Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 1).djvu/152

 gilded metal, set with some semi-translucent cabouchon stone. This shield is, to the scale of the man, fully five feet high and two and a half feet wide, curved almost to exaggeration. We may assume that its mode of attachment was by the enarmes and the guige, as we have reconstructed the interior of such a shield, though of rather earlier date (page 60, Fig. 76).

a (outside)                   b (inside)

Formerly preserved in the church of St. Lazarus in the village of Seedorf, Lake of Lucerne

Of the medium-sized shield we have evidence in Nero MSS., C. IV, f. 23, Brit. Mus., where we see the sleeping soldiers in a picture of the Resurrection armed with shields which are curved, kite-shaped, and, according to their scale with the figures, about three and a half feet high. Their surface is painted with designs of undoubted heraldic significance (Fig. 94).

The small kite-shaped shield is admirably shown in our illustration (page 70, Fig. 87), where small almost triangular shields, curved and supported by the guige, are carefully drawn.

Although pictorial evidence goes a long way, and we have up till now had to rely mainly upon it, it is only by the examination of actual weapons offensive and defensive that we can ascertain for certain their mode of con