Ebook: Early Anglo-Saxon Shields

The metal fittings from shields - iron bosses and handles - are among the commonest artefacts from Anglo-Saxon graves of the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries AD. Nearly a quarter of all males were buried with their shields. This volume provides a typological study of the shield bosses and their handles, and discussion of the dating and distribution of the various types. There are sections on the technology and construction of shields, on their use in warfare, and on the place of the shield in the ritual of Anglo-Saxon burials. The authors are now lecturers at York and Reading respectively. Both completed doctoral theses on Anglo-Saxon graves and grave finds. In this volume they combine to present their interpretations of one particular aspect of their theses.