The Weight of Viking Shields

When one turns to re-enactors, modern replica shields and people interested in sparring, the answer that emerges is the light shield - Alexander Martzok for instance argues in this video that 3 kg shields are quite plausible. Conversely, asking experimental archaeologists tends to yield something above 5 kg as answer. So - what is known and where do the differences come from?

Properties of excavated Viking shields

The shields are made of wooden planks made from spruce, fir or pine. The center part of the shield has a ~10 cm hole in it that is covered by a boss, typically of 15 cm diameter and 3-5 mm thickness. A handgrip runs the full diameter of the shield perpendicular to the grain of the planks.

The Gokstad shields show tapering, i.e. the thickness is not homogeneous, the wood gets narrower towards the rim (1). This reduces overall weight by some 10% when compared to a non-tapered profile, but perhaps more significant, it reduces the moment of inertia for turns of the shield by taking away weight far from the turning axis.

The edge of the wooden structure was probably rimmed with leather tp keep the shield from splitting, at least the Gokstad shields show small holes around the periphery that can plausibly interpreted as being caused by nails or other means of holding the leather in place. A few cm band of leather would cause less than 100 g of additional weight.

Using the density of different woods (3), the weight of a particular shield can be approximately computed from these dimensions. A medium-thickness boss adds about 0.65 kg to the weight, the handgrip about 0.2 kg.

A Gokstad-type shield (90 cm diameter, 8.5 mm thickness tapered, fir wood) then comes to 3.4 kg weight. The lightest shield within the parameters (80 cm diameter, 6 mm thickness, spruce wood) would have 2.1 kg and the heaviest variant (90 cm diameter, 12 mm thickness tapered, pine wood) would reach about 5.2 kg.

Reported properties of Viking shields

Other sources name linden wood as the preferred material for shields (2). This material is only slightly heavier than fir and somewhat lighter than pinewood, so it does not dramatically alter the findings above.

At least Gretti's saga mentions an iron-rimmed shield (2) (again, no such object has been found). A 3 cm wide and 2 mm thick iron rim would add as much as 1.3 kg of weight to a shield.

Structural considerations

This means that, since battle-axes were common in the Viking age, shields were vulnerable to splintering. In tests even a 13 mm thick shield could be destroyed with two axe cuts (2).

Splintering can be partially or completely counteracted by stabilizing the wood, i.e. by compressing it perpendicular to the fibers so that cracks simply cannot grow. This would be the purpose of iron bars attached to the back of the shield or even an iron rimming (leather rimming is also moderately effective at this).

However, the best way to keep a shield from splintering is to cover the whole front section with leather that is glued to the wood. This prevents cracks from growing even locally and so splintering by and large is not an issue. Tests have shown that even multiple axe or spear impacts do not destroy such a leather-covered shield.

The Vikings mainly used cattle to produce leather, and that is a fairly important point because cattle hide is about 3 mm thick - and so is the leather produced from it. Since the 18th century, such relatively thick leather is usually split into several layers, so today it is possible to obtain cattle-based leather in any thickness, but the Vikings clearly lacked the technology for splitting, so any leather cover with be about 3 mm thick.

The weight of a 90 cm diameter and 3 mm thick leather layer is about 1.5 kg (in addition to whatever the glue weighs).

This means to get a non-splintering shield either by iron rimmung and bars or by a leather front layer adds at least 1-2 kg of extra weight to the weight of the wood. On the other hand, from the perspective of being in a line battle, having shields that last for more than just the first exchange seems fairly essential.

To be clear - a leather-covered shield does not give full protection from axe blows or spear-thrusts. The cover primarily prevents splintering and the quick destruction of the shield, but edged weapons still penetrate and can potentially injure an arm or body that is covered by the shield. Also, the lifetime is not extended to infinity - even a leather-covered shield fails after taking something like a dozen hits. In fact, the sagas contain scenes in which the destruction of shields is described, so this must have been a fairly common occurrance.

In addition, there is the question of arrows and their penetration into the shield. In a test (5), a 144 lb longbow was able to drive an arrow as much as 50 mm into oak wood. Now, oak is a very hard type of wood, and for the wood types the Vikings used the bending strength of wood (i.e. how much force a piece of wood can take before it breaks) roughly scales with the density, so the heavy pine is about 50% stronger than the light spruce (4), so constructing a shield of a thin layer of light wood unfortunately means that it has almost no resistance against arrow penetration - a 6 mm layer of spruce is about a factor twenty less resistance than a 50 mm oak plank (also taking into account that bending strength is non-linear, i.e. doubling the thickness of a layer more than doubles the resistance).

Modern replicas

While plywood is even denser than pine (680 vs. 640 kg/ cubic meter), the fact that no iron reinforcement or leather cover needs to be used to prevent splintering means that rather light-weight, impact-resistant shields can be manufactured from the material, for instance a non-tapered 90 cm diameter 6 mm thick plywood shield would weigh as little as 3.4 kg (including boss and handle).

Such a shield would have near zero resistance to arrow impacts (generally bending strength of plywood is roughly half of solid wood (6) because of the cross-wise fiber alignment) - but then, that is not an issue for re-enactments, no one actually fires a high-power longbow on shields in mock battles or sparring matches.

If a more authentic replica is desired while weight should be minimized, it can also be created from a 6 mm layer of spruce, covered with 1 mm thick leather (in modern times, obtaining any thickness of cattle leather is no problem at all). An 80 cm diameter shield covered with leather of that type could come out at as little as 2.7 kg, would have many authentic cataracteristics and be very nimble in single combat. However, like the plywood equivalent, it would offer very little resistance to arrow impacts.

Weight and function

On the other hand, if the main function of the shield is to act as protection in line combat, it should preferably be heavier. As the Greek aspis (Phalanx-shield) with about 7.3 kg weight or the Roman Legionary scutum (8-10 kg) show, heavy weight on the shield arm is not an issue if that weight doesn't have to be actively moved around all the time but largely remains in place as protection. Outside of single combat, the increased protection against arrows and other hits a thick and heavy shield offers is well worth the additional weight.

The argument can be made that a thin shield into which weapons can penetrate offers the ability to disarm the opponent as the weapon might get stuck. However, this cuts both ways - using a long-shaft Dane-axe against a shield, the shield could be pulled aside, thus opening a gap in a shield wall, so there is no clear advantage to a stuck weapon either way.

It is clear from the design that Viking shields were not only used as line-battle protective devices. It would have been easy to design the shields in such a way that they can be carried by the arm - and this would be the most effective way to carry protection - yet the handle is clearly made to be grasped by the hand, not the arm. Such a hand-grip however allows to turn the shield in a way that is not possible if it would be carried with the arm, and such turns allow for instance blocking a strike with the edge, i.e. techniques useful in single combat.

Also, the tapering of the Gokstad shields (1) serves the purpose of making turns easier by removing weight far away from the center (tapering also reduces overall weight, but the effect is comparatively small).

So there is evidence that the Vikings deemed it important to construct shields which can be used for more than mere protection being held in place. Given that, assuming shields were regularly in the weight class of about 7 kg like typical line battle shields seems wrong.

On the other hand, constructing an 'average' splinter-resistant shield inside the parameter space archaeology has set (84 cm diameter, 9 mm thickness fir wood, 5 mm thick boss and 3 mm cattle leather cover) results in a weight of 4.9 kg - so some shields might have been somewhat heavier than that, others somewhat lighter. If we accept this idea, a 'typical' useful Viking shield would come out at a weight between 4.5 and 5.5 kg - lighter than a pure line-battle device, but heavier than a buckler or fast single-combat optimized shield.

In practical terms, some additional weight might not be as important in real single combat than it is in modern sparring. A sparring match can last a few minutes, but that is because no one gets injured since modern protection is worn and weapons are blunted. An exchange till the first significant hit on the other side can be very short - a few seconds often suffice. For such a short timeframe, it is quite possible to do very dynamical motions even with a 5 kg shield, it takes a while before muscles start tiring.

Conclusion

(2) Viking Shields

(3) Density of Wood Species - Engineering Toolbox

(4) Wood Strength

(5) Testing Medieval War Arrows Penetrating Inches of Oak (6) Mechanical Properties of Wood-based Composite Materials

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