Modern illustrations of Rus' show at least some of them with a large rectangular shield, often with arrow shaped decoration.
Does anyone know the source?
Heath mentions Leo the Deacon. The shields are described as reaching the ground. Talbot and Sullivan's translation gives a reference to Terras,"Leo Diaconus and the Ethnology of Kievan Rus'." who says the shield was likely the spordr. He which in turn references Shetelig and Falk who describe this shield as being a kite shield.
I would have thought the late 10th century too early for kite shields, though there some possible appearances including one on a supposed 10th century Byzantine Iliad.
I'm part way through doing some Rus' and I don't think I would be changing the shields now, but it would be nice to know.
There's an interesting discussion - if you can bear with the sometimes clumsy transliterations - of early Slav shields at https://en.topwar.ru/174487-slavjane-vi-viii-vv-so-schitom.html which may have some bearing on the ancestry of the long Rus shield.
That's one of the sites I had come across, but nothing very concrete about shape.
I don't have much by way of Byzantine material to hand, but Maurice says 'nice-looking but unwieldly shields' which doesn't help much either.
In Poland "Many examples of iron-reinforced shields of rectangular shape (see pic 8 above) were also documented (https://lamus-dworski.tumblr.com/post/93666342120/reference-shields-of-the-polish-warriors-woje/embed)". Ian Heath in AFE says something similar. I haven't found any more precise references, but it might be worth your looking in a Polish direction?
I am wondering if that image on Tumblr may go back to Heath, though there are a few modern È European pics of Slavs with rectangular shields - one with a straw binding.
The earliest Polish shields shown in Nicolle's Crusade era book are from the Gneizno doors - they are kite shields and have been interpreted as planks with quite rough metal reinforcing strips. This book only goes back to 1050 but Nicolle's Polish Osprey says earlier evidence isn't around.
I will see if Heath's bibliographies have any leads
Having finished Duczko's Viking Rus yesterday, I thought it might be some utility in mentioning that, while Duczko isn't much interested in shields, he did leave me with the impression that the only archaeologically attested shape for Rus' shields is round.
There might be a bit of a methodological catch here, though, in that Duczko's operational definition of Rus' is people buried in Eastern Europe with identifiably Scandinavian grave-goods; the armies the Byzantines saw may have included Slavic or Finnic auxiliaries, or Norsemen gone native, whose graves he wouldn't count as Rus'.
That Leo mentions the size but not the shape might suggest the shields were of a familiar shape to the Byzantines, which would rather suggest oval or perhaps kite than rectangular?
It's a bit of a shame if there's little evidence for Rus' rectangular shields, because it'd be a handy way of telling them apart from "proper" Norsemen.
I got hold of another of Talbot and Sullivan's references via interlibrary loan, namely Peter Schreiner's "Zur Ausrüstung des Kriegers in Byzanz, im Kiewer Rußland und in Nordeuropa nach bildlischen und literarischen Quellen" (1981).
Unfortunately, it turns out to be something of a disappointment, partly because it's got less to say about Rus' than you'd think from the title, partly because Schreiner has some odd ideas*, but for what it's worth he thinks the long shields Leo mentions were kite shields, and that Leo's the first evidence for such anywhere. He does mention rectangular shields as occuring in Byzantine depictions, but he doesn't give any reference, nor any indication in whose hands they're shown.
* The most noteworthy perhaps being that he says that mail armour was of Oriental origin and is first found in Romano-Byzantine armies among imperial-era auxiliaries.
Continuing down the Byzantine rabbit hole a bit, I learn from Kolias' Byzantinische Waffen that Leo the Wise (Taktika 20§183) mentions rectangular shields, but actually looking the passage up is another disappointment - we're told these shields are known as thureoi, which word Leo otherwise uses for oval shields, so one has to suspect some sort of confusion here.
Perhaps more helpfully, Kolias also mentions that the Sylloge Tacticorum speaks of large rectangular infantry shields, alongside triangular and round ones. But unfortunately I don't have access to the Sylloge.
Unlike Schreiner, he says there aren't depictions of rectangular shields, from which he concludes they were rare. But if they existed even marginally among Byzantine troops, I guess that makes it somewhat more likely that the Rus' used them too.
It'd be interesting to know how precise the word translated as 'rectangular' is. Could it simply mean longer in one axis than the other, so covering oval?
A bit like how oblong is generally taken as being synonymous with rectangle, but can be used for oval.
Leo the Wise uses tetragonos, literally "four-cornered", which you'd think would exclude oval, but might include quadratic or rhomboidal, but I don't know how precise Byzantine usage was.
The Sylloge uses the same word, at least in the passage Kolias quotes, but adds that the shield should extend narrowly downwards, which when I read it again sounds like a kite with a triangular rather than rounded top. It can at any rate not very well describe an actual rectangle, which would be narrow or not along its entire height.
And in fairness to Kolias, I should mention that "rectangular" was my imprecise rendering of his viereckig, also literally "four-cornered". Blame a combination of that I was looking for rectangular shields and that "quadrangular" and "tetragonal" aren't really everyday words in English (but viereckig is in German).
And to be equally fair to Schreiner, he says viereckig-länglich, or "quadrangular-oblong".
Just to make a point that you chaps will all be familiar with. In the wings of this discussion lies an old academic debate about tge origin if kite shields and whether the kite design is invented in the east and travels west or vice versa and within that argument is the debate about the effectiveness of Western military systems , the mounted knight, the crossbow. he pije and the eventual emergence of Western technological superiority. ( Military Revolution anyone?)
Isn't thureos in origin something to do with a door?
Roy
Quote from: aligern on June 28, 2023, 08:36:33 AMIsn't thureos in origin something to do with a door?
Originally a stone used as a doorstopper, acc'd Liddell & Scott. They don't list a meaning "door", but it's tempting to assume as the stepping stone between doorstopper and oblong shield.
Quote from: Andreas Johansson on June 28, 2023, 01:36:48 PMQuote from: aligern on June 28, 2023, 08:36:33 AMIsn't thureos in origin something to do with a door?
Originally a stone used as a doorstopper, acc'd Liddell & Scott. They don't list a meaning "door", but it's tempting to assume as the stepping stone between doorstopper and oblong shield.
I know little about Greek, but online Bible lexicons give Thureos as deriving from the Greek Thura, a door.
In lateral or pictorial thinking style, it would be 'easy' to see link between a wooden door (thura) to block the passage of unwanted guests from entry to your family / clan home and a wooden shield to block the enemy's blows or arrows on the battlefield.
My pictorial memory tells me that the early wargaming community always thought of the Persian sparabara as such carriers of rectangular shields rather than any Greek soldier.
So it would be interesting to read about the etymylogy of the thureos / thyreos in becoming associated with Greek oval shields.
I am not sure if likes of https://journal.ivinas.gov.ua/pwh/article/view/216
would help; (is this one you have already considered? apologies if so) as the summary notes:
"The author came to the conclusion that the shields used in Rus' and Europe in the X–XII centuries generally belonged to the same types. In particular, it is round, almond-shaped and triangular shields. The issue of shields of the XIII–XV centuries remains more complicated. During this period can be observed as the influence of Western Europe on Rus', for example, the spread of the knight's "tarch". And trends that began in Eastern Europe, namely the spread of pavises in the XIV–XV centuries."
While this link takes you to a description of research into Viking shields and their decoration.
see https://sagy.vikingove.cz/en/lesser-known-aspects-of-the-viking-shield/
This points to circular shields as the norm across a wide geographical area of viking settlement / raiding.
CarlL
oops missed out this one, https://combatarchaeology.org/new-study-on-shields-and-hide/
which suggests that early Danish, as in 350BC / BCE, may be rectangular shields, see pictorial diagram in brief article.
CarlL
There is an interesting article on development of Slav shields and their interaction with their neighbours and borrowing from others technology of shields. see
https://en.topwar.ru/174487-slavjane-vi-viii-vv-so-schitom.html
CarlL
I am not sure this will help but there is a discussion of the Rus in Arabic sources in this dissertation (of some 220 pages) which I have not read.
see https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/30851659.pdf
CarlL
Quote from: CarlL on June 29, 2023, 05:00:04 PMI am not sure if likes of https://journal.ivinas.gov.ua/pwh/article/view/216
would help; (is this one you have already considered? apologies if so) as the summary notes:
CarlL
This Ukrainian paper is interesting for me because of the illustrations. I guess that is a good sample of the available sources and few (if any) are from the Rus' lands until the 13th century. There are quite a few Polish and at least one British.
I'm not that familiar with Leo, but on a quick look through, he seems to use thureos mostly when talking about ancient practice e.g. xiv 91
He does use it to describe the Slavs' shields but says they formerly used it, and he is talking about Slavs on his side of the Danube, so not necessarily of use for all Slavic areas. How 'formerly' is he talking - perhaps it was back a few hundred years when inhabitants of what became Slavic regions were using the thureos.
One of his uses does seem to be equating the thureos with the 2nd C. AD scutum forming testudo - since this is where the four-sided bit is used whereas elsewhere he describes the thureos as being oblong but curved, he doesn't leave us on very secure ground!
I think if I were to do my Rus' army now, I might be tempted to go with a mix of round and kite shields. SInce I have done the Heath style rectangular shields, I shall console myself that they _may_ be right but certainly do look neat :)
Thanks, Carl :)
Well, I guess all that goes to confirm that archaeological evidence for rectangular Rus' shields is lacking.
I said earlier in this thread that "It's a bit of a shame if there's little evidence for Rus' rectangular shields, because it'd be a handy way of telling them apart from "proper" Norsemen." On the flip side the harder they are to tell apart the more justified morphing is ...
Though the tall shields Leo the Deacon describes cannot very well have been typical Scandinavian round shields. The least exotic explanation would probably be Byzantine or Byzantine-style oval shields - by Svyatoslav's day the Rus' must've been well familiar with them.
Wikipedia cites Grotowski's Arms and Armour of the Warrior Saints for a claim that there are 11C depictions of kite shields from Kievan Rus', which might be early enough to count as "Rus" rather than "Early Russian" in WRG currency, but looking through the book the closest thing I find is that St Demetrios is depicted with a kite shield in a 11C panel now in the Cherson Museum in Sevastopol. Nothing is said about provenance, but in a book about Byzantine art that rather implies it's of Byzantine rather than Rus' origin.
Still, it's obviously likely that the Rus' did adopt kite shields during the the 11C, just like about everyone else in Europe - unless they indeed used them already back in the 10C.
On a completely different tack, I do find this whole exercise has sapped my own motivation to do a Rus' army, which I'd been considering. Without the distinctive rectangular shields, it's less clear why I should get a new army rather than paint up the vikings I've got lying about and call them Rus' if I want to play the latter. I've certainly morphed worse even if we're thinking about 11C Rus' who by rights ought have kite shields and more Byzantine influences.
Quote from: Andreas Johansson on July 18, 2023, 08:57:23 PMOn a completely different tack, I do find this whole exercise has sapped my own motivation to do a Rus' army, which I'd been considering. Without the distinctive rectangular shields, it's less clear why I should get a new army rather than paint up the vikings I've got lying about and call them Rus' if I want to play the latter. I've certainly morphed worse even if we're thinking about 11C Rus' who by rights ought have kite shields and more Byzantine influences.
Thanks for the info.
I would also now think twice about doing specific Rus' though now I have them I shall keep using them. One of the things which first made me suspicious is that Polish sources point at kite shields, though early evidence is worse than for the Rus'. Heath, though, has rectangular shields. I had thought about using my Ru' as Early Poles too.
One feature that probably distinguishes the Rus' from their stay at home brethren is the white clothing - linen shirts rather than the variously dyed woolen. I was a bit wary that the lack of variation would make them boring, but I think it looks effective. I've since used the same for some others - Slavs, Balts etc.
Quote from: Swampster on July 18, 2023, 09:27:47 PMOne feature that probably distinguishes the Rus' from their stay at home brethren is the white clothing - linen shirts rather than the variously dyed woolen.
That's a good point - though perhaps not good enough to rekindle my enthusiasm for getting a dedicated Rus' army.
(As the owner of a 13C Teutonic Order army, I'm no stranger to the fact that armies mostly in white can look quite good.)
I found getting the look of (probably rather grubby) white linen easier than getting a look I liked for the TK.
A can of worms I shouldn't open is whether it would be more accurate to have TK with no caparison and probably without cloaks in battle. There are times, though, where the popular image is just too strong to resist.
Just thought I'd bring up this paper (https://sagy.vikingove.cz/en/defining-slavic-shields-of-9th-11th-century/) which has been published since our previous discussion.
Very interesting on the rarity of metal parts to shields and potential reconstructions. Plenty of examples and pictures. Mainly about not-Rus, but it would appear that the Rus were prone to use typical Slavic oval and round boss-less shields and later took up kite shields. No mention of square or rectangular shields.
Quote from: Erpingham on February 29, 2024, 12:56:51 PMJust thought I'd bring up this paper (https://sagy.vikingove.cz/en/defining-slavic-shields-of-9th-11th-century/) which has been published since our previous discussion.
Finally got around to reading this now - thanks Anthony for bringing it to our attention.
It reinforces, I think, the probability that Leo the Deacon's tall shields were ovals rather than kites. Bossed shields do seem to have been commoner in Rus' than in most of the Slavic world, unsurprisingly given the Rus' elite's strong Scandinavian connections, but probably not the majority type.
I was a bit confused by the claim that bosses for mechanical reasons are strongly associated with circular shields. The Romans, frex, don't seem to have noticed.