Many shields now occur with hollowed-out sides, and engrailed at the top and base, and are classed in our plate under the various forms of Gothic (Nos. 9 to 12). Sometimes the top is straight, while the sides and base are engrailed out, and in instances, perhaps under German influence, the bases are rounded. The endless variety of these beautiful Gothic shields is most fascinating. The wonder is that they lasted for so very short a time, from the middle of this fifteenth century to the first few decades of the sixteenth.
In Cutts' valuable book, p. 454 (see No. 59), two unmounted knights, from an engraving by Hans Burgmaier, are represented in combat, about 1450, carrying two very curious shields, somewhat similar in idea to these Gothic shields. Being divided lengthways into three partitions; both are broader at the top and narrowed at the lower end, and they seem to be about 3 feet 6 inches long. One is convex at the top and engrailed, with a bluntly-pointed base; the other is flat but slightly engrailed, and the rounded base somewhat broken by the three divisions, which evidently suggest that these shields were curved round the body. But the old plain heater continues as by far the most prevalent shape throughout this century. It is usually very square, and in several instances there is an approach to the French base of Mr. Rylands' nomenclature.
As already remarked, foot soldiers of all ages, down to the middle of the eighteenth century, appear with round shields. During this century and the next these are shown with handsome decorations, but never with heraldry on the face: foot soldiers, perhaps, were not considered heraldically armigerous. In an Italian painting of this century, foot soldiers are represented with square and diamond shaped shields, each side shaped out in curves; and in one heraldry is painted; perhaps he was a dismounted knight and the others only retainers. This may be seen engraved in Jacquemart's History of Furniture, p. 24 (see No. 60).
In many other shields at the end of this century the heater shape has gradually arrived at what is named square No. 7, and in the charter granted to the waxchandlers, 1484 (see No. 61), and in many other instances, these shields were very long in proportion to their width. The same elongated shape appears in a shield on Christ Church gate, Canterbury, date 1517; engraved Archæologia, vol. xvi, p. 194.
60 [see Plate iii].