Evolution Of The Medieval Helmet

Just a reminder that I make high quality t-shirts, sweaters and hoodies with the English Knight design on them. 20% of profits go to the re-enactor and the artist featured, so make them happy knights by purchasing a lovely piece of clothing from us. One of the most iconic components of medieval armour is of course, the helmet. This piece of armour best shows the evolution of medieval combat and how certain protection adapted and changed to counter for military techniques throughout the middle ages. In today's video, we'll be taking a look at a timeline of helmet evolution in chronological order, beginning with the infamous nasal helmets of the 11th century, right up to the varying examples of visored helmets of the 15th century. So, without further ado, let's begin by delving into the early medieval period, at the time of the Battle of Hastings. In 1066, the Normans invaded Anglo-Saxon England and won a crushing victory at the Battle of Hastings on the 14th of October of the same year. The Norman knights famously wore conical iron helmets with metal bars protecting the nose. These were called nasal helmets, but despite being part of a typical Norman look, nasal helmets were actually widely used all throughout Western Europe by the 11th century, and indeed were worn by the Vikings and the Anglo-Saxons. As a side note, you could probably refer to the Anglo-Saxons as the English by this point in history, as it had now been over 600 years since they originally settled in Britain from overseas territories such as Northern Germany. The nasal helmet marked one of the first pieces of solid metal armour used by militaries in Western Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire, where body armour such as the lorica segmentata had been used by the Roman military. The first nasal helmets were made in a spangenhelm construction. This meant that the skulls were built of four separate plates of iron, and riveted together by overlapping bands going from the nose to the nape, ear to the ear, and around the head like a headband. This was due to the inability to forge larger pieces of iron and weld them together, but indeed forge welding was a thing in the medieval period. This was achieved by getting metal pieces up to a very high temperature in the forge so that they glowed bright yellow. Then flux was sprinkled over the metals, which was usually sand, wood ash, or crushed oyster shells. This flux removed oxygen from the hot metal surfaces, since oxygen creates scale, and the presence of scale would make it possible for two metals to fuse when they are hammer welded together. Once the scale and presence of oxygen was removed, the two metals could now be hammered together and welded. Forge welding allowed the helmet to become stronger, now being made from two pieces of iron instead of four, and no longer relying on the strength of rivets to hold everything together. Soon after, one piece helmet became popular, which required the expertise of a highly skilled armourer to hammer out a deep conical shape for the skull cap in a method known as raising. For this method, a large circular sheet of iron or steel would be held over a forge until it became glowing hot. Then it would be hammered over a curved ball stake in a circular pattern, beginning in the middle and going round and round in segments until the entire piece was curved into a domed shape. For helmets where the nasal bar wasn't riveted on as a separate piece, the armourer would need to remember to add the nasal bar into the original sheet of metal cutout when drawing out the plans for the helmet. By the very late 11th and into the 12th centuries, various adaptions of the nasal helmet begin to be developed, such as the phrygian, which was essentially the same as the typical nasal helmet, but features a curved tip which sweeps forward at the top of the head. While this likely doesn't provide any additional protection or strength to the helmet, we do see this style of helmet being used all throughout the antiquity, worn by warriors of ancient civilizations such as the Greeks, Thracians and the Macedonians. This style of helmet may have been a tip of the hat to the resurgence of the love of the antiquity that the Normans had, which was clear in their Romanesque architecture and devotion to the Christian faith. Nasal helmets provided an excellent amount of vision, and were designed to work with the male hood, which was usually integrated with the male halberds which were the main body armour of this time period. The male hood, or coif, would protect the back of the head, the chin and the throat. Then the helmet would act as a second layer of protection. And of course, the nasal bar would protect the face from incoming glancing strikes from weapons such as sword blades or shields. The nasal helmet was a key component of armour throughout the 10th to 13th centuries, and was widely used by both mounted knights and dismounted soldiers. The nasal helmet provided excellent vision and ventilation, however the exposed eyes would be a drawback as you would be at significant risk from well-aimed spear thrusts or incoming arrow fire. By the beginning of the 12th century, experimentation began to take place where the nasal helmet evolved to include additional face protection. We are not yet in the age of the visored helmet, but instead a faceplate was riveted onto the front of the helmet to cover the exposed area that couldn't be effectively covered by the male. The very first of this new style of helmet comes from the mid-12th century, where a strip of metal is riveted to the helmet which goes around the chin. The metal strip acts as a secondary layer of protection alongside the male, but specifically helps to stop incoming blades in their tracks. This helmet is from the effigy of Sir Geoffrey de Mandeville, found in the Temple Church in London. It is likely one of the first of its kind, and shows the beginnings of the transition from simple skullcap helmets into something more engineered with face protection in mind. Soon after, these would evolve further to cover the entire face, with the invention of the eyeslips or oculars. It is important to note that not all helmets transitioned from the conical styles to the flat tops. Indeed, they were both being used by knights simultaneously. Knightly helmets would favour the flat top, perhaps because knightly combat became almost exclusively fought on horseback, so incoming strikes from above was unlikely. But as the English began to favour dismounted combat more during the 14th century, conical tops once again became the most prevalent types of helmet. Here we have an example of a knightly helmet with full face protection, which is from around 1190 AD. This specific style of helmet features on a fresco entitled The Martyrdom of St. Thomas Becker, which dates to around 1230 AD, but depicts a scene from 1170. For a brief period in history, this became one of the most common types of helmet reserved for the knightly classes, but it was at a time when the previously shown flat top helmets were still in use, as well as the more simple male coif and skullcap. The faceplates were also made so they swept away from the face so that they wouldn't be pressing directly on the nose. Over time, the back of the helmet would gradually extend down the neck area, making the helmet become a more fully fleshed out piece of head protection. It is important to remember the context of why helmets changed in these specific ways. By the late 12th and early 13th centuries, heavy cavalry were being utilised more with the introduction of the lance. No more were cavalry expected to be light on their feet and used to simply harass and distract an opponent army. Now they were ploughing full speed into the enemy ranks, with an active effort to break their line structure, causing chaos. Iron faceplates therefore did a much better job than a male coif at stopping incoming spearheads from penetrating into the knight's face. As such, male could no longer be relied upon as the primary layer of defence anymore, hence why larger, more protective helmets were invented. As we roll into the 13th century, a new type of helmet appears. Great helms are considered by many to capture the essence of what a typical medieval knightly helmet looks like. They are incredibly characteristic, and by covering the wearer's head completely, they give the knight an almost legendary mystery about them – no longer being able to see or recognise your opponent behind his mask. Great helms are generally made with a flat-topped skullcap, with multiple plates of metal riveted all around the lower half of the head, with the faceplate being more extended down the head than the neckplate, so that the knight can still tilt his head and enjoy a certain level of mobility. It is important to remember that great helms were typically used for mounted combat, where mobility and a wide field of vision wasn't as necessary, but great helms could still certainly be used in dismounted combat as well. However, knights of this period primarily fought on horseback, and the great helm is a knightly helmet, not for the lowly soldier. Often, a knight would be wearing a second, smaller helmet underneath the great helm, called a skullcap or a sivelier. This item would eventually evolve into the bassinet, which takes over from the great helm by the beginning of the 14th century. The sivelier would be the knight's second line of defence, often worn during foot combat as the knight would remove his great helm as he dismounts his horse, now enjoying a much better field of vision and air circulation as he fights on foot. Great helmets feature long, thin eye slits and multiple breath holes on the cheek plates, and sometimes also feature additional decorations such as a large cross riveted to the front of the faceplate. This serves twofold as a decorative piece, but also helps to hold the multiple plates of metal together. The great helm is often attributed to the crusades, however this style of helmet only came about in the mid-13th century, with some of its earliest depictions being found in the Masizowski bible. So, the crusades wouldn't have featured the great helm at all, and instead the nasal helm would have been adorned by knights who took part in the crusades. The earliest forms of helmet that can be attributed to the great helm comes from the Basilica di Santa Gestina in Padua, Italy, where a depiction of a knight wearing a helmet with faceplate protection can be seen carved into the masonry, and this likely dates back to around 1180 AD. Then, dating back to the early 13th century, possibly around 1215 AD, this funerary box contains the remains of Charlemagne in the Aachen Cathedral, and bears gilded depictions of knights on horseback, again wearing faceplate helmets. The great helm was actually one of the longest serving helmets used by knights throughout the middle ages. It evolved significantly over time, turning into large heavy duty variations in the 14th century, with the knight wearing a full bassinet and aventail underneath his great helm. By the late 14th and early 15th centuries, this type of helmet was replaced by the visored bassinet, and was no longer used in field combat. However, the great helm now found a new purpose, jousting. The great helm had already been widely used in jousting tournaments since the 13th century, but on the battlefield, they were now considered a little too clunky and cumbersome for 15th century combat. But of course, in jousting, where the combat elements are somewhat more controlled and protection was more important than mobility, the great helm found a new lease in life, and evolved into the frogmouth helmet which we all know and love. Of course, these are all modern names that we give to these forms of head protection, in an attempt to introduce a level of familiar terminology to each helmet's associated attributes. Knights of the middle ages certainly weren't calling their helmets great, or frog-like. As the great helm gave way to the bassinet, this new type of helmet quickly became the new most common helmet on the battlefield, not only worn by knights, but also utilised by lesser armoured soldiers such as archers. The bassinet was shaped in the form of the skull, but with an elongated apex which made them look fairly eggish. This extended tip acted as a cushion between the metal and the wearer's skull. Then, a coif of mail, called an aventail, was attached to the helmet using a series of pins and laces. This mail would generally be a very tight weave, since protection of the throat and neck was very important. By the early 1300s, the bassinet became evolved enough to no longer require the need for a great helm over the top. The bassinets also began to develop visors, the earliest of which appear to be what we refer to now as klappenvisors, where the visor would articulate around a central hinge on the forehead. These visors began life as being fairly flat, with protruding eye slits to help prevent offensive points from getting into the oculus. These klappenvisors were used pretty much universally around Europe, being particularly common in England, France and Germany. By the beginning of the Hundred Years' War, the threat of massed archers forced a change in the bassinet's visor construction. The visors now became much pointier, featuring a large cone peppered with breath holes. The idea for this was to create armour that would deflect incoming strikes and send them away either side of the knight, in the hopes that the arrows or splinters wouldn't ricochet into another part of the knight's armour. In the early days of the Hundred Years' War, the klappenvisor style was still in use, but by around 1370, this eventually got replaced by the more modern version which featured a hinge on each side of the helmet instead. Today, we generally regard these as houndskull visors. Until the beginning of the 15th century, both the new style of visor and the earlier klappenvisor was both in use at the same time. The visors continued to evolve as they now featured locking pins, which could be pulled out and allow for the entire visor to be removed. This made the bassinet ideal for both dismounted and cavalry use, especially favoured by the English who would typically use the visor when engaging in a heavy cavalry charge, breaking up the enemy ranks with big lances. Then the mounted knight would turn around, dismount the horse and march into battle on foot, leaving his visor behind so he had much better vision and air circulation for highly intensive foot combat. By around 1410, the male aventails began to be replaced with rigid metal plates, creating the great bassinet. These helmets needed to be strapped to the cuirass and had a lot less side to side movement than the bassinets with male aventails, but in return they allowed for a much higher level of protection. It was highly unlikely for incoming points to penetrate through the male aventails, but of course not impossible. This solid metal neck protection replacement negated this from being a possibility. The knight's head was also suspended inside these helmets, so the bassinets weren't resting on the top of the wearer's head, but instead on their shoulders. This lowered the chances of concussion if the knight were to receive a particularly heavy strike against the head. Of course, nothing would protect the knight fully and make him impenetrable on the battlefield, but these adaptations certainly helped, albeit lowering the knight's mobility in favour of high levels of defence. The armet is probably one of the most misunderstood helmets of the 15th century. The main point of contention appears to be when the armet first began to be used. Based upon feedback on my previous documentary How a 1440s Italian Joester Shall Be Armed, people generally believe that the armet was used much later in the 15th century. However, this is not actually true, and the armet was prevalent throughout much more of the 1400s than people typically think. Firstly, let's begin by explaining what the armet actually is. The armet is a full-faced helmet which is built to be very close to the wearer's head, effectively hugging the head with the rounded conical skull and a considerable sweep under the chin. They can be open-faced helmets, but were typically visored with a pointed snout visor, similar to a toned-down houndskull bassinet. Indeed, it is generally believed that the armet was the next evolutionary step of the grand bassinet, made slightly smaller with a less exaggerated conical apex on the tip of the skull. The armet was almost exclusively a cavalry helmet, not intended for dismounted combat, however there are a few depictions of dismounted knights using armets seen in contemporary artwork. But for re-enactors looking to commission a new helmet for their 15th century look, they should regard the armet as a cavalry helmet. The armet often features an additional component called a wrapper. This is an extra plate shaped in a similar fashion to an extended feather, and is placed on the front of the lower half of the helmet and the throat, attached around the back by a strap and buckle. The wrapper serves as an additional line of defence for incoming lance strikes, and was popular for jousting as well as field combat. Versions of the armet would branch off to become the close helm, which started life essentially looking the same as the armet, but opened up at the sides, while the armet opened up at the front by the use of a hook over the chin area. Throughout the 1500s, the armet would gradually disappear and be replaced by the close helm, which in turn gave way to the bergenet, also referred to as the bergenet or bergenet. Now the birth of the armet is something that people generally seem to struggle with. The armet is not a late 15th century helmet, or at least, it did not first come into fashion in the late 15th century. You may be surprised to know that the armet was actually in use by the 1430s. Not only this, but this style of helmet is also considered to have been the original component associated with one of the most famous armours in the world, the avant harness. I was lucky enough to visit the Kelvin Grove Museum in Glasgow, Scotland, where the avant harness is currently on display, and I got a private handling session with this fine armour. Despite how fierce the barbute may look, it is not actually the original helmet associated with the avant harness. Instead, the original is believed to be the IX-498, which is currently displayed at the Royal Armouries in Leeds. The two pieces bear the same maker's mark, and were both made in around 1450. As well as this, both the IX-498 helmet and the avant harness, also referred to as the kerberg number 20, were both made intended for cavalry use, and were also in the same private collection post the medieval period. The theory that the IX-498 was the original helmet made for the avant harness is a theory backed by experts in the field of arms and armour, such as Dr. Tobias Capwell, of whom I have been fortunate to discuss historical armour with on many occasions. There are also hundreds of depictions of armettes being worn by knights in contemporary artwork from around the 1440s. One of the most useful images would be the Battle of San Romano by Paolo Uccello, painted between 1438 and 1440, which clearly depicts multiple knights in Italian harness wearing armette helmets. The painting is currently on display in the National Gallery in London in room 62, item number NG583. Furthermore, for anyone wondering whether the addition of the wrapper was a much later adaption, look no further than the Armette with Wrapper, item number 20-150-1A, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This armette dates to 1460, but the wrapper bears the maker's mark of the Misaglia family, a prominent armoury in Italy, and the specific maker's mark featured on the wrapper dates to before 1452. As well as the addition of a wrapper, the armette also sometimes featured rondels on the back of the helmet at the nape of the neck. These were designed to absorb an incoming strike to the back of the head, taking out the majority of its power before the helmet itself is hit, helping to lower the chances of concussion, a broken neck, or other injuries. Finally, around the base of the helmet, you will see that there are many holes in the metal to make way for a short male aventail for further neck protection. Of course, there are hundreds of versions of each type of medieval helmet. There doesn't appear to be any uniformity, and each knightly helmet was fairly unique. There were industrial-sized armouries who tailored to mass-producing armour in order to quickly kit out an army, so lots of relatively simple-to-make helmets were readily available to buy. For the more engineered style of helmet, these were usually made to the knight's requirements and tailored accordingly. During the late 14th and 15th centuries, the barbute was a common helmet worn by a variety of military ranks, particularly in Italy. It was born out of a resurgence in antiquity history, shining a light on Roman and Greek legend. The barbute specifically appears to be inspired by Corinthian helmets of the classical Greek period. The barbute evolved from the bassinet, keeping the relative shape and sweep around the back of the neck, but the visor was also removed and replaced with an open face for better vision and air circulation, but with cheek plates protecting as much of the face as possible. This made the barbute a kind of Frankenstein's monster between a bassinet and a great helm. Some barbutes would feature a nasal bar, which hadn't really been prominently used in medieval armour for around a century by this point, so it's refreshing to see these older features of medieval helmets come back into prominence. Unfortunately, despite the booming export armour trade between Italy and England during the 15th century, barbutes were not adopted by the English knights, and there are pretty much no contemporary examples of English knights wearing barbute helmets in the 15th century. Honourable mentions also go to the kettle helmet, a battle-proven form of head protection, variants of which appears to be first used by the ancient Macedonian cavalry, and then continued to be used right through history up until the First World War, but these weren't generally considered helmets for the knightly classes, and indeed were more common with the lower classes, such as archers, crossbowmen, or levy soldiers. Some knights certainly would favour a kettle helmet, and incredibly fancy versions of this helmet did indeed exist, but it was never a classical style for a knightly helmet. Arguably one of the most prominent helmets of the 15th century was the sallet. The pronunciation of this helmet has been up to some contention, as people previously thought that it was pronounced sallet, due to most components of armour in English had originally come from French origins, but the first mentions of the term sallet comes from England, so there is no suggestion that it is a French word. The sallet first appears at the turn of the 15th century, and there are versions of what you may call a proto-sallet even earlier dating back to the 1380s. However, these visorless helmets could also easily be described as versions of kettle helmets or bassinets. Essentially, the sallet evolved from these two helmets, keeping the curved shape of bassinet skull and the pointed apex, but adding a more prominent sweep around the back of the neck, with the evolution of a tail going over the bottom of the neck. The first sallets we see appear to be open-faced, with no visor, but by the 1430s, we begin to see visored sallets appear in Western Europe, and by the 1460s, the sallet replaces the bassinet as the most popular knightly helmet for the remainder of the 15th century. There were many different types of the sallet. From the typically English style which features a high pointed apex on the top of the skull, sometimes referred to as an onion top, the classic Coventry sallet is an excellent example of the English style. Then the German armouries had their own tailored style, often featuring a jawbone visor, which means the visor only covers from the bottom of the eyes to the chin, rather than having the oculus built into the visor. German styles also often depict a more extended tail over the back of the neck, with some even being articulated. And then the Italians had their own type of sallets as well, which usually had a much shorter tail, more globo-shaped to form the skull, along with a strong central ridge, and a cutout for the plume holder. Also, the visors typically featured the previously mentioned jawbone, but with oculus and a reinforced brow plate all included within the visor configuration. One of the best examples of the Italian style is the Leeds 1460s sallet, currently on display at the Royal Armouries in Leeds, England. One of the keys to the sallet's success was the fact that it had many configurations of wearability. If you wanted more mobility and be more lightly armoured, or perhaps you wanted improved vision and air circulation, you could opt for an open-faced sallet matched with a male collar. So all your main vulnerabilities were covered, the skull, neck and throat, but you still had unimpeded vision and ease of breathing. And then, if you needed a higher level of protection, you could choose to wear a visored sallet with a bever. Of course, the bever is an additional component of armour which protects the throat and chin, sometimes rising high enough to protect over the nose as well. Bevers were sometimes made of one single piece of metal, or multiple articulated plates that could be pressed down for better air circulation, or held up with a spring pin for additional protection. Here lies the beauty of the sallet. There are simply so many options when it comes to configuring your level of protection. Open-faced helmet with male collar, visored sallet with male collar, open-faced sallet with bever, visored sallet with bever, but the visor is locked in the upwards position for better visibility, or visored sallet with the visor down and with a bever for full protection, which would be ideal for heavy cavalry charges where you are charging directly into enemy ranks, likely filled with sharp spears and other pole arms. Despite only being in prominent use for around 30 years, the sallet quickly rose to fame as the most popular helmet by far from the 1460s to the 1490s, and depictions of this helmet is shown en masse in contemporary artwork, being worn by every rank of soldier from lowly archers to fully armoured knights. The sallet lends itself to both dismounted and mounted use, which was certainly perfect for the English knights who particularly favoured a mix of cavalry and foot combat. Now, of course, there are downsides to the sallet. For example, if you wore a bever with it and needed to remove it in haste. If you are wearing a full arm harness with pauldrons, as you likely would if you were a fully armoured knight, then you would not be able to reach the buckle and strap around the back of your neck. With an armette, you could quite easily release the hook on the chin of your helmet, assuming you are not wearing a wrapper over the top, and you will be able to quickly remove your helmet. And if you are wearing a bever with your sallet, then remember that the chin strap for the helmet itself is usually underneath the bever, so removing the bever is a requirement before being able to remove the helmet. Another downside is that the sallet might not be your first choice when it comes to jousting. We do see sallets being worn by knights in artistic depictions of jousting tournaments, but the fact that the helmets effectively come in two halves mean that they are inevitably going to be weaker than a single piece full face helmet if a lance were to directly strike against the face. In jousting, things can happen very fast and wood splinters from the lance could get in between the bever and the visor of the sallet. Due to this, we do see custom made sallet and bever combos, which have been specially designed to integrate the helmet and the bever together as one articulated but solid piece. Again, these are more tailored for tournaments rather than field combat, and are more common in the Holy Roman Empire rather than Italy or England. And so, this has been a brief overview of the most popular and classical helmets worn by the knightly classes throughout the Middle Ages. Of course, there are so many more unique types of of helmet that I've already mentioned in this video, but giving each of these specific helmets a spotlight would make for a very long documentary indeed. I would love to hear what your personal favourite style of helmet is and why, so please leave a comment in the comment section below. While you're down there, why not check out my own clothing brand, Armed Clothing, using the link in the video description box, and pick yourself up a nice comfy shirt with an English knight on it. The first How A Man Shall Be Armed episode ever filmed on this channel. But for now, thanks for watching.