SHIELD

(Germ, schild.) A well-known piece of defensive armour, very extensively used before the invention of gunpowder, and still employed by many nations among which military art has made imperfect progre . It would be endle to detail the various materials and BRnpe which it has been constructed at different periods. The ancient Greek shield, as described in Homer, was large and ma ive, sufficient to cover the man from the face to the knee, composed of leather, inlaid in some instances with metal. That of the Roman legionary was four feet high, and two and a half broad, formed of wood covered with leather, and strongly guarded with bo es of iron or bronze. The ancient Britons and other nations of antiquity wore round, light, basket like shields, often of wicker-work; more resembling the parma or lighter shield of the Romans. The Norman shield, as used in England down to the time of Henry II., was "of the form called kite or pear-shape," flatter at first, afterwards approaching to the semi-cylindrical. Heraldic devices were first borne on it, so far as is distinct ascertained, in the reign of Henry II. (Pictorial Hist, of England, i.. 640.) In that of Edward IV. the shield had become triangular: the point of the triangle was rounded off about the end of the 14th century. Afterwards the shape of the shield, as worn by knights, became more and more fantastic. In actual service it fell gradually into disuse: sword and buckler fight, the favourite pastime as well as warlike practice of former days, became obsolete after the rapier and dagger had been introduced in the reign of Elizabeth. The Highlanders carried the target with the broad sword to a much later period. [s. 1133]