]

Arlequinn

Thanks mate. Yeah, a landed knight or someone even more "noble" (Baron or Earl, etc.) would have a sort of personal guard or troop, like a household. It would be made of "household knights", i.e. knights who were not "landed" and served a different knight (or someone higher on the feudal ladder). I think those knights would probably wear their overlord's coat of arms, since they are nobles as well. But yeah, a normal levied combatant would probably be provided with a shield by their overlord and the shield would bear that lord's colours.

To kind of illustrate what my line of thought is - take William Marshal. No idea if he levied any troops personally (I presume he would) but we know perfectly well that he had a red lion on a split field of green and yellow (not actual heraldic terms, btw). If he levied some troops and gave them shields, I think those would be painted with a split green and yellow field and have some sort of simple red charge, like a chevron or a saltire. However, knights sworn to serve Wiliam would carry his personal coat of arms, red lion included, on their shields. Don't know how actually historically accurate this line of thought is, but it seems fairly probable and is something I'd go for for wargaming. In the lack of evidence we have, this seems a) probable and b) makes your army look consistent and cool

[Breazer]

Thanks so much for this info. It helps a lot. I do think one shouldn't cling to hard to historical accuracy seeing as most of the times some minis you find cool do not depict everything perfectly. There is also simply the rule of cool when it comes to wargaming. In my case I'm using a bunch of miniatures that wear shields and mail.

It is fun to see for me that hauberks and mail shirts were a thing at the same time (which will likely make things a lot easier)

I am also learning a lot again. thank you!

[westwaller]

It is an interesting question... Firstly I will state that I am not a Historian but I have had a quick look through a few Ospreys and David Nicolle's Medieval Warfare Source book vol 1.

Generally it is as others have said, we don't really know about the shields- There is a photo of a flat round wooden buckler style shield from 13th century Holland, which is the style depicted as being carried by the poorer infantrymen in the Osprey on the Scottish and Welsh Wars. It has an iron boss- dark age style, that also serves to reinforce the shield.

As for colours- Nicolle say this on Heraldry in France - ...by the the early 12th century it seems that men of a single unit often painted their shields, lances and even helmets one colour...Colours remained the most important way of showing family or political connections throughout the 12th century...

This of course relates to the development of Heraldry among the better off but I would suggest once they started putting 'posher' stuff on their shields, the poorer fighters would probably want to have some way of identifying themselves, just to stop their fellow men accidently killing them!

You might want to consider round shields on the those of the poorest that have shields and possibly nothing but a hide coat and a painted helmet (mentioned in the Ospreys) on others.

[Breazer]

That would make sense. I imagine else it would be difficult to recognise your friends in the fray.

[Arlequín]

Arlequinn

Thanks mate.

You're welcome!  

Feudal economics and duty of service were what they were and the generation of a household was a cross between necessity, need and outward displays of wealth and power.

If I held five knight's fiefs, I might use one for my home and break up the rest to rent out. I'd recoup more actual coin and not be deluged with turnips and other assorted foodstuffs at tax time into the bargain. The serfs pay my tenants, they sell the produce and I get my rent.

However I still owe myself and four other knights when the King beckons. None of my sub-tenants can probably afford a knight's equipment, nor do they owe me any service. So I hire four itinerent knights, who from necessity must live in my home.

I own other bits and bobs of land and have various rights and customs, that all add up to military commitments due to the income, which I also divide and rent out. Again the tenants as individuals won't meet the military commitments arising from them. This again means hiring men and is when my mounted sergeants, crossbowmen and spearmen get hired. Cash wasn't the only means of paying them, so regular 'uniform' clothing issues, food and a roof, are all part of their pay.

In the end I am sitting in one fief, which supports my household's needs. I'm raking in cash from the break-up of the other fiefs, ownership of mills, fishing rights and other such income. Despite having to meet a part-time military commitment by employing full-time soldiers, I'm still making a profit. When the King calls my men are already gathered and in the meantime my men can strong-arm the tenants for the rent that keeps the whole machine working.

Then the Black Death comes and the good times are over. 

[Erik]

Hello Breazer

I started a thread about the same subject in the beginning of the year. You can see the comment and pictures here

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=96843.0

Hope it helpes

Cheers

Erik

[Maxromek]

Breazer

Here's a pretty concise reply I got. It's from the same guy whose video I linked before:

"The general theme of historical research is that countries/subdivisions had a 'colour' theme.
Gerald of Wales writes that the Welsh paint their shields 'silver' (white- maybe pale blue) as a cultural whole. This is probably an oversimplification- but it matches the assertion that the Normans in general 'bore red shields', This is fine for fighting on a grand scale, but when there are inter-regional fights breaking out, it makes IFF very difficult to manage.
The most likely practice is that in civil war, an 'army' of a given leader would adopt a single, universal colour- or a very simple colour reflection of their feudal overlord. Painting a large number of shields the same colour would be relatively simple to do (and the worry about the paint bleeding off is more of an issue for people not dying in mud and blood). Within re-enactment as a whole, people carry the full heraldry to make identification (both for us and the audience) simple- but in reality, it is far more likely that anyone below the rank of serjeant or squire would have a simple, single colour that identified them IN THE EASIEST MANNER POSSIBLE. Henry II is said to have adopted blue (his father's field colour) during the Anarchy, whilst Stephen bore red- this would make immediate identification of the majority pretty simple, and suggest (quite interestingly) that mercenaries may have expected to paint fresh shields at the beginning of a campaign.

Of course there's this nice period where you gather and husband your forces that allows you to paint them with your allegiance- as reenactors, we don't get that. There's also a theory that this is what surcoats ORIGINALLY did- allowed knights to fight for one faction (RED SURCOAT) and still bear their personal arms (BLACK FIELD, WHITE LION) on the field- and that's why we have so many early instances of them simply not matching."

Hope that helps!

[Breazer]

Thanks very much. It helps a lot. That of Henry II kinda shows in the series of Pillars of the earth. I didnt expect it to really be like that since the norman banner with the two lions looks a lot like the half man half lion stephen used. But it does make a lot more sense this way. I've watched a lot of Dan's videos. Very insightful and very interesting to hear. I hope he keeps making them.