… three mines of gold went to each shield.
3 Kings 10:17
Weapons from museums. Today is our special day. We will not only continue our acquaintance with the history of the rondache shield, not only admire the samples of such shields from the collections of the Hermitage, the Metropolitan Museum and the Army Museum, but also get acquainted with their history based on the testimonies of a number of Spaniards who lived in the 15th-16th centuries. and left us their memories.
Let's start with Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, who reports that rodela (as he calls these shields) was not used in Spain and was not known when he arrived in Italy in 1498. However, after a few years, they, he said, became very common. For example, there is a list of militias from Mallorca for 1517, in which, out of 1,667 people, 493 had rondasis.
Hernán Cortez began his campaign in Mexico with seven hundred hidalgos and an equal number of swords and shields, most of which were rondas. De Oviedo directly says that the Spaniards met the Rodela in Italy, but that the armourers from the Basque Country ("Basque Country") learned how to make them already in 1512.
Many authors of that time write that, being a means of defense, rodela played an important role in assaults and sieges, but not in field battles. Except for Mexico. There, it was these shields that helped fight the Indians, who had nothing to oppose them.
In 1536, in his second book, Diego de Salazar advocated the use of the rodela in the squad of pikemen and arquebusiers. He wrote that the pike with which they are armed allows them to defend themselves against cavalry. But if you need to fight with a sword, then a shield is preferable to a lance.
He further points out that rodelier warriors, like pikemen, should be well armed, that is, wear helmets and armor, although they may do without leg protection. Protected in this way, they gain a real advantage that they would lose if they could easily move without armor, since they were able to fight the enemy at a distance of the edge of the sword.
In his opinion, it was enough to bypass the "first points of the lance" in order to defeat the spearmen, among whom few have protected arms and legs.
Don Diego gave examples from the battles of Barletta [1503] and Ravenna [1512], where enemy troops were defeated by the "blow of swords" of the rodelier.
I offer an excerpt from a modern account of this battle as evidence of exactly how it all happened then:
“Then, when they saw our detachment, they gathered up to eight thousand Gascons and they had a strong desire to get close to us, but ours immediately got along with them in such a close way that the peaks could no longer harm them.
Meanwhile, the warriors with swords and rodels acted like reapers in the harvest and fought their way through the lances …
[…]
Well, what can we say about the rest of the very hardworking infantry, apart from the fact that from the first detachment of eight thousand, she left only fifteen hundred soldiers alive at the first meeting. And then, when this detachment was defeated, she also defeated another …
Then the French detachment began to retreat, and ours, pursuing them, defeated their artillery; and then the French fled, and ours pursued them.
However, it seems that breaking through the "hedgehog from the peak" was not easy."
Who is fighting with whom and who wins whom is not very clear. Most likely, the Spaniards fought with the Gascons, and they attacked them first, but they came together in battle so closely that the long peaks of the fighters were useless. The outcome of the battle, as we see, was decided by the "hardworking" Spanish infantry with swords and rondashes, cutting through the ranks of the Gascon pikemen right down to their artillery.
According to the testimonies of Hernan Cortes (1521) and Vargas Machuca (1599), rodellers fought poorly alone, especially without the support of cavalry and crossbowmen or riflemen. Therefore, Diego de Salazar, for example, proposed creating detachments of six thousand infantrymen, with three thousand pikemen, two thousand rodellers and a thousand arquebusiers, although later he suggested using also crossbowmen.
Since at the Battle of Pavia (1525) 35% of the soldiers had firearms, the thousand arquebusiers (17% of the soldiers) proposed by Salazar clearly did not meet the requirements of the time.
That is, the rodellers were needed, but they played a very specific role, and the rest of the time they simply stood idle in battle, especially after the musketeers began to replace the arquebusiers.
In 1567, Diego Gracian, in his book "De Re Militari", argued that rodela was not used often, "if not the storming or taking of the city." With all this, only a few bring it. Or "if you see a warrior with a rodela, it is most likely the captain!"
In 1590, a book by Don Diego de Alaba and Viamont was published, which was called: "The perfect captain, trained in military discipline and new artillery science." Interestingly, its author recommended that spearmen wear a shield on their back in order to use it in cases when it was necessary to attack the enemy. But when it was necessary to repel the attacks of the cavalry, the pike had to be held with both hands - both the infantrymen of the first line (they still had to get down on one knee!) And the second.
According to Martin de Egilus (1595), the armament of the rondachier, that is, the shield and the sword, should have been exactly the captain - the commander of the pikemen company. The cuirass and helmet must have been complemented by a buckler or rodela shield, moreover decorated with a fringe along the edge, because it is beautiful, and so that everyone can see that its owner is the captain!
“It protects well enough against the arquebus, and even if a musket fires, it is still better to have it than not to have it. So let the captain of the arquebusier company also serve with the same shield, since it frees the wearer from the need to wear a strong but heavy breastplate, which will still not give him protection from a musket shot."
According to the author, all soldiers should have been able to use a pike, halberd, arquebus, sword, dagger and buckler, as well as ride a horse and swim, that is, from the ability to use a fencing shield even in 1595, when de Egilus's book appeared, was not yet refused!
Don Bernardino de Mendoza also writes that in May 1652 the Catalan soldiers defending Montjuïc attacked the Fort of San Farriol and attacked with "sword and shield, and with great courage."
Rondashes in the catalog of the Royal Armories in Madrid have a diameter from 0.54 to 0.62 m. They can be smooth or with a point in place of the umbilicus. Their weight is also indicated: the lightest - 2, 76 kg. There were also very heavy ones, giving protection even from a musket: 17, 48 kg and 11, 5 kg. On average, a combat shield designed to protect against a bullet weighed from 8 to 15 kg.
Rodela was also used on naos ("big ships") and galleys. In 1535, it was established that ships with 100 crew on board must have at least a dozen rodels.
But, of course, much more often there were rondashes, either ceremonial, or … of the palace guard, in fact, also ceremonial. These shields were often in the form of a drop, similar to those of medieval shields.
In 1619, Pedro Chiron, the third Duke of Osuna, sent 425 arquebusses, 170 muskets, 475 pikes, 425 stockings, 144 shields, 204 incendiary bombs, 19 boxes of cartridges, 565 barrels of gunpowder, 90 centners of lead in bullets to 19 galleys of the Kingdom of Naples.
Heinrich liked this military curiosity so much that he immediately ordered a hundred such shields for his guards. But it soon became clear that the large weight interferes with aiming, since it is difficult to hold the shield in the air without support, and it is simply impossible to load.
However, employees of the Victoria and Albert Museum found out that the armor shields of the era of Henry VIII from their collection were used in battles, or at least they were fired from them more than once, since traces of gunpowder were found on them … Such shields were also found on board the ship Mary Rose . It is possible that at sea they were used for firing from an emphasis on the side while repelling boarding.
Well, over time, the rondashi took their place on the walls of castles and palaces. It turned out that they very effectively cover the place of the crosshairs of the pikes, halberds and protasans, and also because of them two-handed swords also very effectively look out. That is, they turned into an element of the interior …
P. S. The administration of the site and the author of the material would like to thank the Deputy General Director of the State Hermitage Museum, Chief Curator S. B. Adaksina and T. I. Kireeva (Publications Department) for permission to use photographic materials from the State Hermitage's website and for assistance in working with illustrative photographic materials.
