There are two shield shapes in this range and they belong to different worlds. The round shield is the older one. This is the other — the kite, long and tapered, and it was made with a horseman in mind. It covers the whole body, and the giveaway is how it was carried: slung round the neck on a strap, or held on the left forearm while riding, so that the left hand stays free for the reins. That is a mounted man's arrangement, worked out for a mounted man's problem. And yet by 1066 English foot soldiers had taken it up, housecarls in particular, standing shoulder to shoulder on a Sussex hillside behind a shield designed for people who fought from the saddle. Both shapes are there in the Bayeux Tapestry, side by side in the same army. If you want to watch a way of war changing inside a single object, this is the object.

W. Britain give him mail to the knee, a conical helmet with a nasal, and the spear held level across the top of the shield rather than raised — the spear was the ordinary man's weapon on both sides at Hastings, good for thrusting or for throwing, and here it is doing the patient job rather than the dramatic one. Stand him beside "Halvar" Viking Defending with Sword and Shield and you have the two shield shapes together, old and new, which is the whole point. Add "Algar" Saxon Defending with Spear and "Seaver" Saxon Shield Wall Defender and the line starts to form; "Geir" Viking Defending with Spear and Shield is the man doing the same job on the other side of it.

Model: 62140 / W. Britain / 1/30 scale / matte finish / 1 piece set