Use of kalkan shield, part 2 – shield on a full length loop

I will now describe various ways of using kalkan shield while it is hanging on a full length loop worn across your shoulder.
It is important to remember, that this shield was part of warrior more or less complete system of defenses, typically consisting of aketon and helmet of some kind, possibly chainmail, vambraces etc. etc. On our photos we present kalkan placed over a white shirt, but this is only to show clearly how the loop is worn. Description is for a right-handed person.

1. Kalkan hanging freely:
you put fully extended loop across right shoulder, so the shield is hanging at your left hip. It is convenient to position the loop’s connection point (knot or buckle used to make a loop out of rope or thong) in the bottom, between rings – it will be used later as a kind of tag. You have to hang the shield with the wider of its two side grips facing upwards.
No matter what evolution we do with our shield, we never remove this loop from the shoulder, so it is not possible to lose the kalkan, even if we drop it by accident or release it to have both hands free – it is extremely important especially to the mounted warrior. The shield hanging on your left hip will not disturb you when using reins, shooting a bow or fencing, and only slightly interfere with drawing a saber from its sheath or a bow from bowcase, which will be partially covered.


2. Kalkan kept by the center grip, on the extender hand:
 you simply raise the hanging shield with your left hand by center grip, at the same time pushing it forward as far as the loop worn across your shoulder permit. Tense loop will help you to keep your kalkan firmly; impatient reader’s notice: I’ll cover fitting correct length of the loop in the next part.
In this position you can cover your front, either side and to some degree also your back (from the shield-arm side). Also, it is possible to raise the shield to cover your face or head. This method will not allow you to use a bow, but it is excellent against incoming arrows, because shield kept away from the body will protect you even in case of deeper than usual penetration of kalkan basket, while the hand is covered by steel boss. According to field tests, twigs in the basket are usually pierced by steel arrow head, but they immediately clamp wooden arrow shaft, so a sharp tip will protrude at least 2-3 cm inside – kalkan is convex, so there is some space, and you are likely to wear chainmail and/or aketon, but still, the more space there is between your skin and your shield, the better.
This method is also very effective when fencing. You keep your opponent at a distance and make it harder for him to go around this moderate-size  shield. Also, when fighting from horseback, it allow you to protect your mount  to some degree, especially its neck.
Keeping the distance is especially important when you are forced to rise your shield too high, losing your opponent from sight.  In this case, if you keep your kalkan close to the face, you’ll immediately got hit in the hip or belly. In contrary, by keeping the hand extended, you make it much more difficult for your enemy to score.
If necessary you can additionally support the shield with the other hand (even when holding a saber) – as when you are about to receive a  blow with a heavy mace or in similar situation. You can also take the kalkan in your right hand only, although this does not seems very practical to me, at least in typical situations, as you have enough reach with your left hand to cover your right side pretty well, and also not many people is able to effectively fence with their “weaker” arm.
It is perfectly possible to hold horse’s reins together with the shield, although it is a bit hard to use them precisely, with your hand in extended position, and shortened reins going around shield’s edge. Contrarily, your hand have a great freedom of movement to the sides and towards you, so it’s easy to push the outside rein against horse’s neck to turn him sidewise or pull on a bit - not very subtle, but effective when you have to avoid colliding with another rider in the melee.

3. Kalkan on a forearm:
you insert left forearm into the wider side grip (which, as you should remember, is supposed to be at the upper side of the shield hung by left hip) and we catch the second, smaller side grip in the hand. According to the situation, especially when you want to shoot the bow, you can push your arm even deeper, until the smaller grip will be around your wrist, to free your left hand.

Using this technique you can protect yourself from the front and one side, it is also possible to raise the shield to cover your face and most of your head. Range of movement is reduced in comparison to previous method and you cannot keep your opponent at distance, but there are some benefits: it’s now easier to manipulate reins with your kalkan-bearing hand (although some of the movements can be restricted by shield’s edge contacting saddle’s front pommel or your thigh), also it is possible to hold your bow or pull the string.
To make best use of a middle size shield, an archer will nock an arrow with his bow-hand bend in elbow, holding grip of the bow level with his face and kalkan edge just below his eyes. Horseback warrior will incline his torso a little towards the enemy to make himself a smaller target and to protect his head better with a helmet; foot-archer can also kneel down. Only when drawing and aiming he will push the bow forward, extending his left hand and straitening the body, uncover himself only for the moment, and disappear behind his shield again, reaching for another missile.

Side grips must be adjusted to fit your forearm and wrist quite tight – of course taking into consideration thickness of dress and amour you are wearing. Also the loop worn around your right shoulder should be short enough to help stabilize the shield in more or less vertical position. Kalkan with loose grips and too long loop will easily turn horizontal, exposing archer’s body and it’s edge could interfere with bow’s lower limb.

Shooting this way with a convex shield worn over thin clothes is not very pleasant, because when you straighten left arm the kalkan shield’s edge will press against strained muscles and tendons on the back side of your palm. Fortunately when using “battlefield” clothes that is not a problem, because the hand backside is usually protected by elongated part of aketon sleeve or appropriate part of vambraces.

For a horseback archer it is naturally easier to shoot left, forward and backward, while turning in the saddle to aim to the right side of a horse is difficult and possible only in limited range of angles. It is possible to eliminate this “blind zone” by training to pass the bow to the right hand and drawing the string with your left, as a left-handed person. Kalkan worn on a left forearm is no objection to this; you still can pull arrows from the quiver with you right hand, holding them together with the bow grip.
The only downside is that using this technique we partially resign from the kalkan protection, because now we hold the shield on the opposite side to where the “enemy” is, but still, this is a very useful method when somebody unexpectedly charge on us from the right side. It is even more convenient to shoot and protect both sides with the kalkan hung on the upper arm, on a loop folded in half, but I’ll write about that in the next part.

Kalkan you can see on the pictures was made by Norbert Kopczyński (basket) and Zbysio Juszkiewicz (metal elements), I’m responsible for making grips/straps and reconstruction of the various ways to use them.
Owner of the shield is Michal Sanczenko, who patiently  posed for photos.

In the next part we will discuss the techniques of using kalkan shield hanging on a loop folded in half.