Shield

1. A detached piece of armour, variously shaped, generally made of metal, worn over the left arm to parry sword thrusts and arrows.  The form and shape have differed in all countries according to the fancy or pleasure of the bearer, and from which originated that used in armoury generally treated upon below. See Armour

2. The piece of armour upon which heraldic bearings are displayed. It can take many different forms, some of which are illustrated below.

In heraldry, the shield is described from the standpoint of the person behind it and therefore opposite to the way it appears to the spectator. For this reason, dexter, which is the right, is shown on the left hand side on a heraldic shield, whereas sinister, or left, is shown on the right.

The various parts and points of the shield have the following specific names:

The first representation of arms was no doubt as an ornament to the shield  which afterwards became the appropriate and legitimate instrument for displaying them. Hence, in sculpture and painting, they were never separated, and when shields  ceased to be employed, their form remained and still continues to be the field on which coats of arms are invariably depicted.

The shape of the shield , while it existed as an implement of war, was very different among different nations, and at different periods. As long as the shield continued as an instrument of war, its heraldic representation remained true to its shape, but when  new discoveries and alterations in the method of war discarded this part of defensive armour, its form in heraldic painting became infinitely diversified with all the capriciousness of inventive ingenuity and fastidious taste.

 To meet this diversity  different words have been coined, such as escutcheon, buckler, targe, but not necessarily to express difference of meaning. In English heraldry, the lozenge-shaped shield represents the shape upon which spinsters and widows place their Arms. As the shield  used in war was then peculiar to men, it was not considered appropriate for the female, hence an unmarried woman placed her Arms on a lozenge, perhaps in allusion to the fusil, or distaff. When married, she shares her husband’s shield.

The arms which have been chosen as examples for display upon the shields, though they have no particular relation to the shape of the shield selected for their display, are as follows:

Fig. 1. The original “heater-shaped” shield (twelfth and thirteenth centuries): Gules, a chamois argent, armed sable, langued or, environed about the loins with a collar sable, garnished and ringed or, and set with three turquoise. These are the arms of the Graf von Wilezek.

Fig. 2. Shape of shield, fourteenth century. The arms are: Or, a bull’s head erased and affronté sable, crowned proper, armed argent, the tongue extended gules. These are the arms of the Dukes of Mecklenburg, from a seal of Duke Albrecht II., 1349 

Fig. 3. Shape of shield, fifteenth century. The arms are: Argent, a bear rampant sable, armed gules. Arms of the Swiss canton and town of Appenzell. The rampant bear here, taken from the Legend of St. Gallus, is found for the first time on the seal of Appenzell, on a document of the year 1405.

Fig. 4. Shape of shield, French of the fifteenth century. The arms here are: Or, on a bend gules between gannet three alerions argent. Arms of the duchy of Lorraine. Mutilated birds are a peculiarity of West European heraldry, and frequently occur in English and French armory.

Fig. 5. The shape of this shield is fifteenth-century. The arms are: Azure, a boar rampant argent, armed and crined or. Arms of the Ertzingen family in Swabia.

Fig. 6. Type of shield, German, latter half of fifteenth century. The arms are: Or, three stags’ attires fesswise in pale azure. These are the arms of the county of Nellenburg.  The lower antler, in a pointed shield or any kind of a shield growing narrower towards the base, is always represented with a lesser number of points (or “tines,” as they are termed in Scotland) than those placed above it. On a square field this diminution would be superfluous; but it has become so customary in Germany, where this charge is more frequently met with than in England, that the omission would be regarded by heraldic pedants as a grievous mistake.

Fig. 7. This type of shield is an example of the transition towards the “Renaissance” shape of shield, and belongs to the end of the fifteenth century. The arms are: Argent, a mastiff rampant gules, gorged with a spiked collar or.

Fig. 8, which shows the spear-rest for placing the tilting-spear in, or à bouche , is a type belonging to the middle of the fifteenth century. The arms depicted are: Gules, a talbot passant argent, langued or.

Fig. 9, which also shows the spear-rest, belongs to the sixteenth century. The arms depicted are: Azure, a goat rampant or, armed sable, which are the arms of the Counts von Hohenembs in Vorarlberg.

Fig. 10. Renaissance shield (sixteenth century). The arms are: Gules, on a mount in base vert, a crane argent, beaked or, holding with the dexter foot a stone proper. The crane is often made use of as the symbol of watchfulness, the old idea being that the bird held the stone in order not to fall asleep. 

Fig. 11. Renaissance shield (sixteenth century). The arms are: Azure between a fleur de lys or and the leaf  of a trefoil notched engrailed argent, a chapé-ployé of the same charged with a rose gules, seeded or and barbed vert.

Fig. 12. Renaissance shield (sixteenth century). The arms are: Or, a lime-tree (linden) eradicated proper. It is the coat of arms of the Bavarian town of Lindau, on Lake Constance.

[Source: Fox-Davies, A.C.: The Art of Heraldry]

See also Escutcheon and Lozenge.