Codex Wallerstein: Question on this type of shield.

[John Demick]

I have a question on this type of shield I found in the Codex Wallerstein. It is certainly not those large Judicial shields, and Im pretty sure its not a buckler because it is held by the wrist. What kind of shield does this guy have wraped around his wrist? It is certainly seen many times in the manual. Many people are frusterated on the fact that there is no recovered manual on the kite or round shield. The real reason why I ask this question is, does the usage of this shield have any relation to the usage of kite or round shields?


Source: ARMA website
http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/215.jpg

[Michael Ekelmann]

The shield is a german tournement shield. The met has an image here http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/rarm/ho_25.26.1.htm
I've seen latter period armour with the shield strapped right to the armour.
I thought Marazzo's manuals had something about rotella/rota in them, but I couldn't find anything. With a smallish centergrip round you could certainly use I.33, but a kite shield predates any known manual. You're stuck with extrapolating technique from period art, which during the kite shield's heyday wasn't very realistic.

[Stephen Hand]

Dear Michael,

Capitulae 102-112 of Marozzo cover the Rotella.

Historical artwork shows the early kite shield being used like Morozzo's rotella and Talhoffer's duelling shields. Later, deeply curved kite shields are shown being used like Marozzo's deeply curved imbraciatura (see the thread on this).

I discuss the historical evidence for large shield use in a paper I wrote in SPADA. I have written another paper for publication in the next edition of SPADA, out next year.

If you start looking there is a mass of evidence for shield use, all in broad agreement. We don't have all the details and subtleties of the system, but we have the broad outline, guards and basics of movement style and that's at least a place to start.

Cheers
Stephen

[John Demick]

Stephen,

Do you think the shield found in the codex (the one with the pic above) has any relation to the kite or round shield?? Just a question.

[Stephen Hand]

Dear John,

There's no commentary and only one plate showing them in use, so it's hard to be dogmatic. The relevant plate is Plate 213 (p. 370 of Grzegorz and Bart's Codex Wallerstein book or here )

This plate clearly shows the shields being used in the same way as the Italian Rotella and the German duelling shield (cf. the illustration at Plate 191 (p. 348 of the book or here )). The shield edge points at the left shoulder of the opponent, closing the line of attack. This is the way flat round and kite shields are shown being used in medieval artwork.

Cheers
Stephen

[Andreas Meier]

Hi all

This is called a Tartsche. Also shown in Gladiatoria and other manuals.
It was in use up from the 14 century, it is not clear where it comes from. Perhaps it is a slawian designe, »tarcica« (Brett, board).

So sorry for my english.

Regards from Bavaria the home of (the most) fencing books

Andreas

[Hugh Knight]

Hello,

I am a bit confused: The post was about the smaller "bouche" shield depicted both in the Wallerstein Codex (http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/215.jpg) and in Gladiatoria (http://www.thehaca.com/Manuals/Gladiatoria/8.jpg), not the large dueling shields that folks seem to be discussing; how did that transition occur?

I find this a particuarly interesting discussion because I have lately been attempting some research into the use of these shields. To answer John's original question, it's unlikely that the use of these shields was very similar to the kite or round shield: The kite is a very long shield held near the top while the roundshield is usually held near the center, either with a center grip or a set of enarmes like a heater shield but in a different center of balance (although that's difficult to prove). I believe, however, that the nature of the enarmes for these shields would prevent them from being used as the larger dueling shields were used (Stephen Hand's fascinating article on the subject notwithstanding).

These shields seem to be used much as the earlier heater shield. In the picture from Gladiatoria that reference above you can clearly see the "guige" strap around the user's neck. The use of this strap seems fundamental to this kind of shield (although not universal in practice as we see it's not always worn) and would prevent it from being used as actively as a round shield or buckler (when actually worn). Additional pictures show other arm straps, either a single one (which is, I presume, what makes you think of a buckler) or double--one for the forearm and one for the hand or wrist. My current thinking is that what we're seeing here is simple laziness on the part of the artist (who can't be trusted--in Gladiatoria pl. 1 he seems to show the straps on the front of the shield).

If you look at Wallerstein pl. 181 (http://www.thehaca.com/Manuals/187.jpg) you can see a shield on the ground with a clear forearm strap, another for the hand or wrist, and the guige at the top. This one is particularly interesting because it seems to show a hook-like attachment for the guige that we is discussed in Helmut Nickel dissertation on the knightly shield. I believe that all the shields in both these fechbücher were meant to be this one kind of shield (except the odd hooked version shown on plate 205, p. 362, of Wallerstein), and that wherever you don't see this many straps it can be attributed to artist error.

My current thinking is that these shields were typically used by wearing the guige around the neck with the forearm through the main strap. The hand would hold the hand strap when on horseback or when fighting with a one-handed weapon, but would be released when using a two-handed weapon. The free left hand might be inserted through the hand strap (as we see here: http://www.thehaca.com/Manuals/218.jpg) or might be withdrawn from the strap entirely (I have some MS pics of this but none scanned). I believe the way the figure on the left is depicted is strongly indicitive of the purpose of this strapping system: The shield was largely intended to be used to defend the face and upper body. Many sources show the upper edge of a shield being used to protect the wearer's face (e.g., this plate from Talhoffer's Alte Armatur und Ringkunst: http://mhewer.club.fr/Library/Talhoffer/kamp0076.jpg)

From this, I think it's clear these shields were used very differently from large rounds, bucklers, kites, or the strange dueling shields people were discussing above. I hope that helps to answer some of your question.

[Stephen Hand]

Originally posted by Hugh Knight
I believe, however, that the nature of the enarmes for these shields would prevent them from being used as the larger dueling shields were used (Stephen Hand's fascinating article on the subject notwithstanding).

And presumably also not withstanding the fact that the rotella, an enarmed shield the same basic size as the shields in CW, is referred to in manuals like Agrippa, Di Grassi and Marozzo as being used the same way as the German duelling shields? The enarmes didn't stop the Italians using precisely the same basic defence with the two foot wide rotella as was used with the six foot long duelling shield. So if manuals tell me to use these techniques with a two foot wide enarmed shield, please tell me why I can't use them with this particular two foot wide enarmed shield?

We have manuals telling us to use all sorts of different shields in fundamentally the same way (deeply curved shields are held differently, but used in a similar way). We have illustrations from 800BC to 1600AD of shields being held (and in some cases used) in exactly the same way. We have no evidence of any different style of shield use with large flat or gently curved shields (very small shields and deeply curved shields are special cases). Unless there's a very good reason to suppose a different method of use I think we can assume that large or largish shields are used in the way described in every currently available source.

Cheers

[Hugh Knight]

Originally posted by Stephen Hand
And presumably also not withstanding the fact that the rotella, an enarmed shield the same basic size as the shields in CW, is referred to in manuals like Agrippa, Di Grassi and Marozzo as being used the same way as the German duelling shields? The enarmes didn't stop the Italians using precisely the same basic defence with the two foot wide rotella as was used with the six foot long duelling shield. So if manuals tell me to use these techniques with a two foot wide enarmed shield, please tell me why I can't use them with this particular two foot wide enarmed shield?

Because the guige makes it difficult to do. Please re-read my post: I referred *only* to heater and bouche shields (i.e., shields with guiges), *not* to the rotella, etc. CW *clearly* (although admittedly not in every plate) shows a guige strap on the shields, and it is this strap which defines a different class of usage.

I suspect the fundamental difference has something to do with the quality of the leg armor being worn, although that is only a guess. If you look at the famous manuscript of "Lancelot du Lac et la quete du Graal" you can clearly see that the shields are being held by the guige and by a hand strap near the bottom point of the shield. The guige is set in such a way as to prevent the user from moving the shield in the ways you describe in your article; indeed, it appears from my experiments that you have only a limited side-to-side motion and a slight ability to raise the shield up (at the cost of the stability the guige provides). If you look at the halfswording with shields in the 1390's Tristan & Isolde MS or at the figures from Talhoffer's "Alte Armatur" that I referenced in my previous post you see they are clearly hanging the shield from a guige.

The later references you cite are mostly unarmored *or* they use the large round shield with no guige. If you're unarmored you must be able to block your legs so the guige is impractical, and when you use those large rounds you never seem to have had a guige at all--they were always meant for rotational blocking. Size isn't necessarily a factor, but the guige strap *is*.

I make no comment about the comparison you make in your article between the large center-grip round shields of the Norse, etc., when compared with German dueling shields because I haven't studied them. The use of the heater and bouche shields, however, shields clearly used with a guige, is obviously very different. The iconography again and again shows that these shields don't use a hand strap in the way it's used in other types of shields for foot combat: Either the wrist merely passes through the strap (as we see in both Gladiatoria and Wallerstein codex) or the hand doesn't go through the strap at all or the hand grasps a strap at the bottom of the shield (there are several examples of shields with hand straps both in the upper dexter side and on the lower edge or point in the dissertation by Nickle I referenced in my previous post). And without the hand strap being held in the hand (not just with the wrist through it) the kinds of manuevers you suggest aren't very practical.

Granted, not all sources showing heater shields clearly show the guige in use. Take, for example, the famous picture in the Manessa Codex (http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/sam...ageid=PAGE0638) where there's no clear drawing of the guige on the shield on the left. But when you consider the shield on the right seemingly hanging in mid air it suggests that it's actually hanging by its guige. Moreover, when high-medieval texts describe a knight picking up his shield they invariably say he "hung it around his neck" or words to that effect (e.g., see "Gawain and the Green Knight"). (NB: In the Manessa Codex painting the figure on the right *is* using the hand grip as a hand grip on foot--obviously nothing is 100% all the time.)

Note, too, in the plate I referenced from the Manessa Codex how the shield on the left clearly shows the user's arms... on the inside of the shield. Since there's no evidence for this practice anywhere, we take this to mean the artist painted them there merely to show who was who. I take this to be the explanation for the way many MSS show the heater shield of the figure on the left side of the page swung far over to the user's right: not, as your article suggests, to close that line (indeed, we most often see it in jousting where closing the line isn't a useful tactic), but rather simply to show the arms. I realize you mention this briefly in your Spatha article, I merely wanted to emphasize it here to show why shields are often shown at odd angles (see my previous post on this subject where I showed the Gladiatoria plate where the shield is shown to be painted on the inside).

Incidently, I make no pretense of having worked out the use of these sorts of shields conclusively, but there are *some* things we can say about them.

And by the way, the sarcastic tone of your post was uncalled for. I clearly distinguished between the shields I was talking about and the ones your article focused on. There was no hint of an attack in what I wrote, I merely suggested that your extrapolations (and that's all they are) do not apply to a specific sub-set of shields--a suggestion you yourself hint at in your article, although you seem to reject it afterward if I remember it correctly.

[Brian McIlmoyle]

The shape of these shields mark them clearly as a jousting shield.
To be used while mounted.

in the manual in question.. and in this group of images we have the progression of a duel..

These fellows just dismounted, and are now fighting on foot with the kit they were just using while mounted.

They are not fighting using these shields.. they are fighting **wearing** them.. and we see that they dump them as soon as they get the chance.

Granted.. this is **my ** interpritation of what is going on here... but it is as reasonable as anything else I have read so far.

I would not infer too much on the evidence here as to how such shield were used.. I don't think they are an active defense in this application.

I don't have an "evidence" that this is so .. but there is none to the contrary either.

[Felix Wang]

About the tartsche, I should mention (if anyone doesn't know this), that the shield has a reverse curve to it. When normally held, the middle of the shield is closer to the body than the top or the bottom.

Hugh has mentioned shields with a guige being used on horseback, as having the left hand gripping the hand strap of the tartsche. I suggest that the left hand might have instead been used to seize the reins. The shield would have been carried on the forearm and around the neck, while the rider's control of his mount might have been improved.

The Wallerstein pictures are confusing. Some clearly do not show a guige, some show a strap across the top of the shield which seems much too short to be a guige, and none show the guige around the neck. Some of this difference may be artistic shortcuts, but I am not sure that these shields are meant to have, or be used with, a guige around the neck.

[Stephen Hand]

Hugh,

The shields under discussion in CW are clearly shown without guiges. On plate 164 (page 323 of G&B's book) or here the strapping of the shields is clearly shown and there's no guige. Therefore the guige is completely irrelevant to a discussion as to how these shields were used. In any case I have fought with several different heaters on guiges and was able to use all of the commonly described shield techniques without any difficulty. The shield should not be used to defend the legs. That's what Uberlauffen is for. The sort of gross shield movement needed to defend the legs is precisely what isn't used in the historically documented style.

Obviously hanging a shield from a guige without any other straps or a grip renders the shield a static defensive device, essentially a piece of armour, not a weapon. This is hence not relevant to a discussion of CW where the shields are not used with guiges of any description, but are strapped to the arm.

I'm happy to entertain the idea of there being exceptions to the historically documented style of shield use, but I see no evidence that this is one. In fact the only plate showing the shields being used here shows them being held in precisely the same ward used by Talhoffer with his duelling shelds and the Italians with their rotellae.

[Hugh Knight]

Originally posted by Brian McIlmoyle
The shape of these shields mark them clearly as a jousting shield.
To be used while mounted.

in the manual in question.. and in this group of images we have the progression of a duel..

These fellows just dismounted, and are now fighting on foot with the kit they were just using while mounted.

They are not fighting using these shields.. they are fighting **wearing** them.. and we see that they dump them as soon as they get the chance.

Granted.. this is **my ** interpritation of what is going on here... but it is as reasonable as anything else I have read so far.

I would not infer too much on the evidence here as to how such shield were used.. I don't think they are an active defense in this application.

I don't have an "evidence" that this is so .. but there is none to the contrary either.

Hi Brian,

I think you're very nearly right, except to say that there are numerous pictures in the iconography that show folks fighting with these kinds of shields on foot, just starting with the Ambraser Codex picture I referenced in my first post. There are several more in the pictures section of the die Schlachtschule Group you once subscribed to.

What I find most interesting is that the majority of cases show that the combatants elect to fight halfsword using their arming swords (the hilt length is clear) or a longsword with the shield still hanging by the guige.

As for what you say about them discarding these shields at the first chance, I don't think we can say that (nor deny it--don't misunderstand me), but in support of that idea I will point out the hook I mentioned in my first post: One theory for its existance (and Nickel references several) is that this is a "quick release": the idea is that the guige ends in a ring or something similar and that to release it you simply pull it off the hook. Certainly the evidence isn'tconclusive by any means, however, and I should hate to argue in favor of it, but it's an interesting idea.

[Hugh Knight]

Originally posted by Stephen Hand
Hugh,

The shields under discussion in CW are clearly shown without guiges. On plate 164 (page 323 of G&B's book) or here the strapping of the shields is clearly shown and there's no guige. Therefore the guige is completely irrelevant to a discussion as to how these shields were used. In any case I have fought with several different heaters on guiges and was able to use all of the commonly described shield techniques without any difficulty. The shield should not be used to defend the legs. That's what Uberlauffen is for. The sort of gross shield movement needed to defend the legs is precisely what isn't used in the historically documented style.

Obviously hanging a shield from a guige without any other straps or a grip renders the shield a static defensive device, essentially a piece of armour, not a weapon. This is hence not relevant to a discussion of CW where the shields are not used with guiges of any description, but are strapped to the arm.

I'm happy to entertain the idea of there being exceptions to the historically documented style of shield use, but I see no evidence that this is one. In fact the only plate showing the shields being used here shows them being held in precisely the same ward used by Talhoffer with his duelling shelds and the Italians with their rotellae.

Except that they *are* shown to have guiges, Stephen. Granted the artist hasn't chosen to show us a picture where the strap is clearly shown around the neck, but I cited a picture in which the shield was clearly held up in the guard-your-face attitude the shield assumes when hung on its guige, and I showed another picture where the guige can be clearly seen on a shield on the ground.

Please take another look at these pictures if you would. Yes, the artist didn't always draw the guige in every picture, but if you look at the shields in the Gladiatoria fechtbuch you'll see that the artist there occasionally drew one strap, sometimes two straps and sometimes three straps. We can't trust the artists for perfect fidelity!

And in the picture you cite I believe the guige strap *is* drawn. It's the one on the top edge of the shield: There's no other reason for such a strap to be there at the top edge of the shield. A better picture for you to have used for your argument would have been the shield being held by the figure on the right on p. 340 which isn't shown to have a guige, but that plate shows the shield on the ground with the guige very clearly drawn... thus refuting your point.

As for your argument about shields being used to guard the legs in un- or lightly-armored combat, you yourself know better: With sword and buckler, for example, the leg attack was commonly used because the shield enables you to both parry the high high attck while striking at the legs. For proof, just read Lignitzer's sword and buckler material--it contains several leg attacks in spite of the fact that the German *longsword* tradition eschews them because the Uberlauffen makes them unwise. When you have a shield the rules change somewhat.

To your point about the shield hung from the guige being a "static" piece of equipment, perhaps I wasn't clear: I see little evidence that shields were ever simply hung so. I stated very clearly that they are often used with the forearm through its strap, and indeed, I believe that to be the norm. When you try to use the guige by itself the first light blow knocks it away or worse gets it in your way. In addition, the wrist is often through the hand strap even when the hand isn't grasping that strap (I cited a picture for this): this gives you left to right control over the shield to an extent, but not to do your dueling shield maneuvers.

[Brian McIlmoyle]

Originally posted by Hugh Knight
Hi Brian,

I think you're very nearly right, except to say that there are numerous pictures in the iconography that show folks fighting with these kinds of shields on foot,

if we were to look at iconography post 14th century we are not finding many other types of shields shown in an armoured context. I think that this is because shields were not in common use for armoured fighting on foot. If you were to use a shield it would be a jousting shield. You would want it there if you were working with lances or spears.. but it would be a substantial hinderance at closer engagment ranges where it could be used as a handle to topple you. This is why I agree 100% with the idea of a Quick release hook and ring idea for the neck strap and arm straps loose enough that they could be easily cast off over a gauntlet.

I do believe that there is no reason to think that the use of this type of shield would differ in any way from any other large shield, which at this time in history would have 1000 + years of tradition behind it.

couple this with the loose straps and you don't end up with something that has fine control but rather an object that can be manipulated well enough to close off lines but lacks the fine control to be used as a very active defense.

[Hugh Knight]

Originally posted by Brian McIlmoyle
if we were to look at iconography post 14th century we are not finding many other types of shields shown in an armoured context. I think that this is because shields were not in common use for armoured fighting on foot. If you were to use a shield it would be a jousting shield. You would want it there if you were working with lances or spears.. but it would be a substantial hinderance at closer engagment ranges where it could be used as a handle to topple you. This is why I agree 100% with the idea of a Quick release hook and ring idea for the neck strap and arm straps loose enough that they could be easily cast off over a gauntlet.

I do believe that there is no reason to think that the use of this type of shield would differ in any way from any other large shield, which at this time in history would have 1000 + years of tradition behind it.

couple this with the loose straps and you don't end up with something that has fine control but rather an object that can be manipulated well enough to close off lines but lacks the fine control to be used as a very active defense.

I largely agree, but I would suggest there are lots more sources showing foot combat with shields in this period than you may believe.

Look at the picture I have attached to this post, for example, from the British Museum. It clearly depicts late 14th-century foot combat, and not someone who just dismounted to fight (since he's mixed in with other infantry). Remember, too, that a *huge* percentage of western European combat in the 14th century was fought on foot, not on horseback, even by the highest-ranked men at arms. If you look you will find *numerous* pictures of knights fighting on foot with shields during this period. Take a special look at the Lancelot du Lac MS I referenced in my first post, or at the German Tristan & Isolde MS from the 1390's or here: http://www.bnf.fr/enluminures/images/jpeg/i1_0034.jpg (incidentally, from the way they're holding their shields I suspect they're hanging by the guige).

The fact is that, at least in the iconography, there are lots of representations of foot combat with shields. Do I think this was the norm? I have no idea, but I *do* think that it was more common than is commonly thought.

As for the judicial combats in the fechtbücher, I am of two minds. the only fechtbuch of which I'm aware that talks about starting the fight on horseback and then dismounting is von Danzig. All of the others seem to show a fight that was clearly intended to be fought afoot to begin with--just consider any of the various Talhoffer fechtbücher, for example. This leads me to wonder whether the ones that show shield use (Codex Wallerstein and Gladiatoria) were really intended to show a combat that started on horseback or not.

[Felix Wang]

Many different source pictures are being tossed around in this discussion, and they do not all show the same sort of shield. This allows people to talk / post right past each other.

Gladitoria does show oblong, reverse curve tartsche shields with guiges around the neck of some fighters.

Wallerstein does not show any fighter with a guige around his neck, and half the images clearly do not show any sign of a guige. The shields are of the same type as Gladitoria - so the fighting method can't rely on the guige.

http://www.bnf.fr/enluminures/images/jpeg/i1_0034.jpg does not show a guige, and one fighter clearly has a largish (shoulder to knee) deeply curved heater shield - a very different beast from a tartsche.

The other shield is a small heater, and there are some of the small Marburg shields from the mid 1300's which survive without any fasteners to suggest a guige. The assumption that the guige was simply omitted by the artist doesn't hold water (aside from being inherently suspect). Whatever fighting method these small heaters were used for didn't rely on a guige.

[Brian McIlmoyle]

Originally posted by Hugh Knight
I largely agree, but I would suggest there are lots more sources showing foot combat with shields in this period than you may believe.

.

Oh, I believe that there was plenty of foot combat on foot with shields. But... it think that the principal use for shields in the 14th century.. and forward was for use when mounted as defense against the lance.

That is I believe why we see in the iconography of the 14th century and later shields designed for that use being used on foot. Sheilds designed for use on foot being out of common use for men at arms.

I think we can agree that there is much more evidence from art that shields were not in common use on foot for armoured combat, single or in battle past the 14th century. Iconography would indicate that shields were still seen in use on foot but not as much.

In addition we could infer that when used they would be used much the same as they had been when they were in common use earlier. The iconography showing the same postures as in previous centuries.

[Hugh Knight]

Originally posted by Felix Wang
Many different source pictures are being tossed around in this discussion, and they do not all show the same sort of shield. This allows people to talk / post right past each other.

Gladitoria does show oblong, reverse curve tartsche shields with guiges around the neck of some fighters.

Wallerstein does not show any fighter with a guige around his neck, and half the images clearly do not show any sign of a guige. The shields are of the same type as Gladitoria - so the fighting method can't rely on the guige.

First, the different kinds of shields were presented because in my opinion they function similarly. A heater slung on the guige is used in the same way as a bouche shield when fighting on foot. If you look at the picture I attached in my last post you'll see a cross between the two: a concave shield (but with no bouche) hung from its guige and used the same as a heater as shown in Lancelot du Lac or in the Chronique de France link you dismiss.

Second, while none of the pictures in codex Wallerstein clearly show a guige in use, they nonetheless *do* show them present, and one shows the guige unstrapped while the shield lies on the ground, suggesting it had been unfastened before being removed: http://www.thehaca.com/Manuals/187.jpg

Moreover, at least one picture shows a figure holding a shield in the way they're held in other pictures when a guige is in place: http://www.thehaca.com/Manuals/218.jpg

Further, in that picture picture (218) we see shields held in a way that they *can't* be used without a guige--the arm is through both straps but the hand isn't holding the hand strap. If you use a shield that way the shield will simply flop around your arm; I can say this from experience.

These facts taken together with the sure knowledge that medieval art can't be taken as 100% representative seem to suggest pretty strongly that guiges were, in fact, in use in these pictures at least some of the time.