The Armour Archive

Are there helms where an aventail is appropriate? Are there helms for which they are not? I really like the way they look as well as the fact that they can act as throat protection. I dont want to add one to a helm where it will be completely out of place though.

Yes and yes.

Generally, an aventail would be most likely found on bascinets. There are instances of mail on other helms, but mail on bascinets is ubiquitous.

If there is a particular type of helm you are interested in and would like to know if there are any historic examples of having mail attached, ask here. I guarantee that some one will be able to answer.


Frederich

Bassinet's are the most common for avintails.
Though some klapvisors also had them as well as several indo-persian/orintal helms.
another option may be to use a false coif attaching the mantal directly to a coif, hood, or liripipe without the tail.
http://mailmaker.tripod.com/paddedcoif/paddedcoif.html
You could easily add pockets for padding and plates or other reinforcement and stich the chainmail directly to the hood.
The pockets are KEY. so you can take out the plates and padding to wash the foundation garment.
Once your happy with the hood make two more and swap the mail so you can wash them.

losthelm wrote:Bassinet's are the most common for avintails.
Though some klapvisors also had them as well as several indo-persian/orintal helms.
another option may be to use a false coif attaching the mantal directly to a coif, hood, or liripipe without the tail.
http://mailmaker.tripod.com/paddedcoif/paddedcoif.html
You could easily add pockets for padding and plates or other reinforcement and stich the chainmail directly to the hood.
The pockets are KEY. so you can take out the plates and padding to wash the foundation garment.
Once your happy with the hood make two more and swap the mail so you can wash them.

thanks for posting that link! I have been needing a pattern for one of those for a while.

I love the way the padded aventail looks on this clang helm

So, to be more specific I want this.

http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... p?t=122396[url][/url]

Just one from the lower 48 and more importantly, one that fits me. I really like the look and plan on using it to make a Siamese kit without having to get a custom made helm.

The actual helm underneath is really not that imortant to me as long as I can obtain the covered lower face jaw look.

Any ideas/thoughts on what would work best? The more budget friendly the better.

Thanks in advance for any help!

chris19d wrote:I love the way the padded aventail looks on this clang helm

Chris, that is actually a camail liner/hood, coming out from under the bottom of the hat, and the actual camail would go on top of that, hung from the camail strap that's in place upon the vervelles. Firestryker Living History board has reported excellent results with lined camails -- they suddenly started looking like what you saw on effigies instead of the cornered profile you see without it: / T \ instead of _| T |_.

Mjaay, "lower 48?" Jolly Knight is located in Ukraine. Good price though, what with shipping included.

The image you've given is based off of what's called a 'Phrygian Cap', a style of head covering from the area that is now Turkey. Phryigian caps style helmets were made and worn, typically with a camail (a full mail hood) underneath. Since the Phrygian cap had no sides it isn't safe enough for SCA style combat; Jolly Knight has made a recreation that provides a solid side to the helm for safety, while providing the look of the original through his use of a covering mail drape and has done a very good job of it.

I'm not familiar with Jolly's prices, nor do I know what your budget it, however if I may give advice: Spend at least half of your budget on your helm. Your helm does more than simply look good; it's true that a crappy looking helm will always look like a crappy helm no matter what you do ti it, it's real job is to provide safety for your brain. You only get one brain, protect it as it deserves.


Frederich

Konstantin the Red wrote:

chris19d wrote:I love the way the padded aventail looks on this clang helm

Chris, that is actually a camail liner/hood, coming out from under the bottom of the hat, and the actual camail would go on top of that, hung from the camail strap that's in place upon the vervelles. Firestryker Living History board has reported excellent results with lined camails -- they suddenly started looking like what you saw on effigies instead of the cornered profile you see without it: / T \ instead of _| T |_.

Mjaay, "lower 48?" Jolly Knight is located in Ukraine. Good price though, what with shipping included.

So is the camail liner attached to the helm, Konstantin, or is it worn atop the head like a coif?
There are a few living history groups that I have a ton of pictures of, such the Wolna Kompania, where some of the participants wear solely the padded aventails, so I was beginning to wonder if that was an appropriate substitution for maille or if they were currently in transition and waiting to purchase their maille.

Mjaay
How soon do you need it?
I do a bit of chainmail in my off time and can probibly have something ready by mid november.

Konstantin the Red wrote:

chris19d wrote:I love the way the padded aventail looks on this clang helm

Chris, that is actually a camail liner/hood, coming out from under the bottom of the hat, and the actual camail would go on top of that, hung from the camail strap that's in place upon the vervelles. Firestryker Living History board has reported excellent results with lined camails -- they suddenly started looking like what you saw on effigies instead of the cornered profile you see without it

On the sight it was listed as a padded aventail, and it looked to me like it could've been attached to that leather panel that's hung by the vervels, but your probably right, either way i think it looks great

Lucian Ro wrote:
So is the camail liner attached to the helm, Konstantin, or is it worn atop the head like a coif?
There are a few living history groups that I have a ton of pictures of, such the Wolna Kompania, where some of the participants wear solely the padded aventails, so I was beginning to wonder if that was an appropriate substitution for maille or if they were currently in transition and waiting to purchase their maille.

I am not sure which way might be the better or the worse. I'd guess both were used.

Sooner or later we turn our attention to Walter von Hohenklingen's effigy, and wonder just how many layers he might have sported about his camail: two? Three? Was the entire assembly done in jazerant and everything was sandwiched together, or was it left in layers? Herr Walter is reticent. Few similar arrangements are to be found; was it simply that Austria can be pretty cold half the year and he wanted the insulation?

Chris19d, one thing that makes me think it is a hood is there isn't any fastening for it that I know about inside that klapp bascinet -- something topless, shaped like a mail camail, wouldn't work run up the inside like that. A hoodlike arrangement, "stuffynge ye bascinet," probably teamed with an arming-coif also to finish the head-padding job, that would do it. Stitched in bascinet-style it could of course be hoodlike or topless. Happens that basc doesn't have stitching around its edges. A hood like that one would give a conical profile with an angle in it to any camail over it, which angling might take the form of a concave curvature, such as was seen in memorial figures. Other figures, showing a less concave outline, may possibly have had the liner shaped exactly like the camail was, and attached at the camail strap by any of a few conceivable schemes, like sewing into the camail strap or by putting it upon the vervelles and the strap over all, holding the liner in place at its top/inner edge.

In Western Europe, an Aventail (an attached mail curtain) is apropriate
on either
the Bascinet in the "High Middle Ages"
or
some Migration Era (ie: "Dark Ages" - realy early on, pre-8th century) helmets

between that time (like Vikings and Crusaders) a mail hood was worn under a separate helmet. But for SCA-safety construction peculiarity reasons, aventails are used on these in the SCA

In Eastern Europe, West Asia, and the Middle East, Aventails were used from before the Middle Ages through the end of armour and are to be found on almost any helmet style.