Crossbow Pavise (Large)

XIV-XV century shield ready to paint.

The pavise is a truly fantastic piece of equipment! First found in the XIV-XV century Europe, they were as big as a man, and carried around to be placed in strategic positions and used as cover. Most commonly associated with crossbowmen, these large shields provided armies with much needed relief as they crouched behind them to reload their weapons.

Unfortunately, this pavise isn’t quite as big as its historical counterpart, for the simple reason that postal restrictions won’t let us put anything bigger than this in the mail! We hope that you’ll still find use for this slightly smaller but still exquisite piece of equipment.

This pavise is made in the shape you would expect: the signature rectangular shape with a spine down the middle, all constructed from three pieces of plywood. It is completely wrapped in coarse linen to provide structural strength as well as to give you a great canvas for painting. The front of the linen has been primed white to help make painting it a little bit easier.

This pavise includes two handles at the back to make it easy to move around and place in a different location. We’ve arranged the handles in such a way that it should be simple to pick up and move around, as well as comfortable against your hands. The handles are wrapped in leather and secured with furniture bolts to make sure they won’t be falling out any time soon.

The pavise was often found painted boldly, with many bright colours, symbols, coat of arms and latin phrases. This pavise, however, is completely blank and ready for you to paint! All you have to do is decide how you’re going to decorate it. We hope that you enjoy this interesting piece of defensive equipment and find the history of it as fascinating as we do - we would love to see how you decide to paint it.

If you’re looking for a late XV style hand pavise, we have also recently released one as well, which is blank like this one and also ready for customisation. Why not get a matching pair?

Please contact us if you have any additional questions.