SHIELDS, BUCKLERS, AND HELMETS.
Having now described the various weapons of offence of which in early times bronze formed the material, it will be well to examine the arms of defence fabricated from the same metal, and presumably of the same or nearly the same age.
The shields first in use in Britain were probably formed of perishable materials, such as wicker-work, wood, or hide, like those of many savage tribes of the present day; and it can only have been after a long acquaintance with the use of bronze that plates could have been produced of such size as those with which some of the ancient shields and bucklers found in this country were covered. They would appear, therefore, to belong to quite the close of the Bronze Age, if not to the transitional period when iron was coming into use. There are, indeed, several bronze coverings of shields of elongated form, such as those from the river Witham[1325] and from the Thames,[1326] with decorations upon them, in which red enamel plays a part, that have been found associated with the iron swords of what Mr. Franks has termed the Late Celtic Period. Those, however, which appear to have a better claim to a place in these pages are of a circular form.
That which I have shown in Fig. 428 is now in the British Museum, and has already been figured in the ArchÆologia[1327], and described by Mr. Gage. It was dredged up from what appears to have been the ancient bed of the river Isis, near Little Wittenham, Berks, not far from the Dyke Hills, near Dorchester, Oxon. It is about 13½ inches diameter, not quite circular in form, though probably intended so to be. The raised bosses have all been wrought in the metal with the exception of four, two of which form the rivets for the handle across the umbo, and two others serve as the rivets or pivots for two small straps or buttons of bronze on the inner side of the buckler. Such buttons occur on several other examples, but it is difficult to determine the exact purpose which they served. From the pains taken in this instance to conceal the heads of these pivots on the outside, by making them take the form and place of bosses, it would appear that they were necessary adjuncts of the shield, and possibly in some way connected with a lining for it.
Fig. 428.—Little Wittenham.
Such a lining can hardly have been of wood, or many rivet or pin holes would have been necessary for securing the metal to it. It may be that a lining of hide was moulded while wet to the form of the shield, and that these buttons served to keep it in place when dry. In one case[1328] it is said that some fibrous particles resembling leather still remain attached to the inside of the shield. In general the metal is so thin that without some lining these bucklers would have afforded but a poor defence against the stroke of a sword, spear, or arrow. In this Little Wittenham example, and possibly in some others, it is probable that the shield itself was larger than the bronze plate. Another view is that these buttons fastened a strap for carrying the shield when either in or out of use.
Another buckler, in Lord Londesborough’s collection, 14 inches in diameter, with two circles of small bosses divided by a raised band, is stated to have been found with a large bronze spear-head at Athenry,[1329] Co. Galway. Two of the bosses of the inner circle are the heads of rivets for securing the handle. A much smaller buckler, or centre of a buckler, only 9¼ inches in diameter (also with two rings of bosses), presumably found in the Isis,[1330] near Eynsham Bridge, is in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries. It has a slightly conical boss, surrounded by a circle of smaller bosses between two raised ribs. There is also a raised rib round the margin formed by turning over the metal towards the outer face. In the outer ring of bosses two are missing at the places where, no doubt, were formerly the rivets of the buttons or loops.
A shield in the British Museum (21 inches), found in the Thames, has four rows of bosses, about an inch in diameter, and the same number of raised rings. The inner set of bosses abuts on the umbo. There is a marginal rim about an inch beyond the outer ring. This shield appears to have had two buttons, which as usual are nearly in a line with one of the rivets which fasten the handle. One of these loops remains secured by a large-headed rivet matching the bosses. There is at least one hole through the shield which may have resulted from a spear thrust.
The rivets which secure the handle have heads made in imitation of bosses.
In some the decoration consists of a series of concentric ribs or beads, as in that found in a peat moss near Harlech,[1331] which is shown in Fig. 429. Its diameter is 22 inches. The heads of the four rivets for holding the handle and the two buttons are in this case visible in the spaces between the ribs.
Another of the same pattern was discovered in company with that shown in Fig. 430, in Coveney Fen,[1332] near Ely, and is now in the Museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. The metal of which it is formed has been found on analysis to contain—
| Copper | 87·55 |
| Tin | 11·72 |
| Nickel | 0·40 |
| ——— |
| 99·67 |
The presence of the nickel is probably due to impurities in the ore from which the copper was extracted.
The second Coveney shield is shown in Fig. 430.[1333] The ornament in this instance is of a very peculiar character, and appears to represent two snakes, one long and the other short, twisted about into a symmetrical pattern. They are of the amphisbÆna kind, with a head at each end. The two outermost ribs, one of them at the margin, are continuous. The rivets for holding the handle are visible, as are also three on either side connected with the inner buttons, that in this case have been regarded as loops by which the shield was suspended.
The buttons have a small hole through them, as will be seen by Fig. 431. In front of each is a pair of small conical studs, of which the purpose can now hardly be determined. Mr. Goodwin thought that they might be intended to prevent a thong which passed beneath the buttons from slipping away from them.
The type of shield, of which, the largest number has been found in the British Isles, is that having a series of concentric rings, from about twelve to thirty in number, and between them circles of small studs.
A very fine example of this kind of shield is preserved in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of London,[1334] and is shown on the scale of one-sixth, together with some of its details on a larger scale, in Figs. 432, 433, and 434, for the use of which I am indebted to the Council of the Ayrshire and Wigtonshire ArchÆological Association.[1335]
A figure of the shield has been given by Professor Daniel Wilson,[1336] but the illustrations here given will convey a much more accurate impression of its character and details.
Though there is some discrepancy as to measurement, there is little doubt that this is the shield found about the year 1780 in a peat moss on a farm called Luggtonrigge, in the parish of Beith, Ayrshire, and presented to the Society of Antiquaries by Dr. Ferris,[1337] who was informed that four or five others of the same kind were discovered at the same time. A portion of the margin of the shield is shown of the full size in Fig. 433, and the handle across the inner side of the boss on the scale of one-half in Fig. 434. These figures give so complete an idea of the original that it seems needless to enter into further details. It is, however, well to call attention to the fact that the handle of the buckler, which is made from a flat piece of bronze, is rendered more convenient to grasp, and at the same time strengthened, by its sides being doubled over, and thus made to present a rounded edge. It is secured to the shield by a rivet at each end. About midway between the edge of the umbo and that of the shield, but placed so that one of the rivets of the handle is in the same line and midway between them, have been two rivets, each fastening a short button like those on the Coveney Fen shield, of which at present only one remains. The rivet-hole for the other has been closed by a short rivet.
Other shields, almost identical in character, have likewise been found in Scotland, one of which, by the kindness of the Council of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, is shown in Fig. 435, on the scale of one-sixth. A portion of the margin is shown full size in Fig. 436, and the interior of the umbo in Fig. 437, on the scale of one-fourth. It was found in 1837, together with another, in a marshy field near Yetholm, Roxburghshire. These shields have been described in a paper by the late Mr. W. T. McCulloch,[1338] of some of whose references I have here made use.
One of these Yetholm shields is 23½ inches in diameter, and has thirty concentric rings of convex knobs alternating with projecting circular ribs or beads; the other measures 24 inches across, and has twenty-four rings of both knobs and ribs. In the centre of each is a hollow circular umbo 4 inches in diameter, with a handle riveted across it.
Another shield of the same character was found at Yetholm[1339] in 1870, near the place where the two others were discovered. It is 22½ inches in diameter, with twenty-nine concentric rings alternating with the usual small knobs. The boss is 3½ inches in diameter.
Fig. 436.—Yetholm. 1/1 ———————— Fig. 437.—Yetholm. ¼
At the back of each of these shields, about midway between the centre and the rim, are the usual small movable tongues of bronze, which have been supposed to serve for the attachment of a leather strap by which the shield might be slung round the body. Mr. Jeffrey, F.S.A. Scotland, of Jedburgh, who described this third shield, has pointed out that there is too little room beneath the tongues for a strap of any kind.
So far as at present known these are the only instances of bucklers of this kind having been discovered in Scotland.
In England and Wales several such have been found. One was in the Meyrick Collection[1340] at Goodrich Court, and is now in the British Museum. It is about 26½ inches in diameter, with twenty concentric circles of knobs and ribs between, and is in all respects like those just described. It was found about 1804 in a turbary near Aberystwith, Cardiganshire. It has had the usual buttons, one of which remains.
Another example[1341] of the kind (25¼ inches), with twenty-seven concentric rings, was also in the Meyrick Collection, and is now in the British Museum. It was found in a peat moss at Moel Sinbod, near Capel Curig, Carnarvonshire. It has one of the usual loops and the rivet of the other. Sir Samuel Meyrick had heard of another shield, dug up near Newcastle-on-Tyne, which the owner, wishing to gratify all his friends, cut up like a cake, and sent to each a slice. This may be the shield found at Broomyholme, Chester-le-Street, Durham, of which a fragment is in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-on-Tyne.
Another now in the possession of Sir Edward Blackett, Bart., was found near Corbridge, Northumberland.
Fragments[1342] of two other shields of the same character were also found in Northumberland, at Ingoe, in the parish of Stamfordham, about two miles north of the Roman wall. They were originally about 20 inches in diameter, and like so many others were discovered during draining operations.
Another buckler of the same character was found in the Thames[1343] at London, and passed into the British Museum with the Roach Smith Collection. This specimen is 21¼ inches in diameter, and has eleven rings of the small bosses upon it separated by concentric ribs. A curious feature in this shield is that the places to which the usual little buttons were attached have been neatly cut out, leaving triangular holes. There is also a third hole of the same kind. In one place also there is a hole through the shield, such as might have been produced by the thrust of a bronze spear. Close by this hole is a clean cut, such as might have been made by a sword. The plate of bronze has been turned over on to the face, so as to form the outer rim.
A circular shield,[1344] with twenty-six concentric rings of studs, was dredged up, together with a leaf-shaped bronze sword, from the bed of the Thames off Woolwich in 1830.
A thin bronze plate from the Thames, 19 inches in diameter, convex, and with small knobs round the margin, is in the Mayer Collection at Liverpool. It has been marked with the hammer, possibly in imitation of basket-work, and has been mended in one place in ancient times. It may be the bottom of a caldron, and not a shield.
Another buckler, 26 inches in diameter, having twelve concentric raised rings with the usual knobs between them, is also said to have been found in the Thames[1345] between Hampton and Walton, in September, 1864.
In draining a meadow at Bagley,[1346] about five miles from Ellesmere, in Shropshire, another of these circular bucklers was found. This is 23 inches in diameter, with an umbo of 4 inches, and has twenty-six concentric circles, with the same rings of knobs between them as on the other examples. It has the usual holes for the rivets of the small buttons.
Another, found on Burringham Common,[1347] Lincolnshire, in 1843, is 26 inches in diameter, with an umbo of 4½ inches, and only nineteen concentric circles with intermediate rings of knobs. The boss of this shield is conical rather than hemispherical. It is now in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy. A shield of this kind 20½ inches in diameter, having thirteen concentric circles of small bosses and raised rings between, was found at Sutton St. Michael’s, Norfolk.[1348]
In the collection of Canon Greenwell is the bronze boss of a shield nearly 5 inches in diameter, probably intended for the centre of a wooden buckler. It has three small holes for nails or rivets in the rim. In one place there is a square hole, apparently made by a thrust from a spear. This boss was found at Harwood, Northumberland.
Shields like Fig. 435, with several concentric rings alternating with small knobs, are rare, but by no means unknown in Ireland. One (27¾ inches in diameter) was found in a bog near Ballynamona,[1349] Co. Limerick, and has been figured. As usual, it has the two movable loops or buttons at the back. There is a little patch of bronze over a small irregular hole in the shield, such as an arrow or a javelin would make. It is soldered on with a metal which is stated to be bronze, but which I imagine must be some more fusible alloy of copper. This shield is now in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, and in their Proceedings[1350] is stated to have been found in Lough Gur, Co. Limerick, but this must be an error.
The central portion of a bronze shield, including the umbo, was found at Toome Bar, Lough Neagh, and is now in the collection of Mr. William Gray, of Belfast.
A somewhat doubtful instance has been recorded of the remains of a bronze shield having been found with an interment in a barrow. Sir R. Colt Hoare, in his examination of the Bush Barrow, Normanton,[1351] found a skeleton lying from S. to N., and about eighteen inches S. of the head “several brass rivets intermixed with wood, and some thin bits of brass nearly decomposed. These articles covered a space of twelve inches or more; it is probable, therefore, that they are the mouldered remains of a shield.” Near the shoulders lay a flanged bronze celt like Fig. 9. A large dagger of bronze, and what Sir Richard calls a spear-head of the same metal, but which was probably a dagger, the inlaid hilt (Fig. 289). a stone hammer, and some plates of gold accompanied this interment. It is much to be regretted that more is not known of the real character of the object with the rivets, but their presence shows that it could not have been a shield such as those here described, in which the only rivets are those securing the handle and the movable buttons.
The umbo of a Late-Celtic shield was among the objects found at Polden Hill,[1352] Somersetshire.
Some wooden bucklers have been found both in Scotland[1353] and Ireland, but it is hard to determine their age.
Mr. Franks[1354] has already remarked that bronze shields are of far less common occurrence on the Continent than in the British Isles. He cites three from the Copenhagen Museum,[1355] one of which, about 27 inches in diameter, has five concentric ribs round the boss and ten sets of knobs; these, however, are arranged in such a manner as to leave a star of eight rays of smooth metal radiating from the boss. The other two are less like the British in character. A fine shield in the Stockholm Museum, with swan-like figures upon it, has been thought to have been imported from Italy.[1356]
One found near Bingen, on the Rhine,[1357] about 15½ inches in diameter, has merely four raised concentric ribs. There are two small bowed handles secured with two rivets, each in about the same position as the usual button. They seem certainly intended for a strap to pass through them. There are, however, two other rivets in the shield to which movable buttons may possibly have been attached.
The Italian shields mentioned by Mr. Franks are of a different type. One in the British Museum (34 inches in diameter) has a very slight boss, and is ornamented with concentric bands of sphinxes and other designs.
As has already been observed, it is somewhat hard to judge of the date of these bucklers. I am not aware of any portions of them having been found in the hoards of metal in which fragments of swords frequently occur. Still in the case of the shield dredged up off Woolwich the sword which accompanied it was of bronze, though of course there is no evidence of the two having been lost or deposited together. The whole character, however, of the ornamentation and workmanship is, I think, more in accordance with the Bronze Age than with the Late Celtic or Early Iron Period, though the shields probably belong to the close of the Bronze Period.
Circular bucklers, or targets, no doubt remained in use until a considerably later date, but it seems probable that some other material than a thin plate of bronze was used for their manufacture. Professor Daniel Wilson[1358] remarks that on the gold coins of Tasciovanus, Cunobeline, and others of our native rulers contemporary with the first intercourse with Rome, the shields borne by the warriors are either long and double-pointed, or, if round, large and disked, and of very different construction from the Luggtonrigge shield. On one coin of Cunobeline, however (Evans, pl. xii. 14), the horseman bears a circular buckler, which, so far as can be judged from so diminutive a representation as that given on the coin, would be about 2 feet in diameter. On two small gold coins of Verica,[1359] recently published, the horseman carries a target of somewhat larger proportions. Somewhat smaller circular bucklers are carried by the horsemen on certain Spanish coins,[1360] probably of the second century b.c. One of these shields shows four smaller bosses, arranged in cruciform order around the central boss; another seems to be plain except the umbo and a projecting rim.
This buckler is no doubt the Cetra, or CÆtra (?a?t?ea, Hesych.), in use among the people of Spain and Mauretania, which was usually made of hide, among the latter people sometimes of that of the elephant. CÆsar[1361] speaks of the “cetratÆ HispaniÆ cohortes,” and Tacitus[1362] mentions the Britons as armed “ingentibus gladiis sine mucrone et brevibus cetris.” It does not appear that the Romans ever carried the cetra, which has been by Livy compared to the pelta of the Greeks and Macedonians.[1363] The clipeus appears to have been larger in size, and to have been held on the arm and not by the handle only.
But whatever shields may have been in use in this country at the time of the Roman invasion, I am inclined to refer these circular bucklers to a somewhat earlier date, as already in CÆsar’s time iron was fully in use for swords and for cutting purposes generally; and, as has already been observed, the shields with which the early iron swords are found are of a different form from these. As is the case with bronze swords, such bucklers are never found with interments, and those discovered seem to have been lost in the water, or hidden in bogs, rather than buried as accessories for the dead.
The skill requisite for the production of such bucklers must have been great, and the appliances at command by no means contemptible. The whole of the work is repoussÉ and wrought with the hammer, and not improbably the original sheet of bronze from which a shield was made was considerably less in diameter and also much thicker than the finished shield. To produce so large a casting of such even substance, and yet so thin, would I think be beyond the skill of most modern, and probably most ancient, brass-founders; and moreover there is no appearance on the shields, of the metal having been cast in the form in which it now appears.
While still upon the subject of defensive armour it will be well to say a few words about bronze helmets, though there is good reason to believe that in this country at all events such objects do not belong to the Bronze Age properly so-called. Indeed the earliest known bronze helmets in some other countries, such as those from Assyria and Etruria, appear to belong to a time when iron was already in use in those countries. The date of an Etruscan helmet of bronze preserved in the British Museum[1364] can be determined with precision, for an inscription upon it proves that it was offered in the Temple of Zeus at Elis, by Hiero, Tyrant of Syracuse, from the spoils of the Etruscans after the naval battle of CumÆ, which took place in b.c. 474. It is of simple form with a brim around it. Those which have been found in Styria and Germany[1365] are in some cases half ovals in form, sometimes with a knob at the top, without any rims round the opening, but with a certain number of small holes for the attachment of cheek-pieces or appendages of other kinds. These may belong to a true Bronze Period. Others, like those from Hallstatt,[1366] have rims and even ridges for crests.
In the Salzburg Museum is a fine helmet without a rim, but with an ornamented ridge and cheek-pieces. It was found, with twelve others now at Vienna, at Mattrey,[1367] between Innsbruck and Brixen. One of these bears an Etruscan inscription upon it. According to Pliny, “the ancient inhabitants of Brixen came from Etruria.”
Even in the time of Severus, the Britons, according to Herodian,[1368] made no use of helmets or cuirasses, though they wore an iron collar round the neck and an iron belt round the body, and regarded them as ornaments and signs of wealth.
The following English and French helmets of bronze may just be mentioned.
(1.) A helmet of hemispherical form tapering to a projection, pierced above to receive a crest or ornament, the extreme height being about 8½ inches, and the diameter at the base nearly the same. This was found in Moorgate Street, London.[1369]
(2.) One found in the Thames,[1370] near Waterloo Bridge, with projecting horns and ornamented with scroll-work and red enamel. This is undoubtedly of the Late Celtic Period. Some Etruscan helmets also bear horns, but more curved in form than those on this helmet from the Thames.
(3.) Another, more conical in form, and with a semicircular plate at the back, locality unknown, but probably from a river.[1371] This was in the Meyrick Collection, and is now in the British Museum.
The helmets found on Ogmore Down,[1372] Glamorganshire, appear to be of much later date.
A helmet from Auxonne, CÔte d’Or, has been figured by Chantre.[1373] Another was found with various bronze antiquities at Theil[1374] (Loir et Cher).
