Norman Kite Shield

Origins

The round shield of the Vikings and the Carolingian Franks suited a man on foot, but it left a mounted warrior's leg exposed on the shield side. By the early eleventh century a longer shield, rounded at the top and tapering to a point below, was spreading across Europe; Byzantine and Italian sources show similar shapes, and its exact origin is still argued. The shape is named for the kites of later centuries, not for anything medieval, and it is associated above all with the Normans because the Bayeux Tapestry, made within a generation of 1066, shows it in the hands of nearly every rider in Duke William's army.

Design & Construction

A kite shield stood roughly a meter or more tall and was made of thin wooden planks glued edge to edge, often slightly curved to wrap around the body, and covered front and back with leather or rawhide that shrank tight as it dried and held the planks together. Some had an iron boss, a survival from the round shield, though by the late eleventh century many had none. Inside were the enarmes, leather straps through which the forearm passed, and the guige, a long strap that let the shield hang from the neck or be slung across the back. Paint made each one recognizable: the tapestry shows crosses, dragons and geometric patterns that are not yet heraldry but point towards it. In the twelfth century the top was increasingly cut flat, making the shield easier to see over, and by around 1200 the shorter heater shield had evolved from it.

Combat Use

At Hastings in 1066 the kite shields of William's knights faced the shield wall of Harold's housecarls, whose round and kite shields locked against Norman lances and arrows while their Dane Axe blows could cut horse and rider down together. On horseback the shield covered the rider's left side as he couched his lance or struck overhand with sword or mace; on foot, men could stand it on its point to form a wall. The same shape was carried by the Normans who conquered southern Italy and Sicily, by Byzantine troops including the Varangian Guard, and by the knights of the First Crusade who took Jerusalem in 1099, where it met the lighter round shields and composite bows of Turkish horse archers. Early members of the Knights Templar, founded around 1119, fought with it.

Legacy

The kite shield marks the moment when the armored horseman became the master of European battlefields, and its flat-topped descendant, the heater, carried the coats of arms from which heraldry grew. Almost no original kite shields survive — wood and leather rot — so our knowledge comes from the Bayeux Tapestry, carvings, seals and manuscript illustrations. It is carried today by every Norman and early crusader reenactor and appears in countless depictions of the The Crusades, usually alongside the helmets that would later close into the Great Helm.