PAVIS, or PAVISE  , a large convex shield, some 4 to 5 ft. high and sufficiently broad to cover the entire body, used in medieval warfare, as a protection against arrows and other missiles . The word appears in innumerable forms in Old French, Italian and Medieval Latin, and is probably to be referred to Pavia, in Italy, where such shields were made . The term " pavisade " or " pavesade " was used of a portable screen of hurdles behind which archers might find protection, or of a similar defensive screen formed by linking together " pavises," especially on board a ship of war extending along the bulwarks, and hence in later times of a canvas screen similarly placed to conceal the rowers in a galley or the sailors on other types of ships .