The Armour Archive

hi everyone,
I was wondering when visored bascinets started to appear in the 14th C and when the different attachment methods appeared relative to eachother.
Dave

Queen Mary's Psalter, c1307.

1307 is quite a bit earlier than I was expecting and if I'm seeing correctly a side mounted visor that appears to have globose muzzel/mouth area.

Thank you for the picture.
Dave

Attachment methods were more regional than a changing style. Side mounted in England, France and neighbors, and center mounted in Germany, Italy, and neighbors. Of course there are exceptions but thats the general rule. You can see this in plenty of period art.

thank you.
ok, so whilst I'm here I might as well as some more related questions.
When did they start adding aventails to the bascinets?

Were do the bascinets with detachable Nasal bars fit into this?

I know I'm bringing the thread off topic but its either that or starting a new thread.
Dave

Those detachable nasal bars are called bretaches and are typically found in Germany and surrounding areas. They're around by 1350. Prior to that there are proto-bretaches that are basically just a fastener for the mail rather than an actual solid nasal.

thank you,
do you know of any effigies that show the proto bretaches?
Dave

http://effigiesandbrasses.com/monuments ... hohenlohe/

You can see its just a little disk that hooks onto the brow.

Again thank you for the information. Ive been trying to work out as far as I can in 10 year batches the evolution of the English Knightly harness during the 14th C.
Dave

Cool effigy, check out his groovy scale shoulders...

From what I've seen there seem to be two "waves" of visored bascinets- a little small wave that starts (and ends) in the first quarter of the fourteenth century in Britain and for which I've only seen illuminated examples, and one which starts in the late second early third quarter of the fourteenth century with things like klappvisors and hounskuls.

The "first wave" ones seem to have that kind of two-point attachment at the temples seen in the illumination and be relatively flat/only slightly dished in the face, often with a big "bill" or point at the chin (don't know if there's a proper name for it). I found a bunch of pictures for this recently, I'll post them later.

The "second wave" ones are, I think, what we commonly think of a closed face bascinets, encompassing klappvisors, hounskuls, pig faced bascinets, etc. I think of them as having the one point attachment above the nasal area, or a one point attachment at one temple with a pin holding them on at the other.

If I am in error I'm happy to be corrected by someone more knowledgeable than I, since until recently I hadn't noticed this little "first wave" of closed face bascinets.

hi,
thank you for the extra information. Is there a consistancy when it comes to the length/height of the helm itself?
Dave