Black Prince Great Helm lining, what did it look like?

[Ron Zwart]

I tried to make a sort of copy of this Great Helm.
I do not have all the nescessary tools yet, and am lacking detailled information.
I layed some emphasis on getting the shape of the helm right.
I changed the nasal, because something went wrong.
I give you a picture.
I will make an other helm later.
Can someone give me information of the lining of this helm,
what it looked like. May there was no lining at all.
Thanks for your help.

Ron

[Kristoffer]

Here are the pictures of the helmet you are trying to replicate:




And it along with a replica:



What most people do is a padded coif, usually with a maille hood over it. Some make a cervelliere to go under it. My knowledge of these early items is very limited so others will hopefully provide you with more detailed and correct information.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

There should at least be some form of laced-in padding for that helm. On both the original and the replica, you can see the pairs of holes around the circumference as well as a few more up towards the peak. If it had just been around the brow, I would posit a leather suspension liner, but the extra pairs higher up suggest a padded liner in the upper half of the helm to me.

[Otto von Teich]

I'm thinking the pairs of holes are for attaching the crest ( upper holes)and torse and mantle (lower holes) I think, but could be wrong, that these helms had no liner, or if they did it would just be a simple leather suspension liner.

[Konstantin the Red]

Welcome back, Ron!

Yes, it could have been a cerveillière plus a stuffed cloth orle, or doughnut, put on the cerveillière to adapt its low, rounded, basin-like shape to the higher-standing, cornered shape of the top half of the helm.

You say your tools were pretty limited -- I say you did a very good job with what you have. You took lots of care, and it shows!

For a better tool to use, probably you want to have a welder make you up a large T stake for making helms with. Making the stake of mild steel will do; its long arms reach all the way into the depths of a helm and let you set rivets easily, all day. It also makes it easy to bend helm plates using a mallet or even a split-head hammer from Thor (heavy-hitting, soft/interchangeable faces -- an English company?). Either fit the stake to a heavy stump, or make it a free-standing tool with a base to it for stability.

A less metallic alternative inside there is of course a kind of hood, with its inside of it shaped like your head (so, generally, made like a medieval coif or a space-age Snoopy hat/cap -- a right side, a left side, a big broad stripe over the top of the head and down to the nape of your neck), and the outside shaped more like the helm. Even another cloth doughnut up there will do almost all that you might want -- again, the doughnut is the adaptor between your round head and the upper corners of the helm, and the doughnut of course may be sewn to a coif. Then the helm slides down over that doughnut.

Those paired lacing-holes all round suggest -- hmm. Hard to tie points from an arming-coif through holes in a helm with both on the wearer. Not so hard if you just lace the arming-hood/coif into the helm through those holes and then put it all on his head at once. A suspension or other liner tied into it using those paired holes would work too -- no reason it wouldn't, even put on over a coif.

[Ernst]

Suspension system held by rivets at the horizontal join and those running over the occularia.

http://www.themcs.org/churches/Sussex/H ... 5%2008.jpg

https://www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@ ... 86939@N25/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/roelipila ... 468647900/

http://www.themcs.org/armour/knights/Ch ... 6%2039.jpg

http://www.themcs.org/armour/knights/20 ... 1%2006.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7351/8721 ... 3fde66.jpg

[Ron Zwart]

Xtracted: Many thanks for the very clear photo's. I made more mistakes that I thought!

Keegan Ingrassia and Otto von Teich: Thanks for your reply. I don't think you can make a
"leather suspension liner" in the helm when all rivets are placed and hammered thight. Or else?
A laced-in padding could be possible. What does the leather suspension liner look like?

Konstantin the Red: Thanks for your welcome!
As a matter of fact I did order a T-stake some weeks ago. It will arrive shortly. The arms
are about 30 cm long.
So,if I take it right: One f.i. needs an arming hood, over it a chainmail coif, and a orle attached to the coif
or just over it.?

Ernst: Thanks for the pictures of the effigies. However I do not understand why you showed it to me.
Was this to explain what the knights were wearing underneath the great helm? I do not recognize any
suspension system held by rivets. May be you can inform me more?
Sofar,

Many thanks to you all!

Ron

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Ron, the images that Ernst showed you are all depictions of a leather suspension system. Those are flaps that are attached around the brow, then tied together at the peak.


Here is a modern example.

[Mac]

Suspension system held by rivets at the horizontal join and those running over the occularia.

http://www.themcs.org/churches/Sussex/H ... 5%2008.jpg

https://www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@ ... 86939@N25/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/roelipila ... 468647900/

http://www.themcs.org/armour/knights/Ch ... 6%2039.jpg

http://www.themcs.org/armour/knights/20 ... 1%2006.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7351/8721 ... 3fde66.jpg

Well done, Ernst!

Mac

[Mac]

Ron,

On several of the surviving great helms traces of leather under washers on the horizontal rivets that hold the helm together. A suspension liner of triangular tabs was either riveted directly to the inside of the helm, or such a liner was sewn to a band or leather which was riveted to the helm. In either case, the rivets over the eye slots are there to hold the lining as well.

We don't know whether this lining was padded of not. Since the great helm was typically worn over a small bascinet, padding in the great helms liner is not strictly necessary. On the other hand, a padded liner is probably quieter, and would hold the helm more steadily on the bascinet. I have made one or two unpadded liners, and found that the helm tended to clatter about a bit. If I were to make another, I would try a padded one.

Note that due to the limitations of the sculpture, some of the effigies show this lining attached closer to the bottom of the helm than it would have been.

Mac

[Konstantin the Red]

Including a mail coif in there is an option -- though I would think of it as a secondary priority.

An orle as an independent (not sewn or laced onto anything else in there) component AFAIK would only appear on a cerveillière/bascinet, not with an all-mail coif. Coifs in the early XIV century could sometimes cover a small helmet on the head and under a helm -- or just be worn on the head, with an arming-coif of course, and the small helmet put on over the coif. A large coif (and a big head) shown with the former and a regular-size coif with the latter.

You can just imagine each method having its diehard fans among the nobility, and the kind of arguments they might get into!

And, getting silly with embroidered, decorated -- over-decorated -- orles:

Imagining a bit of byplay in a fourteenth-century battle scene where somebody's knightly friend has broken his lance and is shedding his helm for the close-in melée and has to hurriedly grab at his orle because it tried to come off with his helm -- well, that's the kind of thing I think is funny. YMMV along with your taste.

{"What, sieur? If I die, I would die well dressed! Hyahh!" Sieur Raoul's spur-rowels raked at his destrier's flanks and clots of mud flew from its hooves as it leapt. Chuckling, Sir John Coat followed him, mustaches streaming in the wind of his warhorse's pace. Only Sieur Raoul, he had time to think, would insist so on doing his fighting from under such a flower-garden. Look out, you Burgundian bastards, here we come! Ay Johnnie Coat, are ye walkin' yet...? Walking, hell, I'm charging!}

[Ernst]

http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/4376/

Pembridge helm:

The interior of the Pembridge helm is much cleaner than IV.600, and the
exterior also shows much less corrosion. The rivets are all sharp nails which have been
bent over, and some retain diamond-shaped washers from holding a lining leather.

Dupras Fig.212 excerpt.jpg (28.11 KiB) Viewed 373 times

As can be seen in this excerpt from Fig. 212, the diamond-shaped washers attaching the lining band are only used in about every third nail. Unfortunately, Dupras examined the RA and Pembridge great helms, but not that of the Black Prince.

[Ron Zwart]

Keegan Ingrassia and Mac: I do now understand what Ernst meant with the pictures of the effigies. Also thanks for this clear picture of a modern lining.
Konstantin the Red: The Orle as a loose item was only used on a bascinet or cerveillière. So I go for either a padded cap or a leather suspension liner.
Ernst: Your explanation and the photo of the interior of Helm IV.600 is very clear and I do very much appreciate your link to the book of Dupras.
I did download it and boy that's super info about everything to do with armouring! Thanks a lot.

I think I know now more or less what I have to do.
Thank you all for taking time to help me.

Ron

[Ernst]

Thanks for bringing up the question, Ron!

There have been a number of reconstructed helmet linings for the earlier Schlossberg bei Dargen helm based on the presumption that those paired holes secure a lining rather than a crest. A number of re-enactors have copied this feature. Based on the evidence in later great helms, this practice would seem to be mistaken, and the numerous paired holes are for securing the crest and mantle only.

[Ron Zwart]

Ernst,

Now you are mentioning the crest and the mantle, I wonder how large these mantels were.
For the crest there are certain maximum sizes and more important certain max.weights involved,
but the seize of the mantle would interest me very much. The shape also ot course.
Can you produce for me an other source on crests and mantles as important as "Dupras"?

Kind regards,

Ron.

[Ernst]

There are a number of works on heraldry or tournaments which briefly cover the crest and mantle, but nothing on the doctoral level of Dupras that comes to mind. Looking at manuscripts or effigies for the appropriate time is certainly a start.

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/search/?tags="crest"
http://effigiesandbrasses.com/search/?tags="crest"

A current discussion which may be of interest:
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=176220

[Ron Zwart]

Ernst:

Again many thanks for the interesting links you sent me.
I stored it all for reference in the near future.
The discussion on the helmcrest and -mantle, I absolutely will follow.

Ron

[Ernst]

Ron,

I suppose it is worth noting that we do have the crest (cap and lion) as an example.



When we see the paired holes lower down on the helm, like the RA or Pembridge hole below the occularia, it indicates attachment points for a mantle. As the Black Prince's helmet seems to lack these, only the crest was used.

[Ron Zwart]

Ernst:
Much obliged with this report. Good to know that I never should consider to make a mantle on the Black Prince Helm,
because it never had one. The crest looks very bold and therefore heavy. I assume it was made out of wood and gilded plaster?
You are really a very well informed man! And therefore I'am very thankful.

Ron.

[Ernst]

I don't think there is evidence for wood.

https://www.academia.edu/5758293/Some_N ... Reinforces

The materials used in the few surviving examples
(leather, glue, gesso, paint and -occasionally- gold) support
this assessment, with the Churburg crest (Figure 9)
representing an ordinary specimen, while all-gilt examples
such as the one among the Black Prince's achievements in
Canterbury Cathedral or another, preserved in the Real
Armeria in Madrid, are of a much richer variety. The same
is true for the only contemporary instruction for making
crests, given in Cennini’s Libro dell’Arte, even if some
exceptions may have existed, e.g. examples that were
apparently adorned with costly materials such as mirrors.

[Ron Zwart]

Ernst:
I'll start reading first and start questioning later.
A lot of secrets will then be unrevealed I think.

Kind regards,

Ron