Note 2 — AN ATTEMPT TO CLASSIFY AND DATE THE VARIOUS SHAPES FOUND IN HERALDIC SHIELDS—PRINCIPALLY IN ENGLAND, WITH INCIDENTAL DATINGS.[1]

Randle Holme's Academy of Armoury, book i. p. 9, tells us how Froissart, describing the battle of Poictiers, says that the Black Prince commanded the body of the Lord Richard Duras to be laid on a shield, and that five men should bear the same to the Cardinal of Peregorth for a present, &c. Also, that towards the end of the reign of Edward III, the Frenchmen, to save themselves from the liberal shot of the English archers, had shields made of elme-wood, seven feet in length and three in breadth and an inch in thickness, which were made sharp at the foot to pitch into the ground.