HEMA HOPLITE SHIELD HOW TO
HEMA HOPLITE SHIELD FULL
HEMA HOPLITE SHIELD PROFESSIONAL

Now, it was because of this specific design that everything followed. The result to use it in training with wooden swords was this: Figure 8 Figure 9 Having no primary source providing details about the size of a post-13th century byzantine small shield, I decided to go for a round small shield of 36 cm, and George advised me to couple the design with the distinct “chiasma” grip.

HEMA HOPLITE SHIELD HOW TO

So there I was, trying to figure out how to make my own byzantine small shield, for the purposes of training in the byzantine hoplomachia classes at “Leontes” by instructor George Georgas. The art here is not iconographic, therefore the artist is not simply following an iconographic tradition he is depicting a very firmly established knowledge about byzantine martial arts. This is obviously post-byzantine, but is evidence that re-affirms the vogue of importance of this guard. Art is by an artist known only as Petrakis. Figure 7:ĭepiction from a 1787 copy of “Erotokritos”. Figure 6:Īnother depiction from the Chronikon of Skylitzes, 11th century.

HEMA HOPLITE SHIELD FULL

This depiction is very important, because it proves that the guard was not only ceremonial and for body-guard purposes, but was a technique suitable for full close combat. The attacking soldiers in the middle are visibly holding their small shields in reverse grip as in Figure. Figure 5:ĭepiction from the Chronikon of Skylitzes 11th century.

However, the reverse grip on the shield is clealry indentifiable as the one in figure 18. This image is hard to interpret, because the figure here is most obviously a mythical creature in some kind of dance. Figure 4:īyzantine ivory casket, 10th century. The soldier here holds the shield in “quarte” from left (as in figure 19 on the reverse), thus defending his right side. Figure 3:īyzantine ivory casket, 10th century. Andreas at Kastoria west Macedonia – Greece. Saint Mercurius at the Protaton of Karyes in Holy Mount, by Manuel Panselinos (13th-14th century). The reverse shield appears across the wide spectrum of byzantine art: from manuscript miniatures, to the famous byzantine ivory caskets. While the stance itself was optically very familiar in byzantine hagiography all along, it was only after our discovery through practicing with the shield itself, that we searched to find possible similar depictions in non-religious byzantine art as well. Hence, it was only through experimental reconstruction, developed specifically for the purposes of the byzantine hoplomachia project, run by the “Leontes” Academy of Historical Martial Arts, in Pireaus, Greece, that we were able to unlock the secrets and fully comprehend to spectrum of a byzantine guard which had been hiding, for so long, in front of our very eyes. Therefore as long as those depictions were being studied by art historians and re-enactors, it was merely impossible to ever discover that the reverse or false shield stance was actually a guard of the byzantine martial art. Research conclusions and discoveries do not always come out by themselves they depend on methodology and the questions of the researcher himself. The most logical conclusion everyone came to was that, it was merely a resting posture of a guarding soldier in a defensive position. Hence, for years now this peculiar stance was there for everybody to see, but no one could understand what it meant or why it was depicted like that. It is that one, where the military saint holds his small shield (buckler sized byzantine small-shield), close to his abdomen and in reverse, so that the back-side of the shield is visible, with the distinctive “chiasma” cord-grip (that’s actually why and how re-enactors know about the “chiasma” grip).

HEMA HOPLITE SHIELD PROFESSIONAL

However, there is one particular recurring stance in byzantine hagiography that, for years now, has had baffled, those of us who have a closer relation with byzantine and orthodox Christian art.įor professional hagiographers, this stance is identified with Saint Mercurius, but has appeared in other saints’ depictions as well.

When, it comes to mural iconography, especially, the exoticness and vividness of the stances depicted energise the imagination of anyone who comes across them. One of the main, and arguably the most important, sources of the research on byzantine hoplomachia is hagiography and manuscript miniatures.

Hema hoplite shield