At the request of a few fellow marshals, I put together a few notes on the documented size and weight of some Period rapier bucklers/shields. Much of the documentation is from the Wallace Collection in London (quoted from Cariadoc's Miscellany for ease: link to his article http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cariadoc/shield_and_weapon_weights.html). I am posting this to EK Fencing because it was suggested to me that others might benefit from the groundwork laid out here. I would be interested to hear any comments or suggestions, please feel free to contact me (contact info included below).

The Wallace Collection has a number of shields from the late period 16th and 17th Century. According to this documentation the samples ranging from 1560-1620 for Round or near Round Shields average a size equal to a 24" (60.96 centimeter) round shield, that's an area of 452.16" (2917.16 centimeters square), weighing in 8lb 10oz. (3.91 Kilograms) That's 2.75lb/sq ft. (1.34 grams/cm sq)

The largest shield documented in this article is '16th c' - 24 and 7/8", weighs just over 9 lbs, has a ratio of 2.8 lb a sq ft and is Flemish or French in origin. Admittedly Cariadocs' article labels this as a 'Steel Pageant Shield/Buckler'. But it is a starting place for a top end guess of easily documented shields.

The heaviest shield documented from the above collection is 1580- 22 and ¼", weighs 12 lb and 4 oz, is Italian and has a weight to sq ft ratio of 4.5 lb / sq ft. This is described as a Steel Shield/Buckler. While quite heavy, it is the top end of the sample There is a much lighter Steel, Italian shield from 1560 with the exact same size, and only weighs in at 7lb 14 oz.

My apologies for regurgitating Cariadocs figures, but I wished to give a sample to those who might not wish to pick through the semi-raw data.

Looking through a few manuals (if anyone would like access to the specific images I can send them in private), I came across illustrations of large shields in use by 3 notable period masters. Camillo Aggrippas' 1553 treatise clearly indicates the usage of convex round shields strapped in a similar way to how many rattan fighters strap their rounds. Having played with a round during my days as a rattan fighter, and having tried to fence with one a few weeks ago (Summer of 2004), I would venture a guess that the strapping is to offset the nuances of control and the weight issue that one encounters with a steel round.

Di Giacomo Di Grassi's 1570 Italian edition included an illustration of a round strapped in a similar way as above. The concentric rings shown in the image indicated to me that it too was convex and therefore metal, steel being the most reasonable assumption. Again this leads me to believe that due to the weight and control issue this strapping method was best suited in period. Also shown in his manual, were images of a small (my guess based on the image is 12") center bossed buckler, and a rectangular center grip target (which looks to me to be larger in area than a 20" round if it were to be flattened).

Finally there are the images that I found in Capo Fero's 1610 manual, which while slightly out of period, would to me, easily convey some of what could be in use on the fields at the cutoff of 1600. Images of large convex rounds, again strapped in the same fashion (at the elbow, and with a wrist/handgrip) lead me towards large steel shields compared in effective area covered and weight to heavy list heaters.

Attached bellow; a summary of period manuals that were referred to.

I've duplicated the above information at http://www.thehillfort.com/lora/tarius/index.php

As I experiment more with the use of a heavier and larger shields in schlager combat, I will update the webpage mentioned above.

Note 1: It has been pointed out by a gentile who has visited the Wallace Collection that many of the Rapier era bucklers/shields were for display or parade, and not actually combat worthy. I will look into this further, but the above weights do give us a starting point.

T. Tarius Britannicus
Amicus Fidus Periclitar Proprium
Dragon Dormant, Northern Shores
Montreal, Canada


55-3690: Agrippa, Camillo, 16th century. Trattato di scientia d'arme, Roma, A. Blado, stampadore apostolico, 1553. lxx l. illus., port. 24 cm.

55-46269: Capoferro, Ridolfo. Gran simvlacro dell'arte e dell'vso della scherma. [Siena?] 1632. 1 v. (unpaged) 43 plates. 10 x 15 cm.

tmp92-9548: Grassi, Giacomo di. Giacomi di Grassi, his true arte of defence, plainlie teaching ... how a man ... may safelie handle all sortes of weapons ... with a treatise of disceit or falsinge ... London, Printed for I. I[aggard] 1594. 4 l.