Hussite Pavise

Origins

The pavise was a large shield carried by infantry, especially crossbowmen, from the fourteenth century. Its name is often traced to the Italian city of Pavia, although the link is not certain. Crossbowmen needed cover while they spanned and loaded, and a large shield set on the ground gave it. In Bohemia the pavise was already known before the religious and political revolt that began in 1419. During the Hussite Wars, however, the Hussite armies made it central to their way of war. Their soldiers were mostly townsmen and peasants, with few trained knights, and they needed defensive methods that allowed ordinary men to stand against armored cavalry.

Design & Construction

A Hussite pavise was rectangular, often slightly narrower at the top, and commonly more than a meter tall. It was built of light wood, such as poplar or lime, and covered with leather, parchment or canvas glued to the surface. The cover was then primed with gesso and painted. Many pavises had a hollow vertical ridge running down the center of the face, which stiffened the shield and gave room inside for the arm or a carrying strap. On the back were handles or straps, and some had a spike or a prop so that the pavise could stand by itself. The painted faces carried coats of arms, town badges, saints, and Hussite symbols such as the chalice, which stood for the Hussite demand that ordinary believers receive the wine at communion. Surviving examples in Prague, Vienna and other collections show the quality of this painting. Besides the great standing pavise, the Hussites and their neighbors also used smaller hand pavises that a crossbowman could carry on his back or arm.

Combat Use

The Hussite commander Jan Žižka and his successors built their tactics around the wagon fort, a ring or line of war wagons chained together. Pavises were carried on the wagons and set up in the gaps between them and along their sides, turning the line of wagons into a continuous wall. Each wagon had a crew that included pavise-bearers, crossbowmen, handgunners and men with flails and polearms. Behind the pavises, men armed with the Crossbow and the Hand Cannon shot into the attacking cavalry, while others struck at anyone who reached the wagons with the Military Flail. When the enemy was exhausted, the Hussites came out from behind the wall to counterattack. The pavise was also used in the open field and in sieges, and mobile pavise-bearers could screen missile troops on the move.

At the Battle of Vítkov Hill in 1420, fought before the wagon fort had reached its mature form, the defenders relied mainly on hasty earthworks and wooden blockhouses. The fully developed combination of wagon and pavise brought the Hussites victories such as Ústí nad Labem in 1426 and Domažlice in 1431, where the crusading armies broke before the battle had properly begun.

Legacy

Hussite success made the Bohemian pavise famous. Bohemian mercenaries served across Central Europe after the wars, and the pavise and wagon fort were copied in Hungary, Poland and the German lands. Large painted pavises remained in use through much of the fifteenth century, until improved firearms made them less useful. Today they are among the best-known relics of the Hussite period, and surviving shields are prized as examples of late medieval painting as well as of arms.