Ernst wrote:Neubecker includes a number of line drawings of these helmets along with photos of the table. Several examples have a rectangular pattern on this "hood". This leads me to think they are quilted items. The colored hoods never cover the face plate, which looks like "white" iron, but seem to fasten at the "chin" of the helmets.
It certainly seems like quilting is the most logical answer to such details being shown. These "hoods" seem to reach the chin on each of the helms shown, as far as I can make out, but are seperate from the "helmdecke" which can be seen as clearly a different colour on helms that have both. This is a detail I don't recall seeing anywhere else in art of the 14th century.
In regards to the 13th century examples given, I also think it likely that such colour patterns were painted on. It's interesting that this seems to be relatively common in 13th century art, but try finding it from the 14th century. I had a bit of a look through my photos and couldn't. Is it possible that it became unfashionable to paint helmets in this way?
Perhaps the fashion is related to the change from heaumes to bascinets? There is some conjecture that bascinets began their service under the heaume, where decoration would have been superflous. Even the 1322 regulation suggests that bascinets had previously been unadorned. As the bascinet becomes the primary helmet, we begin to see a few colored examples, e.g. red and rose colored ones in the 1344 Alexander Romance. However, the trend of flaunting all white harness seems to have killed this fashion trend. Personal heraldry was also in decline, and the black sallet illustrated is decorated with badges rather than personal identifiers unlike 12th and 13th century heraldic examples. Bascinets also allowed the face to be seen, so perhaps personal identifiers like crests or helm decoration were less needed.
ferrum ferro acuitur et homo exacuit faciem amici sui
grimstone bar wrote:There is the velvet barbuta with gilt decoration - mid late 15thC - was the velvet original?
Also if one has a look at Venus and Mars - Housebook - there are many pics of soldiers wearing actual cloth covering and some where this is less cloth like.
Also London import rolls for 1480 mention sallet coverings - later than this but part of the mix
Egfroth - how do we interpret such images? Honestly? in a number of ways for example:
Fabric - paint - metal - artistic impression -
Could be any of those or a combination thereof.
Part of the problem with interpreting at least in this matter is that the paints and colours used in the manucript or panel painting are not likely to be the actual colours used on the metal object. Eg Ultramarine or azurite blues were expensive and not freely available in the quantities needed to cover a helmet. Similarly vermillion reds at the time of the Mac Bible were expensive, later they were less so. Also some of the colours are only used on paper or parchment. So it adds up to at first taking a stab that the portrayal is right in saying a helmet was painted one then has to ask what would be the cheaper more realistic colours available to paint the helmet.
As I said they are as likely to be painted as not, no reason not to suppose given that everthing else seems to have been - but the translation of that to what we do is the bit that gets missed because we take the images as read and copy them like for like - which we can be pretty sure they didn't use electric blues on helmets.
Having said all that the paint they would have used would have made a good protection against rust - as well as having any decorative value.
Replacing one set of presumptions with another ? They used real gold on armor decoration, I think they might have used some pricey paints as well. There's also the whole question of just what time has done to the colors in the illustrations - it can be difficult to know what it was at the time it was created.
Kilkenny
it is all presumptions, my point was the list of presumptions is bigger than at first imagined, ie any given representation could mean some or all of the above as the techniques were there, the question is which and how.
'pricey' paints in some cases is an understatement, for example if an image shows someone wearing a bright blue garment or helmet (and that person is not necessarily a person of import) for that matter, the pigments used on that image are likely to be azurite or ultramarine, transposed up to the quantities needed to actually paint a helmet means the costs of such paint to get the coverage needed would be astronomical and if so used the preserve of the very rich. There are other cheaper blue substitutes which are likely candidates but they are not used on important works as the quantity of good colours used on a MSS is miniscule and relies on thin layers rather than thick which a painted metal item would need.
Gold by the way was much easier to obtain than ultramarine, it by its nature can be applied very thinly ie gold leaf or mercury gilding, so very little material is used compared to ground pigments attempting the same density of colour. Silver even more common.
example
1345-46 Ely cathedral
Azure grade A - 7s 6d the pound
Azure grade B - 10s the pound.
It is not clear if the cheaper one was azure (ite) and the dearer on ultramarine as azure was an interchangable term.
It is also not clear if it is the raw materials alone or the refined pigment, it is quite likely it is just the raw materials as many painters preferred to process and therefore quality control the pigments themselves, if so then the actual cost of refined pigment is even higher as yields are a portion of the raw state.
400 gold foils - 4 s - the cost is related to area covered not by weight for reasons mentioned previously.
Conversely some of the pigments are dyestuffs which work very well on vellum or paper and make use of their transparency to add brightness. They are typically glazes so again could not be 'scaled up' and were in many cases very expensive:
eg
cynopole - a red lake, for Westminster 1351-54
per pound 30 s.
Whereas vermillion - 1 1/2 shillings the pound - and vermillion was an expensive deep colour.
The very good colours, the vermillions, ultramarines are very stable under normal circumstances, hence their use. Don't forget that at the time of the Mac Bible for example the use of vermillion and bright blues was ancient history and their properties well recorded. Some of the dye based pigments last pretty well too in books because books were not exposed to light in the same way that paintings were. Some are in better condition than painted and printed ephemera two/three hundred years later where many of the cheap colours are not that distinct, eg some of the playing cards at the V & A. economies of scale.
The above is a simplistic overview.
It is a case of asking is that 'a common soldier'? if so why has he got bright blue clothing etc? the two are unlikely combinations in real life, so that is the starting point. Not whether things were painted or not, that is not in dispute.
Sorry to labour the point but considerations of the actual materials is important when making any assumption about a painting's bearing on what it is supposed to represent. We have access to paint in ways that are unimaginable to the people we are talking about. Modern synth ultramarine is as cheap as most natrually ocurring earth pigments, an alien concept until the 19thC for example.
Given all that it is easy for us to simply reproduce the colour scheme in pretty much any given work because the materials are readily available to us, far too easy, hence this discussion I guess.
in medieval sculpture (as in pavises, by the way) it was common practise to cover surfaces in silver leaf or even tin foil and paint this in coloured varnishes to achieve shining colours.
Could this be adapted to polished steel as well? Buff up the metal and cover it in coloured varnish?
Mind you, I have no reference whatsoever, I am approaching this from a purely technical angle.
Regards
Ivo
Sworn Member of The Order of Evil Authenticists and Secret Wisdom (Acolyte)
I would put money on that being a modern one. (hope it isn't in some ways).
Clive is a well known reenactment photographer, could easily be a reenactor's sallet.
Looks like a poor attempt at a Coventry-esque sallet.
Paint effect is good, thick enough.
Looks like some sort of primer underneath too, red oxide rather than rust, although hard to tell. If primed then I would stand by my initial suspicion.
Having looked at his site it would appear that it is an exhibit at the Bosworth centre.
