Why were shields abandoned by knights?

Why were shields abandoned by knights?

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wiktenauer.com/wiki/Walpurgis_Fechtbuch_(MS_I.33)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mars-la-Tour#Von_Bredow.27s_.22Death_Ride.22
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rossbach
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Armor got gud.

They had armor

go into detail

guns were invented

Expanding trade and new technology allowed the development of specialized furnaces using iron with low impurities imported from Spain and Sweden. Hardened steel plates appeared during the 14th century, augmenting traditional armor. By the 15th complex full suits of plate armor began appearing. It is up to debate whether full plate armor was better or a status symbol for the wealthy, most other cultures and lower ranking soldiers used a mix of plate, lamellar and chainmail.

Regardless it is clear they had more options than the knight of the 11th century draped in chainmail. Professional soldiers who placed their lives behind their training, arms and armor shifted from predominantly sword or spear and shield to nearly all 2 handed polearms, halberds or pikes with the sword as a sidearm in the 15th century. Armor did get gud as says.

Theres no point in carrying a big, cumbersome, heavy shield around, when the armour you are wearing anyway provides the same level of protection. It's redundant at best, a hinderance at wost.

Because fuck defense, offense is the only way

>big, cumbersome, heavy shield around
what?

why post on Veeky Forums if you don't know what you're even talking about? should i trust ANYONE on Veeky Forums?

I imagine that, since plate and chainmail became very hard to penetrate to bladed or pole weapons, that a rival knight would've needed to have needed to use both hands free and movement unheeded by a shield in order to thrust his pointed or blunt weapon hard enough to penetrate or cause damage (as-well as to outmaneuver his adversary), or to grapple with is armored opponent and wrestle him into a position where he could thrust a sword into the weak spots of his armor (like the neck). But I'm no expert and I'm just talking out my ass. But it seems with some of the demonstrations I've seen in those sword fighting manuals back then that that was what they would've done.

Not to mention knights were generally cavalrymen, and from my limited knowledge of cavalry they wouldn't really get into melee fights with foot soldiers on horseback that would've required them to have shields, but hassle and harass unranked soldiers with their lances and or ranged weapons and route organize soldiers into vulnerable positions for their infantry.

Are you suggesting that they are small, agile and light?

>should i trust ANYONE on Veeky Forums?

No, of course you shouldn't. You're lucky to get Wikipedia-level answers on Veeky Forums. Most just get their knowledge from video games and youtube, or even Veeky Forums itself.

Cofirmed b8 shoo

i should have thought so when i saw thread over i guess

Shields were abandoned along with the rest of heavy steel armor when weapons entered the battlefield which rendered them dead weight with limited protective quality.

Seriously though, how the hell did knights even see anything with those helmets? I tried a Sallet once and I couldn't see shit.

The jacobites used shields to repel musket balls.

You usually didn't keep the visor down the whole time.

Veeky Forums is one of the dumbest boards on Veeky Forums so you shouldn't trust anything anyone says here.

is essentially right, except that the most famous armour of the late middle ages came from the cities of Northern Italy and Southern Germany (e.g. Milan, Augsburg, Nuremberg, Innsbruck). Spain was more famous for its weaponry and Sweden's rise to power began in the Early Modern period.

>It is up to debate whether full plate armor was better or a status symbol for the wealthy
No it isn't. There isn't a single fucking reason to believe that it isn't flatly superior for the kind of war that westerners fought at the time.

You don't keep visors down all the time, and even if you do, it's something that gets easier to deal with with practice.

>No it isn't. There isn't a single fucking reason to believe that it isn't flatly superior for the kind of war that westerners fought at the time.
I think what he meant was that because a full panoply was so expensive, only a very small number of aristocrats could afford them, making them such a small aspect of the overall army that their use as a force multiplier was limited. For the money that you'd spend outfitting a few elite riders with full plate, you could spend arming an entire regiment of pike men who could neutralize the threat posed by heavy cavalry

>think what he meant was that because a full panoply was so expensive, only a very small number of aristocrats could afford them
Given that his follow up is about lamellar and chain, I doubt it.

Chain essentially ceased to exist in the west in favor of munitions pretty damn rapidly, because it was flat out cheaper and faster to produce, and by a considerable margin.

>1500s
>exbosed benis :DD

Why?

It's representative of a shift back towards serving more ore less exclusively on horseback. knihgts in the 1400s were doing a LOT of their fighting on foot.

Gotta whip it out quick in pillaging situations.

Nah, it wasn't exposed, it was an armored codpiece

Fighting with weapons is all about Openings ok.

Knights were taught that there were four opening. If you split a man down the center from forehead to nutsack and then cut him again across the belt (the medieval belt around his waste don't forget) these four quadrants are the the openings. The upper openings and the lower openings.

To fence one stabs at the opening while closing off your own openings. The opponent in turn uses his weapon to close off the opening your attacking and attack one of yours.

A shield very efficiently closes off one or even two of these openings so that a warrior no longer has to worry about that shit. Shields are good.

Full plate armour closes off all four openings so you don't even really need to block at all within reason. Armour is REALLY fucking good.

If a guy doesn't have to close off those openings he's wasting energy carrying a shield and shields meant you couldn't really put two hands on your weapon and use it better or use a better longer weapon.

So they stopped.

I don't care how much LARPing you've done Shields are a cumbersome thing. If you can't go through a door without considering something that thing is cumbersome.

What's the difference between 1300 and plate? Also I thought plate was invented in 1500s yet the guy from 1400s is wearing it. When was plate invented?

1300 isn't wearing a solid plate curiass.

Some autist will pipe up and start shreiking about how it was invented in the bronze age, but as we're clearly talking about the middle ages, around the middle of the 1300s or so. 1300 guy has plates covering his torso, head, arms, hands, legs and feet, though theres MASSIVE debate about if he has a plate covering his back.The 15th and 16th centuries are the golden age of plate armour when it reaches its pinnacle in terms of protection offered and parts of the body covered.

By knights I assume you mean men at arms in general, and by abandoned I'll assume you mean fell out of popular use.
There are still depictions in period artwork of men at arms in full harness using shields and bucklers, but it became less common as plate armour gradually closed up all its gaps.

Shields were still very much used by everyone else on the battlefield though.

Also can we end this plate armour = knights meme please, knights made a very small proportion of men at arms.

>only a very small number of aristocrats could afford them
STOP TALKING OUT OF YOUR ARSE

I'm fucking sick of people making wild fucking claims about arms and armour, it's fucking infuriating.

A full harness of plate armour was expensive yes, but most people wearing it weren't aristocrats, the vast majority of men at arms were of common birth, but could still afford (to buy, or in some cases, rent/be issued for a campaign) the harness, pages, horses, weapons etc.

1300 seems to be a coat of plates or a brigandine, so it's not a full breastplate but rather lots of small plates put together. solid breastplate are mostly a second part of the 14th century thing and it was pretty fully widespread among foot infantrymen by the 15th century. So basically you are wrong by one century (too much forward).

Obviously there is a difference between a breastplate with a mail shirt, gauntlets, bascinet and true full plate, but a good breastplate is still "plate".

Also what said. 1300 is wearing a brigandine, basically many small plates riveted to a strong waistcoat that buckles up. Remains popular throughout the remainder of the middle ages.

Also called a coat of plates but apparently that term actually refers to gauntlets in medieval documents.

He could choose to wear a small breastplate that covers just the chest like pic related. These quickly evolved to add more plates at the bottom section to protect the stomach too.

>A full harness of plate armour was expensive yes, but most people wearing it weren't aristocrats, the vast majority of men at arms were of common birth, but could still afford (to buy, or in some cases, rent/be issued for a campaign) the harness, pages, horses, weapons etc.
towards the end yes, the cost and maintenance for full plate armor falls enough that hardened professional soldiers could afford to maintain a decent suit of armor that they didn't need to inherit from their fathers.

But that was around the time that heavy armor was falling out of favor anyway in favor of pike and shot formations which on a whole were far more cost effective, so my point still stands. By the time that nation-states and standing armies arrive on the scene, full plate was already an anachronism.

Why is that guy wearing a lobster pot if he's infantry

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Bucklers were carried largely for 'civilian' self defense, and specifically because other shields were too fucking cumbersome and awkward to go about your day with, not on battlefields.

source? i am interested.

>except that the most famous armour of the late middle ages came from the cities of Northern Italy and Southern Germany (e.g. Milan, Augsburg, Nuremberg, Innsbruck).

He said the steel to forge the armor was imported from Spain and Sweden, not that the armor was made in those places.

They were carried on the battlefield to be fair by Archers and various lower fee Men at Arms but you're moving the goalposts. This thread is a a bout Knights and mounted cavalry in Armour. They didn't carry bucklers.

wiktenauer.com/wiki/Walpurgis_Fechtbuch_(MS_I.33)

go ahead and find yourself a source on fist sized bucklers being widespread in battles.

the sources we have on them show them in a civilian context. I.33 is pretty clearly depicting civilians.

>thread about historic arms
>every sperglord comes with his theory
>because fuck facts
>the louder I scream the more right, right?
Never change Veeky Forums

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>knights
>Rodeleros
Pretty distinctly different bunch, but ok.

They got dropped as a concept after 30 years.

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What point are you trying to make here.

There's no theory to this. Plate armour makes large shields redundant especially on foot. That's why two handed swords and Polearms came to widespread replace them.

Cappo Ferro wasn't a Knight. He didn't train Knights and he didn't sell his books to them either.

Knights died in the 14th century, after that it was only a title. But yeah, OP is a pleb, likely american too.

>Knights died in the 14th century, after that it was only a title.
Are you retarded?

Knights are a meme, armies consisted of soldiers and they kept on using shields to some extent. Anyone that answers muh plate is a simpleton that does not understand the complex changes that happened in the field of warfare.
thats my point.

No I'm not, I just know that after the 14th they did not play an important role anymore, before that knightly cavalry was a thing, but they got washed away by large formations, pike squares, the advent of firearms and so on. It is a romantic myth for people who are not to good at history.

Yes, everybody in plate is a knight. Yes, even in the 16th century.
>what retards believe

I don't want to imply you're a sperglord who only came into this thread to spout your theory because fuck facts but the use of shields to some extent on the battlefield isn't the question that started the thread.

This thread is about heavy cavalry in plate. Who ended up using shields only on horeseback before dropping them more or less entirely as Plate became ever more efficient.

Again:
Are you retarded?

Except you're wrong. Prove your assertion.

This kills the knight

The high time of the knight was the 10th trough the 14th century, as knightly cavalry, in the feudal system. After that, the culture of knights, the feudal system for knights and their importance on the battlefield vaned. It became a mythos that had nothing to do with reality anymore. You might still have a fat german in shiny armour that calls himself a knight, but that that doesn't make him one. From the 14th century onwards, mass formation armies like the Swiss or the Landsknecht became the dominant military force, and heavy cavalry became a side show for retarded nobles.

When the Norman cavalry attacked at hastings, those where knights, this fellow here is not a knight, he is 200 years to late. Also the pic is wrong, he would have at least two pistols and be called a Reuter.

>heavy cavalry became a side show for retarded nobles
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mars-la-Tour#Von_Bredow.27s_.22Death_Ride.22

>Light Hussars
>heavy cavalry
Are you even trying?

>Noting that "it will cost what it will", von Bredow took his time to organize the brigade, consisting of the 7th Cuirassiers, 19th Dragoons, and 16th Uhlans.

>7th Cuirassiers

>Cuirassiers

>not heavy cavalry

A breast plate doesn't exactly make you heavy cavalry, especially not when we talk about knights. Anyways, thanks for your opinion, I had a good laugh.

The landschkent doesn't even fucking EXIST until 1486.

the swiss got their asses stomped on multiple occasions by forces containing knights, with the french gendarmes- all of them of noble birth- being pivotal in breaking the fucking swiss and causing them to swear eternal neutrality with France.

Notonly that, but fucking patay and formingy saw complete, total success of fucking knightly cavalry against the vaunted english longbowmen.

You have no fucking idea what you are talking about.


Only if he's German, you fucking faggot. Frenchmen were still happy to bear lances, and did so well into the wars of religion.
They're heavy cavalry by literally every definition.

>we knights now
>everything on horse with bit of metal is knight now

>the swiss got their asses stomped on multiple occasions by forces containing knights, with the french gendarmes- all of them of noble birth- being pivotal in breaking the fucking swiss and causing them to swear eternal neutrality with France.
Please post a source for that. France wasn't even in Switzerland between 1444 and 1797

>leaving out 1700s, 1800s, and 1900s
[TRIGGERED]

Yes, it makes you heavy cavalry you retard because cuirassiers were heavy cavalry by definition.

And knight is not the same as heavy cavalry. Knight was a social/military rank carried by some people who fought as heavy cavalry throughout the middle ages, but you've had plenty of people who fought as heavy cavalry who were not knights, in fact during the late middle ages it became unpopular to become knighted because nobody wanted to afford the costs of maintaining the required horses, servants, etc. that came with the rank.

Heavy cavalry was around until WW1. Heavy cavalry was a decisive element throughout the late middle ages, throughout the early modern period, throughout the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. There are plenty of battles in which cavalry was a decisive element and you wouldn't want to show up without it.

What is true is that during the high middle ages knights were a solution to pretty much everything on the battlefields and that they lost their utmost predominance when infantry started to become professionalised and show up well armoured, uniformly equipped with pole-arms and trained to function in tight formation since these formations couldn't easily be broken by the conventional cavalry charge. But that didn't make heavy cavalry obsolete: it merely meant that they weren't imba any more and had to pick their targets more carefully, time their charges better, attack from flanks, etc.

Arguably during the late 16th and early 17th century cavalry was in a bit of a crisis, but Gustav Adolphus essentially re-invented cavalry shortly afterwards showing everyone that the sword and the lance from horseback were not weapons of the past yet.

>In the course of the 12th century knighthood became a social rank, with a distinction being made between milites gregarii (non-noble cavalrymen) and milites nobiles (true knights).[23] As the term "knight" became increasingly confined to denoting a social rank, the military role of fully armoured cavalryman gained a separate term, "man-at-arms". Although any medieval knight going to war would automatically serve as a man-at-arms, not all men-at-arms were knights.
Thats about when the high time of the Knight was over.
And when the big formations came, men at arms became useless on the battlefield, scouting and pursuing fleeing enemies was the niche they survived in.

1515 Marignan.

Yes user. Bucklers are totally the same thing as heater shields as seen in OPs pic and were definitely carried by knights and men-at-arms into battle in addition to full plate harness. You are so very intelligent.

So a simple breast plate makes you heavy cavalry, but full on plate with horse armor doesn't make you heavy cavalry? Intradesting

>full on plate with horse armor doesn't make you heavy cavalry? Intradesting
Who said that? Not me.

Bartolomeo d’Alviano's light venezian cavalry and lots of artillery and handguns was what beat the Swiss, but no French men at arms. They where a liability on the battlefield at best.

No idea, this retard here did Knights where the definition of heavy cavalry, before they became a social rank and and meme

>The pursuing French horse were themselves routed by the oncoming Swiss mainbody

>France wasn't even in Switzerland between 1444 and 1797
Neither was the swiss ar,y that got beat down at marignano. Mostly because marignano is in italy.

>1515
>french assemble a combined arms force of artillery, infantry, and cavalry
>swiss have a bunch of pikes
>swiss do what swiss are wont to do, send some pikes to charge the guns
>succeed, landsknechts driven back, some guns taken
>immediately get counterattacked by heavy horse and driven off
>proceed to stall and get pummeled
>french launch a dozen charges into the swiss pikes
>bayard, THE most famous knight of the era, cuts his way through them to rescue missing men
>swiss can't do shit
>can't break the landsknechts frontally
>can't break off forces to flank because the gendarmes are hammering them
>can't disperse the columns to lessen the effect of artillery because of the gendarmes
>who, again, are constantly charging them
>every single time they make an advance, cavalry drives them back
>sit in place and fucking die
The swiss confederacy literally never went on an offensive war again after this.

Feel free to post citations disproving every single period account of the battle, then. All the venetians did was convince the swiss to quit a battle they were already clearly losing.

Oh, and feel free to prove that it was light cavalry and not a mixed force.

Try reading the whole thing, you fucking faggot.

t. Jacques

>No idea, this retard here did (You)
How about you quote the specific line where it's being said?

>Knights where the definition of heavy cavalry, before they became a social rank and and meme
During the golden age of knighthood knights were already a social rank and a meme. Knights being 'merely' heavy cavalry was well before that.

And again: knights and heavy cavalry are generally not the same thing. During the early middle ages that might have been the case but during the high middle ages sitting on a horse in armour didn't make you a knight. You'd have to come from a knightly (not necessarily 'noble' as there were plenty of ministerial knights) family or accumulate some other kind of merit to make yourself eligible to become knighted.

Real knights only existed during the early and early high medieval, after that they where done and large infantry bodies became the mainstay of every army.

>The battle was particularly bloody, with 5,000 casualties (other sources state up to 10,000) on the French side, and moderate losses for the Swiss pikemen, mostly suffered from the French artillery as the Swiss moved into the attack. 700 men were killed in three minutes by heavy artillery fire.[5] Additionally, after the battle, the Swiss executed the hundreds of German mercenaries they had captured who had fought for the French. Having routed the French army, the Swiss were unable to launch a close pursuit because of their lack of cavalry, but several contingents of Swiss did follow the French withdrawal all the way to Dijon before the French paid them off to leave France. The Swiss captured 22 French guns with their carriages.

>before the French paid them off to leave France

> paid them off to leave France

>Real knights only existed during the early and early high medieval
Yes, and real Scotsmen like haggis.

The fact that heavy cavalry lost its predominance on the battlefield does not make it obsolete just like the fact that you can't win a war with artillery alone doesn't make artillery obsolete. As I told you: heavy cavalry has been around until WW1. Do you think people back then were stupid? What do you think did they bring heavy cavalry for - it's not like heavy cavalry was cheap. Heavy cavalry still had its purpose and uses and it could still be a decisive element in battle. It's utterly ridiculous to claim anything else because there are historical examples of decisive actions by heavy cavalry.

Knights is a culture that vanished, what confuses people is that the title lived on.
Heavy cavalry once was the decisive weapon during the high times of the Knights, where all the tales and stuff is from. It later lost that dominant role.

>Knights is a culture that vanished
I completely disagree. The ideal of knightly culture mostly existed in fiction. During the high middle ages knightly poets were idealising their own caste, writing about Arthurian fantasies that never existed in reality.

>Heavy cavalry once was the decisive weapon during the high times of the Knights, where all the tales and stuff is from. It later lost that dominant role.
You're right that heavy cavalry had a dominant role during the high middle ages. It were an all-purpose weapon at that time that was then countered by organised infantry at some point. However: the fact that heavy cavalry lost its disproportional dominance and importance on the battlefield does not mean that it became obsolete or that it was not an important part of army composition any more.

It still remained an important military asset and there are plenty of battles where heavy cavalry played a decisive role - well after the middle ages.

>After the battle, Frederick reportedly said: "I won the battle of Rossbach with most of my infantry having their muskets shouldered." Frederick the Great had discovered the use of operational maneuvers and with some 3,500 horsemen had defeated an entire army of two combined European powers.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rossbach

And two years later the swiss got absolutely crushed, giving up their claims on milan and becoming eternally neutral with the belligerents, with the swiss themselves crediting their total cessation of going to war 10 years later to their defeat by the french.

You are and were wrong. Accept it and move the fuck on.

And then those same knights started fighting on fucking foot, with knights and lesser men at arms remaining the dominant force in battle.

They actually re-mounted later on, with the french in particular forming professional fighting forces fucking CENTERED on nobles in armor on horseback.

>with knights and lesser men at arms remaining the dominant force in battle.
Actually no, you can tame your romanticism, but knights and nobles became a liability in the time of massed infantry tactics. Thats why France hired so many Swiss that they at times became the dominant force in the French army.

Also, they chased them back all the way to Dijon. A Swiss army running rampant trough half France and then retreats when they couldn't carry no more plunder.

>hired up to a quarter million swiss soldiers over the years
>french gent d'armes where mostly for decoration and the noble retards had something to play with

>but knights and nobles became a liability in the time of massed infantry tactics.

Massed infantry tactics became the norm during the hundred years war, when knights were still the focus of armies, both mounted and on foot.
The war was won because of a force of knights force slaughtering the english longbows and their best leaders in a single charge.
The only argument you can hope to muster is
>MUH MEN AT ARMS
Yes, the men at arms who were armed, trained, organized, and used exactly like knights.

The Swiss won some battles. They then lost so thoroughly that they STOPPED GOING TO WAR FOR SEVERAL CENTURIES.

You're either a troll, or incredibly ignorant on this subject and unwilling to accept being wrong. I don't care which, further argument is pointless.

Actually the reached a political consensus to stop expanding their sphere of influence, but they kept all their territories, thats the reason they still speak French and Italian in Switzerland.
They went to war for several more centuries, mostly on France's payroll.
French "Knights" where some guys amongst others, nothing special except for the high rate of inbreeds.

>they kept all their territories,
Is that why the swiss still hold ossola?

>Actually the reached a political consensus to stop expanding their sphere of influence,
Actually the Swiss had their share of problems at home, Reformation and differnt block of cantons against each others, and sent 16k men for HRE Maximilian I, but then Francois I payed them off with 700'000 pieces of gold and let them keep all territories they conquered.
Shortly after that the Reformation came and political reasons prevented the Swiss from ever going on the war path united again.

And don't forget Milan.

I bet the Italians wish that had it back, don't you?

Oh, wait. They gave it up.

No, thats why they still hold the canton of Ticino.

Milan was Sforza, they Swiss never anexed it.

>kept all their territories
>WELL THEY KEPT ALL BUT ONE
Move those goalposts.

No, they merely placed a puppet on the throne. That they controlled. In the state they had just invaded. And kept their army in.

Installed by Swiss, reliant on Swiss to survive. Puppet rulers are a real thing.

Milan at the time was less independent than Purteo Rico is now.

Well, they took turf and they still hold it, they lost their puppet, but then they got payed of royally by French royal with royal French gold.
Isn't that the important thing?
Sorry to say that Frenchies, but you overestimate yourselves a bit here. As usual.

Armor got so good they didn't need shields to deflect fucking crossbow bolts.

That's a codpiece. Peasants loved to stab knights in the dick so they had to make those.