I was browsing the Louvre site and found a helmet said to belong to Charles VI (reigned 1380 to 1422) exhibited in the basement with other excavated medieval objects amid the foundations of the medieval Louvre.
http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=sal_frame&idSalle=486
Click on the second 'autre vue' for a pic of the helmet.
The little I was able to find was that it was excavated in multiple pieces. Does anyone have more data? When it was found, where it was made, other pictures, that sort of thing?
Thanks, Clare
helmet of Charles VI
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Tracy Justus
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A review was published in 'Military Illustrated' #23, Feb./March 1990 pp.15-18, Laurent Mirouze, Sarah Fleming, trans.
The helmet was excavated from a well turned refuse pit in 1984. The site had preciously been excavated in 1866, but excavation work had stopped a meter short of several finds because, "We gave up trying to find the bottom." The helmet was found as 900+ fragments, made of bonze with gold and enamel decoration. It was surmised that the helmet had been broken and returned to the crucible to extract the gold by theives in the early 15th century.
The helmet is made of bronze and copper 1.5mm thick, 20cm across at the base, with a brim 7.5cm wide at the back. The brim was originally decorated with 14 applique winged hart badges. The removable crown was composed of 8 fleurs-de-lys, engravings of the motto 'EN BIEN' and rectangular and diamond shaped medaliions covered with fleurs-de-lys on a blue enamel field. The bowl of the nelmet is guilloched and engraved with oak branches. The 1411 inventory mentions a crest, now lost, of a large fleur-de-lys on a star-shaped base as well.
The helmet was excavated from a well turned refuse pit in 1984. The site had preciously been excavated in 1866, but excavation work had stopped a meter short of several finds because, "We gave up trying to find the bottom." The helmet was found as 900+ fragments, made of bonze with gold and enamel decoration. It was surmised that the helmet had been broken and returned to the crucible to extract the gold by theives in the early 15th century.
The helmet is made of bronze and copper 1.5mm thick, 20cm across at the base, with a brim 7.5cm wide at the back. The brim was originally decorated with 14 applique winged hart badges. The removable crown was composed of 8 fleurs-de-lys, engravings of the motto 'EN BIEN' and rectangular and diamond shaped medaliions covered with fleurs-de-lys on a blue enamel field. The bowl of the nelmet is guilloched and engraved with oak branches. The 1411 inventory mentions a crest, now lost, of a large fleur-de-lys on a star-shaped base as well.