Highland TARGE (Shield)- History, How it Was Made, Combat and Battlefield Application

a halen targe Barents of these small shields reuse them hails of scotland for centuries and there were a favorite weapon among highland warriors i like in this video i'm gonna look at its history how it was made and how it was used in both single and battlefield combat in the 17th and 18th century so stay tuned hi folks Tom for Vandiver dizzy nitrogen in it so this video is sa a collaboration with heikal from the Katherine society he's going to be running through the Marshall application and Graham from Albert our judges are actually handmade me this gorgeous [ __ ] so he's going to be taking us through the making process behind this awesome weapon so for those I've been following my Highlander series for a while you know I mainly look at this area of history in the context of wilderness survival skills that's my main area of interest my main area of expertise but of course everything is connected and you have to you know draw in other aspects of history and culture to put everything in context and the Highland martial culture ties in with the wilderness survival perspective during that time people people who were travelling into the wild away from the homestead if they weren't cattle drovers or you know travellers or tradesmen then there were warriors on Castle raiding or battle campaigns so first a simplified historical background so for centuries the Highlands had a very strong warrior culture and the client chiefs and layers often had a number of specialist warriors often made up from the clan gentry and and the average man of the peasantry class although not a specialist warrior it was in the culture for every man to be trained in the martial basics so this meant that clan could very quickly summon an army and the the peasantry of men were led by the specialized warriors so this is where we get the word Katerine from from the Gallic catania which was a collective term for peasantry but then came to mean a band of fighting men so cattle was a main form of khana me in the highlands and a big part of the warrior culture as well as a sort of masculine initiation it was cattle rating so basically sneak in to your rivals land and the cover of darkness try roundup many of their cattle as you can and herd them back to your land hopefully without being discovered so this was often done in the autumn time when the harvest was in and bright moonlit nights are more common during that time of year now if and when you were discovered by your rivals and if you couldn't sort out some sort of deal or negotiation then often it was settled with violence and that could be anywhere between just the best warriors from either side having a jewel or a full-on client skirmish I highly recommend the book school of the moon versus collection of stories based on true events about this cattle raiding warrior culture and I think the paperback is pretty hard to find and expensive but there is a Kindle version that's quite cheap I'll put a link below to that hopefully there's some context for you so let's go on to the main topic of the video the charge to the words charge sometimes pronounced are gay it comes from an old Franconian word targa which means shield also similar to a proto-germanic word târgu the gallic is pterygoid and these words are apparently the origins of the english words target as in an object to be aimed at so these words generally refer to a shield 18 to 21 inches in diameter that is strapped to your arm with a double strap so different to buckler which is a small shield with just a central handle in the middle so the charge was a common infantry weapon in the highlands maybe of going as far back as Middle Ages both certainly very common in the 17th and 18th century so if you want an in-depth video and had their design changed over the centuries and go check out Paul's video from staccato he's got a very in-depth video on the history of the Taj and the change in design so in the context of this video I'm just looking at 17th and 18th century and during this time period the targe had evolved to deal with the increased use of black-powder firearms on the battlefield and so they were becoming thicker heavier more reinforced more heavily studded in an effort to to stop musket balls but of course as they were getting thicker they were getting heavier so they had to become smaller so that you know you could still actually pick up and wield it in the battle and you'll see some reproductions fitted the long leather strap so you can fling it over your back and carry it and although there's no surviving historical examples with that it makes sense to have a strap so you can carry this over your back when you're walking so as is often the case the surviving examples that we see in museums were often owned by wealthier people they're often very very ornate with you know complex start designs sometimes with a removable spike in the boss but you know potentially a more common man's targe was made a bit more simpler so this particular tart is made in the traditional way quite an interesting way to make it as strong as possible so here is the man who made it green from Alba targes who's gonna be taking us through the making process stay tuned we have an example made by myself for a typical Hale ontology let's take him put a clock added by Knights of the nobility of client Chiefs and your officers of the clans so typically tail and shields will be covered with some kind of animal with I hate such as Kohei door deal hate let's example I'm holding here today as cold and I co hate so about three to three-and-a-half millimeters and thickness I soloed the calf the cast went to carbon various Dec addition went to the lower hate that eight-way traditionally the Catherine pro would have used maybe a piece of deer antler to carve on these intricate designs also potato services shield as a saint a boss made of glass before smaller bosses on the outer perimeter the boss is not on the saved as protection for the shield but also for ornamentation as well the less tiles heal has a very special feature it's hidden behind the tiles and a whaler poach see here on the back of the tart now this is quite unusual actually and that it's more of a a weird and I speak or by screwing a nice end to the center of the boss Zhu Qiqi a formidable weapon as well as our formal defense nor make you do and flecked some CDs and Judy on your attacking with this we could also catch sword Boyd's but all our pulled weapons as you can see here of animal hate here this particular example asgore hate and the kind of hazy would abuse knew they would have been gone eight D aid possibly even bought hate that's his type down at the back and it sends here we have an arm pad which is formed using straw which is placed underneath the hate or need to see the vampire of two little strips which are tagged down to keep it in place so the umpire dogs activates and cushioning for the arm against boys on the front of the Taj here we have the way alarm strap which is the flex to to metal brackets on the seat and here we have a handle know the handle you can get a point secured clip ice is formed by this particular example has her up at asteroid please through the handle so they can ever that's made our more versatility see holding a duck okay so I have a long example the Halen told she'll this one's slightly bigger than the other example this is a 21 inch in diameter again Haley ornamented slightly less studs on the other torch over still really striking in its design that's the TARDIS I sold replica or the tires it was carried by Ian care who's the 22nd chief of the clan McDougald who carried out in 1700s so again claim example volatile judicata by our chief Aden officer so taking a closer look he'll the ornamentation in the front of the stars you can see the various kind of designs in symbols but emboss of tools into the fees of the charge from Celtic knotwork and in between we have some for sale met Walton a Parsons here trick waiters and quite striking away our own de Sade we have a number of different animals so between polymer phones and Scottish Highlands but is poor as a ribbon core which tip is typically formed from two layers of point woods which was set at right angles to each other that's pervaded a strong core for the Taj typically made of wood such as oak or pain walk being about here they are but more resistant to have yours pain our weight of it perhaps more antiseptic for actually however the way the construction of the coil is made through the pines been going together array angles and also here from the very rigid strong structure and of course been held together by the leather of the face of the taj and a better robust shield overall again very similar to the authorized filter we have a covering of gore height of a where those arms shop here the difference with us one is it's fixed with metal studs on our side we have the arm pads here you have the handle which again is Laila which is wait-wait molded or wet formed over a piece of rope and it would on the under say Tia kneeled on I will say remains a very strong and rigid handle but again you can see no ever turned over from the piece of the toes and type down the back today it's a very strong vegetal so that's us hopefully cover the bases my construction the sports estas what we've learned something today we're not off to do battle with a fiercest enemy the Scottish much spider you Tom so now we know how it was made how was actually used in combat well let's discuss in the battlefield first so in the 17th and 18th century the targe was most commonly used with the basket hilted broadsword so this was a common weapon in Europe as well but it became a favorite among the Highlanders especially the Highland gentry it's basically slashing and cutting weapon with a pretty convincing tip as well with a protective metal basket around the hand in terms of other weapons use there is earlier accounts of people using small hand axes with the targe it's also commonly reported and depicted in all the illustrations of highland lawyers holding their Dirk in the same hand as a [ __ ] so this meant that you could use this as a secondary weapon just like the famous stories of how the Jacobites broke through some of the Redcoat bayonet lines by first parrying the bayonet with the tardes following through with the Dirk before finalizing with a cut from the broadsword this also meant if you happen to lose your sword in battle then your Dirk was close to hand to use in an emergency now in the battlefield context the torch wasn't designed to be a formation shield so it wasn't designed to be in a big long line of overlapping shields you know typical to her the Vikings might have thought it's a bit too small for that but descriptions of past battles do say that people armed with broad swords and targes were situated in the front rank so you know that makes sense you're providing protection from the rest of your men from enemy projectiles but then it's also worth considering that the gentry of the clan probably would have had the best targes and it was generally the honorable thing for them to be in the front rank anyway now Highlanders were famous for a tactic called Highland charge which simply put is basically trying to surprise your enemy and charge at them as a body of man coming from the higher ground no old battlefield stories describe that as you are charging down the hill when you saw your enemy raised their muskets for a volley then the front rank would kneel and slightly tilt their charge with the idea of deflecting any enemy musket rounds the rank behind you would then return musket fire before you'd get back to your feet and charge at the final bones basically talk about fighting with the tards on a one-to-one context well the main historical manuals there we have our Donald McBain and 1728 Thomas page 17 46 and the Penacook drawings of 1746 and from those we can draw three basic rules for fighting with the targe one hold it correctly don't exhaust yourself but the torch is typically held at the edge facing your opponent like so but because it's quite heavy you got to be careful not to tie yourself at now there is some moves where you extend your torch with your sword arm but generally an order to save energy then you're ruling the charge into different guards using your shoulder which is a stronger muscle with the idea that you're going to get tired less quickly - don't blame yourself and Donald McBain spooky specifically says that if you're not experienced fighting with the targe then never use one in a duel because what tended to happen was that someone would faint to the head you would panic completely blind yourself leaving your body open and you have no idea where your opponent is 3 cover the line of attack no movies when you see people fight with swords and shields you tend to see them doing these big movements one after another sword being like that and I might Luke epic but you're gonna get exhausted really really quickly and you're also exposing your arms as you're doing that so rather than keeping your shield close to you and doing these moves like that you know every time I do that that my entire forearm is open to be attacked so it's definitely taught and these old manuals is to extend your charge along with your sword arm so that I'm protecting the forearm of my sword hand and also with the right angle I'm also protecting my head from counter attack those are the absolute Billy basics but here's heikal showing some examples of him sparring with the broadsword tied check it out [Music] [Applause] so Heinkel has a full series of lessons on the broadsword and tardes all the way from the basics right up to experimental sparring with other weapons so if you're interested in that so I stuff definitely go subscribe to his channel but there's a background in the Highland Tiger you what I'm thinking of exploring next is tying this back into the wilderness survival aspect so experimenting carrying and traveling with the weapons alongside my sleeping system and my survival kit and but due to the weight of the weapons I'm probably going to have to simplify my survival kit even more which should be interesting the shoes thanks to heichal from the Katherine Society for sharing all your knowledge and expertise and the Marshall side and shoes thanks to Grimm from Albert archers for making me this absolutely amazing [ __ ] definitely go check out a shop I'll put a link below he also made me this beautiful sword Baldrick with this Celtic knot design and he also lent me his sword for this video so she was grading for that I'm hopefully gonna pick one up for myself soon thanks so much for watching folks huge thanks to all my patrons and supporters all the people who have sent me nice messages of support I really really appreciate it can't tell you how much I appreciate it and hope you enjoyed this one and I'll be back with another video as soon as I can Cheers have a good day

Channel: Fandabi Dozi

Views: 47,346

Rating: 4.9824343 out of 5

Keywords: Targe, Highland Targe, Shield, History, Scotland, kilt, combat, HEMA, broadsword, Survival, Historical martial arts, martial arts, craft, Alba Targes, handmade, fighting with a shield, fandabi dozi, school of the moon

Id: YNgpI0NH65g

Length: 16min 21sec (981 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 03 2020