The Horror of a Shield Wall

The Horror of a Shield Wall

Regia Anglorum at the Battle of Hastings

My experience comes from reenactment, not the battlefield itself, but even that controlled version was brutal enough. The command at the end of a battle for “Dead Arise” gives us second, third, and fourth chances; real warriors did not get that luxury. I have cracked finger bones four times, broken my thumb once, and broken ribs twice. A fellow Saxon was once thrown thirty or forty feet when a charging horse skidded into the shield wall. So no: even as a reenactor, fighting behind a shield was never easy, even when everyone knew it was only a display.

The Seax: Tool, Weapon, Liability

When I first joined Regia Anglorum, all newbies learned to fight with a scramseax: the typical Saxon knife used for everything from chopping wood and butchery to close combat. It was shorter than a sword, quick in the hand, and dangerous precisely because it felt so familiar. On one occasion a colleague asked me to take part in a show fight. These displays had to look fierce, move fast, and keep the crowd hooked. We both had a seax and a shield. I refused at first. Then, inevitably, I thought: why not?

I walked over and asked him why his wife was so ugly, then remembered it was because he was too. It remains one of the quickest ways I know to start a fight.

At first, the fight was straightforward. Then the weakness of the seax became obvious: it has no guard, no cross-hilt, nothing to protect the hand. It is a working tool pressed into violence. You block with it, but your attention is split between the opponent, the shield, and whatever blow is already coming. Within minutes a heavy strike smashed into my hand and fractured a finger bone. It hurt. A lot. But with a crowd watching, the fight had to continue. Eventually the shields were ripped away or thrown aside, and the seax fight became something closer and nastier: half instinct, half blindness. In the end it finished as a draw, mostly because there is only so long anyone can fight under an English summer sun.

The Boar’s Snout

I broke a rib during a Boar’s Snout, or Svinfylking in Viking terms. This is where armoured men in helmets and chain mail form a wedge, with the clear intention of bulldozing through the opposing shield wall. A wall might be only one or two men deep, shields locked together, so a compact group of determined fighters can punch a hole straight through it. It is terrifying to face. If the wedge hits with enough momentum, men can be thrown considerable distances.

I once saw a Boar’s Snout brought down by a very brave individual. He sprinted at the wedge after it had built up speed and could no longer stop, then threw himself across the lead man, aiming for the legs. His timing had to be perfect. If he rolled through cleanly, the whole formation might collapse. If he misjudged it, twenty armoured men carrying swords and spears would crash down on top of him. He got it right. The wedge folded, we surged forward, and their finest warriors were suddenly lying helpless in a tangled heap.

Later, I was volunteered for a Boar’s Snout myself. The lead man has to lean back, giving those behind him something solid to drive against and keeping the formation compact. I was placed at the front and did as instructed. We smashed through the enemy line. In a later battle, however, I was two or three men back, and the lead man made the mistake of splitting forward rather than leaning back into the mass. That broke the shape. We hit the enemy shield wall in waves instead of as one force. We failed to break through, and I was trapped against the wall when the rest of our men slammed into us. My ribs felt as if they met somewhere in the middle of my body. That was the second time I broke one.

Inside the Wall

Even when you know no one is trying to kill you, standing in a shield wall is frightening. You face the enemy opposite you and lock shields with the men on either side. Your shield overlaps the man to your right; the man to your left overlaps yours. The aim is not always to strike the person directly in front of you. Often it is to drag down an enemy's shield so someone else can spear them, or to strike the far edge of it and wrench it open. A shield wall usually begins with many spearmen and a few axemen, whose job is to hook, pull, and tear shields wide or down.

That is where the mayhem begins. The man who kills you may not even be in your eye line. A spear can come from several yards down the enemy line, slipping through a gap you did not know had opened. A shield wall needs to stay straight, but once battle is joined the line bends, buckles, and eventually breaks. When that happens, spears find bodies. Swords come out. Small knots of men fight their own desperate battles. If one side outflanks the other, the fear changes again: now you are looking over your shoulder, wondering whether the next thrust will come from behind. That makes anyone careless.

Reenactment and Reality

As a reenactor, fighting in a shield wall was thrilling, exhausting, and occasionally frightening. It gave me a glimpse of what such combat might have felt like, but only a glimpse. Our battles might involve a hundred warriors a side. Hastings is thought to have involved thousands on each side. Real shield walls were deeper. Arrows, axes, javelins, and other missiles could thin the ranks before the lines even met. I have stood under arrow storms at Hastings, and even with rubber tips they could find gaps in shields and hurt badly.

In a real battle, the truth would have been harsher than anything I experienced. Reenactment can teach timing, fear, pressure, and impact, but it cannot recreate the finality of a battlefield. There, a broken line could mean a broken body. A missed block could mean death. In that world, there was no call for the dead to arise. I am grateful to be able to drive home after every battle.

Read more battles with the added fear of dragons and demons in the Prophecy of the Kings https://davidburrows.org.uk/