Why did MEDIEVAL KNIGHTS stop using SHIELDS?
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Why did medieval knights stop using shields? And did they actually stop using shields? Was it because of guns, better armor, changes in warfare?
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When you're a walking medieval tank with few weak spots it becomes more important to focus on hitting your opponent as hard as you can. Especially if he's likely to be an armored medieval tank as well. You'd want a weapon that can swing hard enough to punch through the armor or concuss through it as well as half swording to stab at gaps. Not to mention I'd imagine grappling becomes far more important when fighting in armor and grappling is easier with both hands.
I mean, when you're wearing a shield why bother with carrying one?
Policemen would state that shields still are very important nowadays. It's a question of context I think. 😜
Knights felt insecure, and thus started using big freudian weapons. My favourite theory so far :D
I'm a little bit confused with this video. You start the video by stating that armor wasn't the reason. And then you spent half of the video basically saying that armor WAS the reason... You've stated that armor was the reason multiple times in different videos in the past too.
One day a certain knight just had it with the shield and threw it to the ground going ”Screw that, if I am gonna risk my life, I wanna be able to scratch my effing nose while doing it” and allegedly all the other knights present were low key like “yeah, man totally” and immediately followed suit and after that shields generally just fell out of usage as armour BUT unexpectedly gave rise to a wave of sort of wok-like, shield-fried street cuisine across medieval Europe. Also a fair few knights received unexpected and rather violent nosebleeds from attempting to scratch their noses with gauntlets on.
Little bit confusing how the second half of the video contradict directly the first half several times. I know it's important to keep nuance, but building a video following a "well no but actually yes" path isn't the best way to do so imho.
Short answer: tactics. Shields are used for protecting men in an infantry battle line (shield wall). In the 14th century, the qualifications for knighthood grew stricter and their equipment got more expensive, while professional men-at-arms from the lower classes became better armed. Thus full-fledged knights evolved from mainline infantrymen to elite skirmishers fighting for individual glory.
How about a squire carrying the shield until it was really needed? He would probably need it more than the knight in the meantime and would hardly figure on murals.
"I think I can give a relatively concise answer"
You mean it's not because they unlocked the dual wielding skill and preferred to use two weapons instead?
Bridgekeeper: “Who would cross the Bridge of Death must CONCISELY answer me these questions three, ere the other side he see.”
It wasn't just knights who started dropping the shield, in the early medieval era England and Scandinavia you've got quality soldiers in good armour relative to their peers, even if just mail, opting to use a dane axe, same for the gallowglass in Ireland for hundreds of years. It's not so much the evolution of armour technology I think, but a trend of quality soldiers with heavy armour for their time and place (context etc) opting to eschew a shield for the killing/anti armour power of two handed weapons
I'm loving all this talk about social change, caste dynamics, and the human need to prove their worth. Any book recommendations or particularly enlightening primary sources that I could dig into on these topics?
The last European soldiers thar I know regularly carried shields were the Spanish "Dragones de cuera" well into the 18th century, light cavalrymen deployed in today's Southwestern US who carried leather heart-shaped shields (yes, pretty much the same design the Moors were using from at least the 13th century), along with lance, sword and carbine. Quite a striking image of the Old(er) West. Those shields were apparently good to ward off native arrows.
Shields are my favorite, and I find it disappointing that there isn't
Shields have indeed lost they popularity in the 14th century, but just that, they never have sopped to being used. As we can see in the Pastrana tapestries, it shows many knights and man-at-arms in full plate armour using shields. And the tapestries show's the Portuguese conquest of Asilah and Tangier in the late 15th (1471). Shields, as pretty much anything in the Middle Ages, it depends greatly of the context.
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