Germanic weapon size

[Razoslav]

Varusschlacht 2009 was my first event in Germany and I was really suprised that most of Germans have quite small shields.
Similar situatian is with spears. Many people fight with not very long spears.
In my group we use spears circa 250cm lenght and shields 100-120x45-65cm and they look enormous in comprasion with some german-germanic shields.
First idea was "somebody makes something wrong. And maby Germans know better how to be germanic worrior?"
So... small shields with short spears... just like slavic warriors from dark ages :mrgreen:

Of course I know that shorter spear is ussually more comforteble in fight with shield. On medieval events I use spear 210cm or even shorter. And small shields are quite useful in loose formation ( or without any formation )

But what we know about germanic weapons size?

Hjortspring shields
http://www.redrampant.com/roma/celtshields.html
They are rectangular in a range of proportions, all with shallow curved sides and corners. Length: varies among the shields from 61 - 88 cm, Width: 22 - 52 cm. The largest shield is 88 x 50 cm. The smallest is 66 x 29 cm.

I don't know anything about shield from Vimose but it looks as made in the same way as Hjortspring shields.

Metal fittings of edges from burial graves are usless because we don't know if whole edge was fitted.

Illerup shields - begin of III cent
Round - about 1m - quite big.

Spears from Thorsberg:
81,3 cm, 250,2 cm, 273 cm, 294,6 cm

Nydam:
lenght between 230 and 305 cm

Vimose
248 cm, 274,3 cm, 275,4 cm, 277,8 cm and 335,3 cm.



On Marcus Aurelius column there are many germanic warriors, most of them with small shields. Round and hexagonal.

And ancient writers:
http://www.bartoszkontny.pradzieje.pl/i ... cheologa03

praelongae hastae (Tacitus, Annales 2, 21; Historia 5,18.)
hastae ingentes (Tacitus, Annales 1, 65)
enormes hastae ( Tacitus, Annales 2, 14.)
Generally that means: big spears.

(Tac. Ann. II, 21:[17]; "cum ingens multitudo artis locis praeolongas hastas non protenderet, non colligeret...")
something like: "great mass of people in little space can't strike ahead or back with too long spears"

(Tac. Ann. II, 14: " (...) "nec enim immensa barbarorum scuta, enormis hastas inter truncos arborum et enata humo virgulta perinde haberi quam pila et gladios et haerentia corpori tegmina"
this part says that germanic huge shields and enormous spears aren't as handy in forest as roman wapons.

[Robert Vermaat]

Excellent post Bartosz.

[Razoslav]

Thanks!

Everybody knows how big is roman scutum. But scutums at Marcus Aurelius column are quite small.
Almost the same proportion is between germanic shields and shields from Illerup...
Generally: if we are looking for right shield size - Marcus Aurelius column is useless.

But if my way of thinking is correct why tiny shields are so popular in Germany?

[MeinPanzer]

What about the Vaedebro shield from Denmark? It is almost the same shape as the shields from the Gundestrup cauldron and has been dated to "around the birth of Christ" based on associated pottery - in other words, about as good an example of a Germanic shield contemporary to the Varusschlacht as we are likely to get! I unfortunately have not been able to get a hold of the official publication on this find, but it appears to be fairly long and large. Maybe someone can provide information on its dimensions?

[M. Demetrius]

I think you guys have hit on a major point. Sculpture may not show the correct size of shields. If the right size were depicted, we'd see very little of many Romans except for the shield itself. In the case of the first sculpture photo below, one round shield is pretty small, the other is fairly normal. Hard to say which, if either one, is the "real size".

Grave stele are no exception here. The shields shown on those often look to be less than a meter tall, and we can be reasonably sure that is way too small for a clipeus or scutum of a Roman soldier. Yet often, the shield design and the general shape is correctly depicted.

[john m roberts]

This was the origin of the famous taunt that the Romans directed at the Germans: "Mine is bigger than yours!"