What John said... Particularly on field loss! Shunt wound motor setups should feature a "Field Loss Relay" - e.g. Monarch 10EEs have 'em:
If you're feeding it AC (which you often can for a shunt-wound motor, they're usually "universal" motors, but check the motor plate) a current transformer on one of the field wires can drive a relay to switch the armature feed, to ensure you don't end up with the motor running away on field loss - using a current transformer rather than just the field voltage will cut the armature current if the field goes open-circuit in a Disaster.
If feeding it DC, a low-value (but high power!) resistor in one of the field wires can be bridged by a relay coil to do the same thing, the relay switching the armature current, be aware that DC puts a lot more strain on the relay contacts, DON'T take the AC rating as gospel!
E.G. for DC if the field's rated at 5A a 1-ohm resistor will have a 5V drop across it, need a 25W or higher rating (so a wire-wound in a nice fat ally case would be good), a 5V coil relay could switch another, heftier, relay's coil current to get the contact current rating you need.
Hope this helps, rather than confuses!
Dave H. (the other one)