Are Historians WRONG about NORMAN CAVALRY SHIELDS?

Let's reassess the Norman shield. Hi folks, Matt Easton here of Scholar Gladiatoria. Now many of you will be familiar with this style of shield, sometimes known as a kite shield or teardrop shield, but most associated with the Normans. Now one very important thing to mention at that point is that it's not only a Norman shield, it was used by a variety of people around the year 1000 AD, so this was popular in Anglo-Saxon England, it was popular all over Francia, as well as the Norman lands which had been colonized essentially by who became known as the Normans and who famously invaded England in 1066, and we'll get to the the invasion of England and the primary source there, the Bayeux Tapestry, and it was also used in Scandinavia as well. So this type of long shield actually wasn't only used by Norman cavalry, and this is one of the main points that I want to address in this video as concisely as possible, is the fact that this isn't, in my opinion, a cavalry shield, okay? So a lot of people have written in a lot of books over the last, well, more than several decades, I would say probably a century or more, that this was a shield associated with Norman and Breton cavalry use, and that's partially inspired by the fact that if we look at the Bayeux Tapestry, one of the most famous sources for this period, at least artistic sources, we see the Norman cavalry sporting these shields. But here's the newsflash, these shields are also used by the Anglo-Saxon infantry. Now it's not the only type of shield seen in the hands of the Anglo-Saxon infantry, also we see sort of oblong shields that aren't quite teardrop shaped, but we also see their characteristic round shields as well, with a centre boss round shield, and in towards the end of the tapestry there's a whole bunch of these shown in the hands of the Saxons, whereas the Normans only use these. Now what I would postulate is that these are a newer or rather a more recent design, so clearly round shields with bosses in the centre, boss grip shields, have been around for centuries and centuries, in fact going back into antiquity, into the classical world, and they'd been used through most of the Anglo-Saxon and Frankish eras up until the, if we call it the Norman era, up until about 1000 AD. But by this time this type of shield, which was strapped by various means, now I just want to mention these straps briefly, these aren't historically correct straps, for the purposes of this video that's not important, but I might go into some detail on on that particular topic in a future video if there's an appetite for it, so if you would like to know more about that get posting below. But we'd moved from centre boss grip shields, round shields predominantly in most of western Europe, and then by 1000 AD these strap shields, teardrop shields, were starting to come to use. Now I have talked about these shields before, and one of the main theories that I came up with, which some people took umbrage with it has to be said, is the fact that actually these are better suited to infantry use than cavalry use. Now I'm going to build on that in this video, and I'm going to bring in a new piece of evidence, or rather it's an old piece of evidence, and it is yet again the Bayeux Tapestry, but I've noticed something in the Bayeux Tapestry which I haven't seen anybody else note. That's not to say other people haven't noticed it, but I'm not aware of them having noticed it, so I've noticed it for myself for the first time and I'm bringing it to you here, and it is tied into this evidence for showing that these are more catered towards infantry use, ironically, than cavalry use, even if in the modern world we associate them more with the Norman cavalry. So first up, why is this a great infantry shield? Well if I just grab a sword, but before I do I just want to mention that in this period the predominant weapon is always the spear, used on horseback or on foot, either over arm, over shoulder, or under, okay, either way can be used, and indeed even if you're holding it this way it can be stabbed over as well, and the reason probably that we often see this or this in the manuscripts, or particularly in the Bayeux Tapestry, is probably to come over opposing shields. If you're dealing with shield wall type tactics where lots of people have got large shields, be they round or teardrop, then trying to stab over the top of the shield is obviously going to be a predominant way that you use the spear, but I'll put the spear down for a second, we might come back to that. With a sword, which is obviously a very important secondary weapon, and we shouldn't, while it was less important than the spear, we shouldn't make out that it's unimportant, it's still an important weapon. So when you're fighting against people with shields, one of the primary targets, if I just bring that teardrop out of the way for a second, is down below the shield at the leg. So if someone's using any type of shield, it could be a roman scutum, it could be a frankish or anglo-saxon round boss grip shield, a viking shield, then trying to come over the top of the shield, either with stabs or cuts, or coming down below the shield, is a really really important part of fighting, and it's often how you manage to hit the opponent. In fact, if we look at some of the skeletons from the Battle of Stamford Bridge mass burials, we actually see they have a large number of leg wounds, and we see this again later on in the 14th century, 1360s, at the Battle of Visby, we see a lot of leg wounds. So any time that shields and swords were involved, there are usually going to be a lot of cuts down at the leg. We even see certain weapons in Norse sagas called things like leg biter and things like this, so legs are a major target in this period. Now it should be pretty damned obvious to you that with this type of shield, especially getting one leg back, so if we stand in this type of fighting position and get the shield forward, if it is, especially if it can be held close to the body, but if it's held forwards at all, then that massively increases the protection to the leg, and what we found in sparring with these shields is when you switch from a normal round shield, viking style shield, or saxon shield, to one of these, it gives you an enormous benefit at protecting your legs, and bear in mind this is an age where they weren't wearing any form of leg armor, so this hugely useful when fighting on foot. Now here's where the Bayeux tapestry comes in and really adds a lot of value to the debate. Not only is this theoretically very good at protecting the leg when fighting on foot, and not only is it also demonstrably very useful at that when we spar, whether it's reenactment or HEMA or LARP even, when you use a teardrop shield, everybody who uses these notes that it massively increases the benefits to leg defense, but in addition to that if we look at the Bayeux tapestry, lo and behold we can actually see the infantry using these shields with them right in front of their bodies vertically. Now fix that in your mind for a second, vertically, because I'm going to come back to that. In other words, straight downwards in front of the lead leg. They're not holding them out here, they're not holding them like this or this, they are all like this, they are holding them in front of the leg. Now obviously we fixate on swords probably more than we should do historically, but if we just come back to the spear for a second, this also applies to stabs which might come down low towards the legs in order to get the person to lower their shield to then come over the top and hit them in the face, and you don't have to lower the shield if you use this type of teardrop shield because it's already there protecting you easily well enough to deflect a thrust at your legs. So if you follow my channel closely this won't be new information to you necessarily, you'll probably know this is my view about teardrop shields and why they're so useful when fighting on foot. So some people said, ah yes they might be useful when fighting on foot, but they really developed to protect the horseman's legs for use by cavalry, and I have disputed this for a number of reasons. One of the reasons is that I think they are far more useful at protecting the legs of people on foot than they are people on horseback, but here's another couple of things, okay, so you know that I do some collaborations with Zach Evans, and when I've been talking with Zach over the last, well, years, he has pointed out to me a lot of things from the point of view of a horseman, a rider, cavalry, that I didn't know before, and one of those is that if things are banging against the side of the horse that is disruptive to the messages that you are sending to the horse. So primarily you have two points of contact with the horse, you have your butt and your legs wrapped around it, and you have your hands holding the reins, so any time that you pull on the reins that gives messages to the horse, any time that you lean or squeeze with your knees or kick with your heels or your spurs, that gives information to the horse. Any additional things like sword scabbards flapping around and banging, or indeed shields banging against the horse, essentially give radio interference to those signals, okay, they can give false information sometimes, but additionally they can also just make it harder to convey the messages you need to convey to the horse, and when talking to people who ride a lot like Zach or like Emma Pern, it's very clear that in the world of jousting or mounted combat, how good you are at fighting on horseback is extremely dependent on how good you are at riding, and Pietro Monti way back in the end of the 1400s made it very clear that generally speaking in a mounted fight, the person who wins is usually the person who's best at controlling their horse, but the best rider, not necessarily the person who's best at using their weapons. So first of all I would argue that the horseman, if I'm sitting on a horse now, if I just go back a bit, doesn't want to have the shield tucked in here because it's going to first of all bang against your leg, it's also going to bang against the horse, and even if it's tucked back a bit behind your knee here, it's also potentially going to be hitting the area of the horse roughly where your left foot or your left stirrup and spur is, so it's going to give false information, but that's all theoretical. What does the actual evidence show? Well this is the new piece of information that I wanted to put into this video for you. If we look at the Bayeux Tapestry, it is extremely clear and polarized that while all of those people on foot, almost all of them, when they're using these teardrop shields have them fairly close to the body and down the front leg, okay, so they have them held pretty much like a Roman scutum would be, protecting the leg to some degree. This might be somewhat overlong I have to say compared to the one shown in the Bayeux Tapestry, but nevertheless it is in front of the leg vertical, remember I used that word vertical. So what do we see when we look at the horseman, when we look at the cavalry? What we don't see is them holding the shield in front of the body with the front of the teardrop, the end of the teardrop, the pointy end, down in front of the leg. In fact if I turn sideways on here and become a cavalryman now, we don't even see it tucked slightly behind the leg, no. If we look at the majority of the pictures in Bayeux Tapestry, it's actually the shield is held out backwards here. Now I mentioned the strapping on here being incorrect and it's actually quite difficult for me to portray therefore because this you'll notice is diagonal upwards, actually the strapping on the ones in the Bayeux Tapestry are horizontal, so it's easier to do that with one of the Bayeux ones, but I'm going to do this by holding the gige strap here and try and simulate it. So what the pictures in the Bayeux Tapestry actually more look like is up at that angle, in other words the tail is pointing backwards, put the spear down for a second, and this is really really consistent and it's shown from both sides. There is a slight tendency that when you see the horseman from this side the shield is completely pointing backwards with that tail, whereas when you see them from this side it's sometimes a bit more like that, but nevertheless it is pointing backwards. Therefore my argument is that that clinches the deal, that proves the point. If this was a shield designed primarily for cavalry and given the teardrop to protect their leg it would be in front of the leg, but it never is in the Bayeux Tapestry, it's shown like this. Why would the artist so consistently show the shields held down in front of the leg when fighting on foot, but when on horseback have it pointing out backwards? It must mean, and incidentally in case you hadn't realized, by doing that it means that the actual long tail end of the teardrop becomes almost irrelevant on horseback. The functional part of the shield in front of the person's body is almost a round shield at that point, so my argument is that that kind of proves potentially, maybe I'm wrong, maybe you disagree, get posting down below, but that kind of proves that these shields, while they were used by cavalry, they weren't designed for cavalry, they were primarily designed for fighting on foot. But as always I always have to add a couple of caveats for complete honesty and transparency on this topic. Firstly the Bayeux Tapestry is just one source, it's always dangerous coming to sweeping conclusions like this based on one source, we need to look at a wider section of sources, and I have to point out at this point that actually there is some evidence in other sources of this also being the case, that with teardrop shields on horseback the points are put out backwards and not brought in front of the body or leg to protect them. However the other caveat is more looking at this big picture in context, okay, my favorite word, and that is that these Norman knights weren't only cavalry, and this is sometimes a concept that's quite difficult I think for people studying later military history to get their heads around, because in later periods of military history a soldier was often either infantry or cavalry. However in the context of 1000 or 1066 AD that's not quite the case, the fact is that knights often fought on foot, it was their job to fight, and they were the most heavily armored and they were the people owning the land and, you know, being very important in the feudal structure of things, and also arguably the most highly trained, but their job was to fight in whatever way necessary, that meant sometimes on horseback, sometimes on foot, sometimes at a siege. So when they went on crusade in the first crusade in 1090 they fought in any way that was required, they were elite leaders of men and they fought at the front and they fought by example sometimes on foot, very often on horseback, and yes their primary role was as heavy cavalry but it wasn't their only role. So my argument would be that by giving those Norman and Breton knights, or indeed any knights in this period, teardrop shields, it didn't really add to their effectiveness on horseback, but it did add to their effectiveness fighting on foot, because in an age where most of them hadn't adopted male chausses or leg protection yet, it meant that they had a good degree of leg protection against swords, axes and maces that were used at the time that could break your leg and put you out of combat with one hit, so really really important to have a shield that protects your leg when your armor doesn't. As always I'd appreciate your input and thoughts on this topic, do you know some evidence that supports this or refutes this? I'd be really interested to hear about it. Get posting down below and I hope I'll see you back on the channel really soon. Cheers folks! Thanks for watching, we've got extra videos on Patreon, please give our Facebook a like and subscribe if you haven't already. Cheers folks!