Scutum

[Tib. Gabinius]

Just to mention it.
The Fayum shield ( BC), perhaps also with celtic influence, is 128 cm high and 64 cm wide.

The Dura scutum is about 105 cm high and 85 cm wide.

The othershields, clipei, were round ( a bit oval ) and flat. The messurements i ve to read again, i dont remember now.

Just to throw some more dates in the round.

[Crispvs]

Thanks Frater Peronis,

Actually I hadn't forgotten that piece from Tacitus, but for me there are two small issues present.

Firstly, like you I rely on an English translation and am not sure exactly how the original Latin is phrased, but I have read this as "strike with the bosses of their shields" (left hand), "stab in the face (or 'to disfigure their faces')" (right hand). Thus the shield boss is not necessarily being aimed at the face (which would raise the shield dangerously high in any case).

Secondly, although his father in law was present and clearly gave him good information, Tacitus is rarely above dramatising his narative for effect. Thus we see his stirring descriptions of cavalry wheeling around hillocks, hooves beeting and trappings jingling, and the equally stirring speeches made by chief to their own warriors. None of this necessarily detracts from his ability to get the facts accross in a good way, but it does mean that we should be aware that he often adds flesh to the bones of the facts he has been told. We cannot be sure how fine the detail was in Agricola's description to him of Mons Graupius. It was obviously good, but was it that good. Agricola was there and saw it - Tacitus was not there and wrote about it. This may or may not be significant. I was simply thinking about the physiology of the human wrist.

Crispvs

[Felix]

I don't know if this will help:

"36] Ac primo congressu eminus certabatur; simulque constantia, simul arte Britanni ingentibus gladiis et brevibus caetris missilia nostrorum vitare vel excutere, atque ipsi magnam vim telorum superfundere, donec Agricola quattuor Batavorum cohortis ac Tungrorum duas cohortatus est, ut rem ad mucrones ac manus adducerent; quod et ipsis vetustate militiae exercitatum et hostibus inhabile [parva scuta et enormis gladios gerentibus]; nam Britannorum gladii sine mucrone complexum armorum et in arto pugnam non tolerabant. Igitur ut Batavi miscere ictus, ferire umbonibus, ora fodere, et stratis qui in aequo adstiterant, erigere in collis aciem coepere, ceterae cohortes aemulatione et impetu conisae proximos quosque caedere: ac plerique semineces aut integri festinatione victoriae relinquebantur. " from http://www.gmu.edu/departments/fld/CLAS ... .agri.html

this is translated:

"36. The action began with distant fighting. The Britons with equal steadiness and skill used their huge swords and small shields to avoid or to parry the missiles of our soldiers, while they themselves poured on us a dense shower of darts, till Agricola encouraged three Batavian and two Tungrian cohorts to bring matters to the decision of close fighting with swords. Such tactics were familiar to these veteran soldiers, but were embarrassing to an enemy armed with small bucklers and unwieldy weapons. The swords of the Britons are not pointed, and do not allow them to close with the foe, or to fight in the open field. No sooner did the Batavians begin to close with the enemy, to strike them with their shields, to disfigure their faces, and overthrowing the force on the plain to advance their line up the hill, than the other auxiliary cohorts joined with eager rivalry in cutting down all the nearest of the foe. " here http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/ ... icola.html

Note that the shield strike is not clearly linked to the facial attack - he could easily mean stab with the sword at the face, or slash at the nose, for that matter.

[Marcus Julius]

Firstly, like you I rely on an English translation and am not sure exactly how the original Latin is phrased, but I have read this as "strike with the bosses of their shields" (left hand), "stab in the face (or 'to disfigure their faces')" (right hand). Thus the shield boss is not necessarily being aimed at the face (which would raise the shield dangerously high in any case).

Even though, in reenactment combat we aren't allowed to strike a person with the shield for safety, they can be used offensively to good effect. Using your own shield to either move or trap your opponents shield, or pinning their own weapon or sword arm, immediately before striking with your own can be a very effective one-two punch method. As for raising the shield too high, one method we have used, is to raise our own shield up, catch the opponents shield rim with the boss and drive thier shield downward, thus exposing the head, neck and shoulders.

I know that the text implies actually striking a person. However, I hope that my examples at least show that the use of the shield, especially the boss, is possible Not just possible, but in some cases, even practical and effective.

[Peroni]

donec Agricola quattuor Batavorum cohortis ac Tungrorum duas cohortatus est

Translated above as...

till Agricola encouraged three Batavian and two Tungrian cohorts

Dubious translation concerning the number of Batavian units deployed!

[Crispvs]

Thanks Marcus,

Yes, I am familiar with various offensive uses of the shield and often demonstrate these to the public. Having also been a combat re-enactor in the past I am also familiar with the technique of using the boss to hook an opponent's shield rim. However, this does not mean that I agree with the idea of 'punching' with the boss. When you consider that you would be punching it into another person who might well be moving rapidly closer to you (or you to him) you need to think in the same terms as you would if punching your fist hard at a solid wall. The result could be very damaging to your wrist.
Why would 'punch' with the shield in any case? Presumably the idea would be to push your opponent off his balance and force him back. In this case, think of trying to force open a door. Most of us would shy away from trying to achieve this by punching it. Instead, we use the shoulder to force more body weight onto the door and make it give way. In the same way I think that the best method for knocking an opponent back or down would be to push the shield forward with the shoulder (obviously still holding the handgrip normally), which I believe is what is being shown in the picture I posted above, given the soldier's overall stance. One thing many groups suffer from, including my own, is that many members have no experience of using the moves they are demonstrating against an actual opponent. When used against a real person, particularly one who fights back, the moves demonstrated by these groups would fall seriously short.

This last point also applies to the idea of using the boss to hook the shield edge. Undoubtedly, the method can work, but in an actual combat situation against a real opponent with a mind to hurt you (as opposed to a friend you plan on having a drink with later) it would have to be used very carefully. Given that actual combat can move very fast indeed, even a minor mistake can give the experienced fighter all the opportunity he needs. Real hand to hand combat, of necessity, has a continuous flow to it as each combatant continually adjusts his defensive and offensive situation to that which he percieves in his enemy. Observation is paramount here and reactions must be at least equal the the speed of your reaction when driving around a corner and suddenly being confronted with a pedestrian crossing the road a few feet in front of you. By all means attempt to hook your shield boss over the edge of your opponent's shield, but if you do, do it so suddenly that he has not even half a second's warning while at the same time you are certain that his weapon cannot be brought to bear on you before you can (a) take advantage of your tactic and (b) re-establish your defence. This timespan is likely to be a second or less. If at any time you bring your shield into a position where you cannot see what he is doing, even for a moment, then you are giving him an opportunity to kill or wound you. All this is compounded if fighting in a battle line, as at any one time three to seven other people are able to take advantage of your mistakes.

Obviously, any weapon must be able to be used defensively and any defence must be able to be used offensively, but the opportunities are limited by the situation. For example, an effective offensive tactic to use against a charging opponent would be to raise the lower edge of the shield to the height of the face or throat in order to thrust it into the neck or face of of your opponent before he can slow down or bring his weapon to bear on you. However, it becomes ineffective and personally dangerous if he is leading with a solidly braced shield which will force your own back on you, or if he has the support of archery or artillery or, even more likely, he has friends alongside him who will immediately take advantage of the silly idiot who has just exposed most of his body to their weapons. Effective then, but probably only against a single, fairly inexperienced opponent or or an extremely loosely packed group of fairly inexperienced opponents. The same probably applies to most other shield tactics. Most of the time you would want your shield to be in a position where it covers as much of you as possible from your enemy and where it allows you to see exactly what he is doing for every second of the time you have to be fighting him (and his friends). When using the shield offensively, most of the time it would still need to be in a position where both of those things were still possible.

Sorry for driving this so far off topic.


Crispvs

[Robert Vermaat]

However, this does not mean that I agree with the idea of 'punching' with the boss. When you consider that you would be punching it into another person who might well be moving rapidly closer to you (or you to him) you need to think in the same terms as you would if punching your fist hard at a solid wall. The result could be very damaging to your wrist.

Hi Crispvs,

I've read your arguments and they are valid, but maybe the disadvantage to the 'puncher' is less than you assume? It's dificult to test this, I know.. The shock to the 'punchee' will be big enough, I think. Last weekend I was at the receiving end of a well-meant charge, when I decided to fight back and jump on the scutum (1st c. rectangular) of my attacker. He slammed his nose into his shield rim in surprise.. with a bloody nose as a result. The shock of the impact was much less to me than to him, since I was in control and he was surprised.

So tell me, with shield bosses shaped like the ones below, would they really not have been used to punch?

[Crispvs]

Hello Robert,

"So tell me, with shield bosses shaped like the ones below, would they really not have been used to punch? "

Yes, quite possibly. Anything is possible in a melee situation, but I have previously been led to believe that the Germanic pointed shield boss with straight sides is simply a stronger shape. It combines the strength of a conical point with the strong edge joining the sloping and straight surfaces - a point not lost on 12th century helmet manufacturers.

"The shock of the impact was much less to me than to him, since I was in control and he was surprised. "

Yes, that matches quite well to my point about damage to the wrist of the person using the shield to punch.

Crispvs

[Robert Vermaat]

the Germanic pointed shield boss with straight sides is simply a stronger shape. It combines the strength of a conical point with the strong edge joining the sloping and straight surfaces - a point not lost on 12th century helmet manufacturers.

But apparently on Germanic helmet manufacturers at the time when these bosses came into fashion, because it's not used on armour.

Yes, that matches quite well to my point about damage to the wrist of the person using the shield to punch.

How? My point was that the one who controls the surprise, controls the motion. I was the one who according to your view, would have been bruised by the impact of the attacker.
I believe that the puncher also controls that motion and the force with which he is punching his attacker in the face. And it takes but a light blow to surprise and hurt the attacker, giving the puncher time to hurt him with his sword.
At least that was my experience when surprising my attacker last weekend. True, not with a punch of my shield in his face, but inadvertedly with a punch of his shield in his face. [/quote]

[FAVENTIANVS]

My 4th century one: 100x80 cm.

[Primvs Pavlvs]

Possibly the point on the boss is to also keep the enemy from pressing his weight against your shield? Kind of like spikes on a dog collar.

[Crispvs]

Sorry Robert,

I replied in rather a hurry before. I agree with you about the surprise factor but I still feel that if the shield boss was punched at a fighter who was expecting it, could easily force the 'puncher's' wrist upwards uncomfortably and possibly cause damage to the bones or tendons. However, perhaps the pointed boss could cause a braced body to flinch somewhat (assuming the boss touched the opponent's body rather than the more likely prospect of it hitting his shield), resulting in less resistance and correspondingly less damage to the wrist.
That said, I am still suspicious about the Germanic boss being itentionally designed to cause damage when used to punch. Some surviving examples are considerably less pointed than the ones shown in your photograph and come to rather a shallow point. I am still inclined to see the shape as a clever use of triangular sections, with the point section being triangular and the edge section being effectively the apex of another triangle. I have little doubt that this constitutes a strong form.

As to why the Germanic smiths who presumably made many of these bosses did not apply the same principals to helmets, I do not know. However the thought occurs to me here that a helmet would be a much higher status piece of armour than a shield boss for a native German and perhaps helmets were made by a few specialists who then sold them to men of high status who could afford the best, whereas shield bosses could be made using less metal and perhaps less skill at a relatively local level (allowing for the probable scarcity of smiths throughout Germanic society), making them cheap enough for warriors of lesser ststus to consider. This might also allow for centres of helmet manufacture where one shape was the norm in one area (perhaps for both helmets and bosses), while still allowing for smiths in another area to be producing the innovative new design of boss but not undertaking the more specialised job of manufacturing helmets. The element of tradition also needs to be considered - it might be that after a while, and with no further innovation, the shapes became established as normal shapes for these objects and no-one considered that the benefits of one could be translated into the other.

Obvously much of this is conjecture but I think worthy of consideration.

Crispvs