Who here uses a Great bascinet?

[Louis]

I was wondering who here among armoured HEMA / SCA / Harnischfechten / etc. practitioners uses a great bascinet for unmounted fighting and what your experience is with it's functionality in this role.
I recently purchased Tobias Capwells “armour of the English knight 1400-1450” and I am intrigued by the heavy use of the great bascinet in a mostly unmounted setting.
I'm familiar with the obvious drawbacks (field of view / general head mobility) and benefits (excellent protection) of course and it's popularity in a mounted role / jousting but I only have experience with a regular bascinet with mail aventail and I was wondering if there are any people here who use or have used a great bascinet in an unmounted setting and can comment about it's use in such a role; for example: have you experienced any drawbacks and benefits that you didn't expect?, do you feel heavily hindered by the lack of view of view?, were you able to adapt to it's downsides?, do you feel it's a benefit in some situations?, is there a particular reason you chose (to stick with) it or ended up going with a different helmet?
Any additional information about the type/style of great bascinet you use is also most welcome (for example: is your helmet the type that rest on the head or on the shoulders?, was it strapped down onto the cuirass?, are the neck/throat/bevor plates articulated or rigid?, what kind of visor do you have?, what style/period/region is the rest of your armour based on, Friedrich I or English, etc.).

[Sean M]

Daniel Jaquet wears one. The advantage is that a good fendente with the axe to the head is less likely to break your neck, the disadvantage is that your idea of safe play becomes different than the idea of people in bascinets or armets.

It seems that after grand bascinets become common, axe play becomes a jolly sport and not "have you both made out your wills and confessed your sins?"

My guy in the 1360s has never heard of such an outlandish contraption, and he gets quiet when the subject of axe play comes up.

[Louis]

Thanks for the input Sean, I hadn't really considered the effect on training but it makes sense that it changes according to the degree of protection the armour provides for the most vulnerable and difficult to protect part of the body.

[ArchibaltDavis]

I was wondering who here among armoured HEMA / SCA / Harnischfechten / etc. practitioners uses a great bascinet for unmounted fighting and what your experience is with it's functionality in this role.
I recently purchased Tobias Capwells “armour of the English knight 1400-1450” and I am intrigued by the heavy use of the great bascinet in a mostly unmounted setting.
I'm familiar with the obvious drawbacks (field of view / general head mobility) and benefits (excellent protection) of course and it's popularity in a mounted role / jousting but I only have experience with a regular bascinet with mail aventail and I was wondering if there are any people here who use or have used a great bascinet in an unmounted setting and can comment about it's use in such a role; for example: have you experienced any drawbacks and benefits that you didn't expect?, do you feel heavily hindered by the lack of view of view?, were you able to adapt to it's downsides?, do you feel it's a benefit in some situations?, is there a particular reason you chose (to stick with) it or ended up going with a different helmet?
Any additional information about the type/style of great bascinet you use is also most welcome (for example: is your helmet the type that rest on the head or on the shoulders?, was it strapped down onto the cuirass?, are the neck/throat/bevor plates articulated or rigid?, what kind of visor do you have?, what style/period/region is the rest of your armour based on, Friedrich I or English, etc.).

Hey! I have this bascinet https://steel-mastery.com/bascinet-hounskull.html
It provides a good protection of head, chain protect neck and throat. Perforation and cuts on the helmet help to give normal ventilation and normal visibility during a combat. I think it's a good variation for a fighting helmet

[Louis]

That's a regular bascinet, not a great bascinet.

[James Arlen Gillaspie]

When you think of grand bacinet, you should think, 'space helmet'. It does not rest on your head; your head moves inside it. As a consequence, the real ones have VERY wide face openings, and the visors have very wide wrap-around occularia and vision/breathing holes. If you can't look at least 45 degrees to each side, you have a poor attempt at a grand bacinet.

[juan]

Am I mistaken, or aren't those meant to be worn over a regular bascinet sans visor, or at least a cervellier?

[Louis]

Juan: That's a great helmet you are thinking about.

James: that is indeed what I would consider a "true" great bascinet, what I described in my opening post as the type that rests on the shoulders and often strapped down onto the cuirass in the front and/or back, the helmet of the suit of armour belonging to Friedrich I the victorious being a prime example. (With the other type of great/grand bascinet being distinctly different in that it still rests on, and still being at least to some degree controlled by, the head.)

On a side note:
The 1420-1450 English style seems to float somewhere in between the two styles, I base this mostly on the very tight fit displayed on effigies; being no larger than a normal bascinet there is no way it would allow much more movement of the head inside the helmet than a regular bascinet, a couple degrees at most I would say, mostly due to the give that the liner would allow.
That and the fact that most show a pivot rivet on the sides indicating that the skull was meant to facilitate a "nodding" movement in regards to the neck-plates/gorget, which would very likely not be necessary if the head had near complete freedom of movement inside the helmet.
I suspect a lot of (mostly earlier) English great bascinets facilitated an additional couple degrees of rotation by means of the helmet being able to rotate a very small amount over the shoulders; mostly due to the observation that a lot had the mail standard peaking out between the cuirass and bottom edge of the helmet and a lot were (again mostly earlier) not strapped down back and front onto the cuirass.
That, together with the couple degrees of rotation probably provided by the head inside the helmet and the eye-slits wrapping around the helmet just a bit more compared to a regular bascinet being just enough to give the necessary field of view width to make it a functional helmet. (I'd like to add here that it's not a secret that the English were willing to give up a huge amount of neck mobility for the sake of protection in this period. )
I've had long conversations with Mac about the 1440-1450 English style suit of armour he build for Tobias Capwell, he even send me his drawings of how the helmet fits on Tobias's head and he also noted how Tobias described the movement of both his head inside the helmet and of the helmet in regards to the cuirass and believe my above descirption to be a very probable explanation of how the English style great bascinet would have functioned.

[Bob H]

Am I mistaken, or aren't those meant to be worn over a regular bascinet sans visor, or at least a cervellier?

That's my understanding as well, the same as "flat-top" great helms, and the bascinet seemed more common. I was working on such a rig with an armourer here and he built a wonderful plain bascinet as the base (Eric somebody?), and for reasons I don't remember the deal went flat without fault by either party. All the bascinet needed was a little tweaking in the tight places, and it would have been golden to be covered by a great helm. That was back when I was fighting in a tourney company and got my bell rung often.

I have seen period drawings of a great helm for the joust without apparent underlying bascinet, but there was a shitload of thick (1-3") cloth covered horsehair padding and some tight fasteners to the breastplate and sometimes the backplate. It looked like the chief reason for the padding was to keep your brain from getting bounced around inside your skull on impact by transfering the force from your head to your body armour.

It's been a while, and I donated most of my books to either the local SCA group or the public library. (Yes, I finally found a library that was grateful for my books). The librarian is a member of the group, and was willing to maintain a shire library. In retrospect maybe I should have given all to the public library, but I know her and I'm sure she'll handle it well.