Shield boss
A shield hump is understood to mean a calotte usually made of iron or bronze sheet metal , which was riveted to the front of the shield to protect the fist . A grip hole was cut out in the shield under the hump, in which the wearer guided the shield by the shield shackle . The shield boss was used, for example, in the Roman scutum and in the round shields in the early Middle Ages . After the introduction of the so-called " Norman shield " in the 11th century , which featured a different handle technique, the shield boss was only a decoration that disappeared in the course of the High Middle Ages . The shapes of the shield bosses differed greatly depending on the fashion and region. There were spherical sections, hemispherical, conical and pointed-oval humps, which could be richly decorated or gold-plated in pompous shields.
Longobard shield boss, found in Fornovo San Giovanni , exhibited in the Museo civico archeologico in Bergamo .
Anglo-Saxon shield hump found at Ham Hill on display at the Somerset County Museum in Taunton .
Longobard shield boss from the 7th century with bronze decorations. Exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Norman shields with shield bosses on the so-called Temple Pyx (monstrance), part of a reliquary (around 1140–1150), today Burrell Collection , Glasgow .
Shield hump (Skjoldbuler) in a bronze bucket from a boat grave
literature
- Solveig Möllenberg: Tradition and Transfer in the Late Germanic Period , Walter de Gruyter, 2011, ISBN 978-3-11-025580-5 .
- Hans von Mangoldt-Gaudlitz: The cavalry in the Germanic and Frankish armies up to the outcome of the German Carolingians , BoD - Books on Demand, 2015, ISBN 978-3-7340-0280-9 .
- Angelika O'Sullivan: Weapon designations in Old High German glosses , Walter de Gruyter, 2013, ISBN 978-3-05-006434-5 .
