Plate XIX.

To a soldiery with whom body-armour appears to have been a secondary consideration, the Shield would be of the first consequence. We find, therefore, the Northern warrior seldom unaccompanied by this useful defence. Leader and retainer, horseman and foot-soldier,—all are equipped with the target. Its form was usually round, though in the pictures, being seen in profile, it often has the appearance of an oval. And, as the plump-cheeked houris of the East were called "moon-faced damsels," so the round targets of the Teutons were named by the poets "moony shields." They were convex, and in the centre was a boss of metal, generally terminating in a button or in a spike, but sometimes without either. The spiked shield was no doubt used as an offensive arm. The buttons are sometimes plated with silver, or tinned, as are the heads of the rivets remaining in the edge of the umbo. Across the hollow of the boss was fixed a handle of wood covered with iron; and by this handle the shield was held at arm's length, the hand entering the hollow of the boss: see woodcut, No. [13]. In the Wilbraham Cemetery was found the umbo of a shield to which the handle was still attached by its rivets. (See fig. 10 of our [xx]th plate.) The shield was sometimes strengthened with strips of iron fixed across the inside; these strips being prolongations of the handle just described. Such a shield-handle was found at Envermeu by the Abbé Cochet, and is figured on Plate xvi. of his work. In this example the handle has a single strip on each side, running towards the edge of the shield. A similar one was found in a Merovingian cemetery near Troyes. In a Frankish grave at Londinières was discovered a variety of this type, in which the strips proceeding from the handle were three on each side, radiating towards the rim. This very curious example is engraved in the Normandie Souterraine, Plate viii. Others were found in the recent excavations in the Isle of Wight.

The body of the shield was usually of wood; the lime having a marked preference. Thus, in "Beowulf[123]," the heroic Wiglaf "seized his shield, the yellow lindenwood" (geolwe linde). And a spell preserved in Harl. MS., 585, f. 186, has:—

"Stod under linde
under leohtum scylde:"

"I stood under my linden shield, beneath my light shield." In the Anglo-Saxon poem of "Judith:"—

"The warriors marched:
the chieftains to the war,
protected with targets,
with arched linden shields."
(hwealfum lindum[124].)

In a fragment on the battle of Maldon:—

"Leofsunu spake
and lifted his linden shield."
(and his linde ahof[125].)