Templar shield

At the beginning of the Crusades, the "almond-shaped" shield covered from the neck to the knee; ideal when chain mail did not provide adequate protection for the leg and the lance had not yet been brought down at full speed. However, in the 13th century, Western iconography shows a gradual shortening towards a compact triangle, the heater, easy to handle on horseback and sufficient against more protective armor. The Maciejowski Bible, produced around 1240-1250, is full of horsemen with triangular shields held by a handle and a strap, a detail that can also be seen in other manuscripts. In terms of objects, the Seedorf shield, attributed to Arnold von Brienz, is an example of an early 13th-century combat shield, preserved at the Landesmuseum in Zurich. Fourteenth-century English inventories refer to "scuta" for these "flat-iron" shapes, the ancestors of the classic heraldic shield. In your #Terressens collection, the Templar shield and the great helmet echo this transformation, combining protection, color visibility, and order identity.