The armet is a type of combat helmet which was developed in the 15th century. It was extensively used in Italy, France, England, the Low Countries and Spain. It was distinguished by being the first helmet of its era to completely enclose the head while being compact and light enough to move with the wearer. Its use was essentially restricted to the fully armoured man-at-arms.
As the armet was fully enclosing, and narrowed to follow the contours of the neck and throat, it had to have a mechanical means of opening and closing to enable it to be worn. The typical armet consisted of four pieces: the skull, the two large hinged cheek-pieces which locked at the front over the chin, and a visor which had a double pivot, one either side of the skull. The cheek-pieces opened laterally by means of horizontal hinges; when closed they overlapped at the chin, fastening by a spring-pin which engaged in a corresponding hole, or by a swivel-hook and pierced staple. A reinforcement for the bottom half of the face, known as a wrapper, was sometimes added; its straps were protected by a metal disc at the base of the skull piece called a rondel. The visor attached to each pivot via hinges with removable pins, as in the later examples of the bascinet. This method remained in use until c. 1520, after which the hinge disappeared and the visor had a solid connection to its pivot. The earlier armet often had a small aventail, a piece of mail attached to the bottom edge of each cheek-piece. [1]
The earliest surviving armet dates to 1420 and was made in Milan. [2] An Italian origin for this type of helmet therefore seems to be indicated. The innovation of a reduced skull and large hinged cheek pieces was such a radical departure from previous forms of helmet that it is highly probable that the armet resulted from the invention of a single armourer or soldier, and not as the result of evolution from earlier forms. [2] However, a number of Italian bascinets dating to c. 1400 (sometimes termed 'Venetian great bascinets') were discovered in Chalcis, Greece; these possess a single hinged cheekpiece (the other being immobile). This may have had some influence on the development of the armet. [3]
The armet reached the height of its popularity during the late 15th and early 16th centuries, when western European full plate armour had been perfected. Movable face and cheek pieces allowed the wearer to close the helmet, thus fully protecting the head from blows. The term armet was often applied in contemporary usage to any fully enclosing helmet, however, modern scholarship draws a distinction between the armet and the outwardly similar close helmet (or close helm) on the basis of their construction, especially their means of opening to allow them to be worn. While an armet had two large cheekpieces hinged at the skull and opened laterally, a close helmet instead had a kind of movable bevor which was attached to the same pivot points as its visor and opened vertically. [4]
The classic armet had a narrow extension to the back of the skull reaching down to the nape of the neck, and the cheekpieces were hinged, horizontally, directly from the main part of the skull. From about 1515, the Germans produced a variant armet where the downward extension of the skull was made much wider, reaching as far forward as the ears. The cheekpieces on this type of helmet opened sideways, on vertical hinges on the edges of this wider neck element. [5] The high-quality English Greenwich armours often included this type of armet from c. 1525. Greenwich-made armets adopted the elegant two-piece visor found on contemporary close helmets; armets of this form were manufactured until as late as 1615. The lower edge of such helmets often closed over a flange in the upper edge of a gorget-piece. The helmet could then rotate without allowing a gap in the armour that a weapon point could enter. [6]
The armet is found in many contemporary pieces of artwork, such as Paolo Uccello's The Battle of San Romano , and is almost always shown as part of a Milanese armor. These depictions show armets worn with tall and elaborate crests, largely of feathered plumes; however, no surviving armets have similar crests and very few show obvious provision for the attachment of such crests. [7]
The armet was most popular in Italy, however, in England, France and Spain it was widely used by men-at-arms alongside the sallet, whilst in Germany the latter helmet was much more common. It is believed that the close helmet resulted from a combination of various elements derived from each of the preceding helmet types.
A helmet is a form of protective gear worn to protect the head. More specifically, a helmet complements the skull in protecting the human brain. Ceremonial or symbolic helmets without protective function are sometimes worn. Soldiers wear combat helmets, often made from Kevlar or other lightweight synthetic fibers.
The sallet was a combat helmet that replaced the bascinet in Italy, western and northern Europe and Hungary during the mid-15th century. In Italy, France and England the armet helmet was also popular, but in Germany the sallet became almost universal.
The bascinet – also bassinet, basinet, or bazineto – was a Medieval European open-faced combat helmet. It evolved from a type of iron or steel skullcap, but had a more pointed apex to the skull, and it extended downwards at the rear and sides to afford protection for the neck. A mail curtain was usually attached to the lower edge of the helmet to protect the throat, neck and shoulders. A visor was often employed from c. 1330 to protect the exposed face. Early in the fifteenth century, the camail began to be replaced by a plate metal gorget, giving rise to the so-called "great bascinet".
An aventail or camail is a flexible curtain of mail attached to the skull of a helmet that extends to cover at least the neck, but often also the throat and shoulders. Part or all of the face, with spaces to allow vision, could also be covered. Some featured a ventail which could be folded over the bottom face and vice versa, much in the same manner as a visor.
A gorget, from the French gorge meaning throat, was a band of linen wrapped around a woman's neck and head in the medieval period or the lower part of a simple chaperon hood. The term later described a steel or leather collar to protect the throat, a set of pieces of plate armour, or a single piece of plate armour hanging from the neck and covering the throat and chest. Later, particularly from the 18th century, the gorget became primarily ornamental, serving as a symbolic accessory on military uniforms, a use which has survived in some armies.
The great helm or heaume, also called pot helm, bucket helm and barrel helm, is a helmet of the High Middle Ages which arose in the late twelfth century in the context of the Crusades and remained in use until the fourteenth century. The barreled style was used by knights in most West European armies between about 1220 to 1350 AD and evolved into the frog-mouth helm to be primarily used during jousting contests.
The burgonet helmet was a Renaissance-era and early modern combat helmet. It was the successor of the sallet.
A barbute is a visorless war helmet of 15th-century Italian design, often with a distinctive "T" shaped or "Y" shaped opening for the eyes and mouth.
The lobster-tailed pot helmet, also known as the zischägge, horseman's pot and harquebusier's pot, was a type of post-Renaissance combat helmet. It became popular in Europe, especially for cavalry and officers, from c. 1600; it was derived from an Ottoman Turkish helmet type. The helmet gradually fell out of use in most of Europe in the late 17th century; however, the Austrian heavy cavalry retained it for some campaigns as late as the 1780s.
Maximilian armour is a modern term applied to the style of early 16th-century German plate armour associated with, and possibly first made for the Emperor Maximilian I. The armour is still white armour, made in plain steel, but it is decorated with many flutings that may also have played a role in deflecting the points and blades of assailants and increasing the structural strength of the plates. It is a transitional stage in the decoration of armour, after the plain steel surfaces of 15th-century armour and before the elaborate decoration and colouring with etching and other techniques of Renaissance armour. The armour is characterized by armets and close helmets with bellows visors; small fan-shaped narrow and parallel fluting—often covering most of the harness ; etching; work taken from woodcuts; sharply waisted cuirasses, and squared sabatons.
The nasal helmet was a type of combat helmet characterised by the possession of a projecting bar covering the nose and thus protecting the centre of the face; it was of Western European origins and was used from the late 9th century to at least c. 1250.
A morion is a type of open-faced combat helmet originally from the Kingdom of Castile (Spain), used from the beginning 16th to early 17th centuries, usually having a flat brim and a crest from front to back. Its introduction was contemporaneous with the exploration of North, Central and South America. Explorers such as Hernando de Soto and Coronado may have supplied them to their foot soldiers in the 1540s.
The close helmet or close helm is a type of combat helmet that was worn by knights and other men-at-arms in the Late Medieval and Renaissance eras. It was also used by some heavily armoured, pistol-armed cuirassiers into the mid-17th century. It is a fully enclosing helmet with a pivoting visor and integral bevor.
The enclosed helmet, also termed a primitive great helm or early great helm, was a type of Western European helmet of the late 12th and early 13th century. It was the forerunner of the great helm.
A Chalcidian helmet or Chalcidian type helmet was a helmet made of bronze and worn by ancient warriors of the Hellenic world, especially popular in Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. The helmet was also worn extensively in the Greek (southern) parts of Italy in the same period.
Greenwich armour is the plate armour in a distinctively English style produced by the Royal Almain Armoury founded by Henry VIII in 1511 in Greenwich near London, which continued until the English Civil War. The armoury was formed by imported master armourers hired by Henry VIII, initially including some from Italy and Flanders, as well as the Germans who dominated during most of the 16th century. The most notable head armourer of the Greenwich workshop was Jacob Halder, who was master workman of the armoury from 1576 to 1607. This was the peak period of the armoury's production and it coincided with the elaborately gilded and sometimes coloured decorated styles of late Tudor England.
The Newstead Helmet is an iron Roman cavalry helmet dating to 80–100 AD that was discovered at the site of a Roman fort in Newstead, near Melrose in Roxburghshire, Scotland in 1905. It is now part of the Newstead Collection at the National Museum in Edinburgh. The helmet would have been worn by auxiliary cavalrymen in cavalry displays known as hippika gymnasia. Its discoverer, Sir James Curle (1862–1944), described the helmet as "one of the most beautiful things that the receding tide of Roman conquest has left behind".
The Late Roman ridge helmet was a type of combat helmet of Late Antiquity used by soldiers of the Late Roman army. It was characterized by the possession of a bowl made up of two or four parts, united by a longitudinal ridge.
Funerary Helmets,Mortuary Helms, or Mort Helms were the major element of a suit of armour that was most often placed above or near the carved memorial effigy of the knights or members of the nobility concerned in a tradition that ran from at least the 14th through to the 17th century, particularly when the person concerned had gained a reputation in life as a warrior. These helmets were often brightly painted or otherwise ornamented with floral designs, etc. Largely located within rural churches and other religious buildings, the practice was especially common in the south-west English counties and Cornwall with only a few examples known from Scotland.
The horned helmet of Henry VIII is the surviving part of a full suit of armour made by Konrad Seusenhofer between 1511 and 1514. The armour was a gift from the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I to the English king Henry VIII, following their alliance in the War of the League of Cambrai. The suit was elaborate and intended for display at tournament parades. It is unclear who was the intended wearer of the armour, but it appears to have been modelled on one of Henry's court fools. Henry may have worn the armour as a jest. The helmet has protruding eyes and a toothy grimace and is adorned with horns and spectacles. The helmet survived when the rest of the suit of armour was scrapped, probably after the English Civil War, and it is now in the collection of the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, which formerly used it as a symbol of the museum.
| Head |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Face | ||
| Neck | ||
| Torso | ||
| Arms | ||
| Legs | ||
| Pieces | ||