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Norman-style kite shield. [1]A kite shield is a large, almond-shaped shield rounded at the top and curving down to a point or rounded point at the bottom. The term "kite shield" is a reference to the shield's unique shape, and is derived from its supposed similarity to a flying kite, although "leaf-shaped shield" and "almond shield" have also been used in recent literature. [2]
The earliest depictions of proto-heraldic shields in the second half of the 12th century still have the shape of the Norman kite shield used throughout the 11th and 12th centuries. By about the 1230s, shields used by heavy cavalry had become shorter and more triangular, now called heater shields .
The Normans introduced the kite shield around the 10th century, which was rounded at the top and tapered at the bottom. This gave some protection to the user's legs, without adding too much to the total weight of the shield. The kite shield predominantly features enarmes, leather straps used to grip the shield tight to the arm. Used by foot and ...
At the beginning of the Komnenian era, all Byzantine infantry still carried round shields, but these were superseded by much larger kite shields in the mid 12th century. [110] Kite shields remained standard equipment for Byzantine armies long after they had fallen out of favor in Western Europe, and were still being carried by local Greek ...
The heater shield or heater-shaped shield is a form of European medieval shield, developing from the early medieval kite shield in the late 12th century in response to the declining importance of the shield in combat thanks to improvements in leg armour.
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The bulk of the Byzantine infantry were the skoutatoi (hoplite), named after the skouton, a large oval, round or kite-shaped shield. Their armor and weapons were modelled following ancient Seleucid and Hellenistic infantry equipment and patterns, which included: [ 9 ]