The Armour Archive

Hi All,

Researching over the past 5 or so years into early origins of the sallet has had me wondering regarding the early origins of the bascinet itself - more specifically, about the introduction of movable visors to great helms of late form.

Late 13th and early 14th century armour is not my specialty, although I think I have a strong basic grasp of the developments. Do any of you have a more specialized knowledge you would be willing to share?

Some things I am specifically interested in follow - the depictions of helmets on Aymer de Valences tomb in Westminster abby - specifically there is what seems to be an early visored bascinet worn over a coif. Does anyone have details of the picture? All the ones I have seen are small, and don't show details of the visor, or even a clear depiction of it. Also, invariably I see reconstructions (good and bad) of William FitzRalph from his brass, that shows him with a visored sugarloaf great helm (and always identical). Is this helmet shown on his tomb anywhere?

I am familiar with the Flemish Alexander codex that has been posted here before. Are there any other sources like this not posted?

HI Chef, I'll dig around and see what images I have of the works you've mentioned. An additianal image that might be of interest is from a 1320-25 Italian bas relief. If you have ARms and Armoour Annual Vol 1 it's pictured in Boccia's article. If not let me know and I'll scan the image. Interstingly, great helms with pivoting visors continue to tuen up pretty late in the 14th century right alongside bascinets e.g the Lancelot du lac manuscript ( Francaise 343)

Cet wrote:HI Chef, I'll dig around and see what images I have of the works you've mentioned. An additianal image that might be of interest is from a 1320-25 Italian bas relief. If you have ARms and Armoour Annual Vol 1 it's pictured in Boccia's article. If not let me know and I'll scan the image. Interstingly, great helms with pivoting visors continue to tuen up pretty late in the 14th century right alongside bascinets e.g the Lancelot du lac manuscript ( Francaise 343)

Hi Cet,

Thanks very much! Actually, I don't happen to have that article - I probably have access to it through Craig, but I would certainly appreciate an image I can add to the file I began.

Thanks much again!

Hi Chef, Did you get the e-mailed pic? I always worry that that sort of thing works right as I'm a bit of a luddite

Hi Cet,

Yes, I just did! And Thank You very much! I forget to check some of my e-mail accounts sometimes.

Hello, Chef,

I've got at least one period pic' of a 'sugarloaf' with the visor up. French, I think. I'll dig around.

James Arlen Gillaspie wrote:Hello, Chef,

I've got at least one period pic' of a 'sugarloaf' with the visor up. French, I think. I'll dig around.

Hi James,

Very Cool! Thanks very much for your help.

I am interested in this info as well. The helmet I posted on the repousse thread is going under a sugarloaf, so I would like to see any reference folks might have.

Alas I don't have the data at hand for this pic - casualty of the move - context would be useful.

histoire du bon roi alexandre, french 1300, quite a few visored sugarloafs, did you mention that one? i have a pic of an early french manuscript taht has several, but the book its in lacks any real info other than it being in brussels

Just looking at that pic James, I would say Manesse Codex but that is simply the only tapestry I hace seen with that way of doing important faces. My best guess though. THe only website I could find of it though was in german.

Chef,

I have thought about this same topic for a while along the same lines. In blair's bok he states the bascinet developed from the skull cap possible under the helm. In the Queen Mary Psalter(1310ish) and the Taymouth Hours(1325ish) its interesting to see the similarities to the helmets which in the QMP are called helms by most people examining them while in the TMH they are Bascinets. Basically the same design it would seem as the round top helm and then to the visored one then to an early form of bascient. If you want I can get you some pictures of both in a few.
RPM

Hi Randal,

Any and all Help you could provide would be wonderful.

James - Thanks Very Much! That is very helpful, and has to be the best picture I've seen from the history of good king alexander.

There are a number of peculiar plates, whether reinforcing bevors or visors, in the Spieghel Historial of Jacob van Maerlant of c. 1325-35. (Shelfmark KA 20)

http://www.kb.nl/kb/manuscripts/search/index.html

Folio 34r and most of the panoramic battle scenes seem to show them.

I've been looking for early visors recently, and while I've found some evidence in the late 13thC, I'll have to check on the exact dating (asking the museum owning the manuscripts for better dates). The recent ones I've seen with more solid dating were c1307.

I'm toying with the idea of writing something up for CA, or TI, perhaps.

The top register of this miniature from the Holkham Story Bible also has some interesting examples.

http://www.thehaca.com/arttalk/at2.htm

There's also an almost perfect matched pair to be found in two books of 1325-6. The Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux, ff.15v 'Arrest of Christ' (best online scan I could find) has a true "miniature".

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/mtdavis/222/Cantigas/


While the contemporary treatise by the early artillerist Walter de Milemete has a larger rendition with the same reinforce/crest holder and visor!

http://members.iinet.net.au/~rmine/pics ... b/ms92.jpg

Yep the Holkham is a good one. I was going ot say that as wll. If you can get the walter de milemete manuscript it also has some interesting plate armour, (even thought the early cannon is what gets most of the attention). Holkham has a number of interesting torso, hand and head defenses. Some could even be whale bone as you were looking for in another post. I will look for the example I was thinking of.

RPM

Ernst wrote:The top register of this miniature from the Holkham Story Bible also has some interesting examples.

http://www.thehaca.com/arttalk/at2.htm

There's also an almost perfect matched pair to be found in two books of 1325-6. The Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux, ff.15v 'Arrest of Christ' (best online scan I could find) has a true "miniature".

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/mtdavis/222/Cantigas/


While the contemporary treatise by the early artillerist Walter de Milemete has a larger rendition with the same reinforce/crest holder and visor!

http://members.iinet.net.au/~rmine/pics ... b/ms92.jpg

Hi Earnst, Thanks for those. I am familiar with the Holkham story bible, and the de Milemet treatise, but the Hours of Jean d'Evereux are new to me.

chef,

Do I understand correctly that early visored bascinets are also included in the search? If so, there are some commonly depicted examples from the Manesse, Vie de St. Denis, one of the Norwegian stave churches, etc.

If anyone else wants to take the time to look at the KA 20 examples, I'm curious if the consensus is for visors or reinfocing bevors?

Edited to add I had forgotton the BNF now has the 1317 St. Denis mss online. A quick Google Image search for BNF 2091 (The series is 2090-92, most armor is in 2091-2) brought up all sorts of early visored and nasaled bascinets, plus an array of scale defenses.

Ernst wrote:chef,

Do I understand correctly that early visored bascinets are also included in the search? If so, there are some commonly depicted examples from the Manesse, Vie de St. Denis, one of the Norwegian stave churches, etc.

If anyone else wants to take the time to look at the KA 20 examples, I'm curious if the consensus is for visors or reinfocing bevors?

Edited to add I had forgotton the BNF now has the 1317 St. Denis mss online. A quick Google Image search for BNF 2091 (The series is 2090-92, most armor is in 2091-2) brought up all sorts of early visored and nasaled bascinets, plus an array of scale defenses.

Hi Ernst,

Yes, I was also looking at early visored bascinet images. These early visored helmets sometimes defy straightforward definitions, and to my mind we see in a lot of these images visored great helms, visored bascinets, and some things in-between. I was particularly keen to see a better image of the visored bascinet on the Aymer de Valance tomb, as it fits into the time and place I am concentrating the bulk of my current search.

I tried to access your KA 20 link, but the link would not work for some reason or other.

chef,

I found a fairly good drawing of the Valence figure on Google Image under the alternate "Aylmer" de Valence. Unfortunately, it only shows a mail coif over a pillow. Since these tombs tend to have quite a canopy of gothic architecture and usually a substantial base, it's possible a helmet might be shown in one of those locations. Meyrick shows a visored helm with swan-headed crest in his drawing of de Valence, but who knows where the inventor of "trellised mail" drew his inspiration. My searches for William fitzRalph's brass only show a similar mail coif.

The Hague KB link should take you to a search page. Type "KA 20" (with the space) in the "Shelfmark" box, then click the "search button at the bottom right. This should take you to a general description page. Click the hyperlink. This should take you to a detailed description of the manuscript, with links at the bottom for "images" and "images and text".

When I think of early visored bascinets, I tend to think of a very shallow rounded form with a visor. Like the example on the left of this Manesse miniature--the mounted man in red surcoat.

http://www.tempora-nostra.de/manesse/img/019.jpg

There is also this example from Norway.

http://steel.laiv.org/kjertesveinene/ki ... ned-5.html

Hi Ernst,

Thanks for the links. I am fortunate enough to have access to a good copy of the Manessa codex, but the Norwegian source I was completely unaware of.

Regarding the Aymer de Valence images, they are indeed from weither the sides or canopy of his tomb. I have seen some small sketches made by a reliable (modern) artist of them, but I always hope to see a photograph, so I don't have to rely on viewing them through someone elses filter of interpretation.

Another often reproduced image of an early visor is from Ms. Add. 10294, fo.81v, a French Arthurian manuscript of c. 1316. (The fellow with the blue ailettes has the helmet in question.)

http://www.imagesonline.bl.uk/britishli ... 5945_1.jpg

To bump this after the weekend, there is also this image of Edmund Crouchback and St. George from the Bodleian Ms. Douce 231 fo.1r. The only dating I have seen says "14th century", but the ailettes point to a date close to the 1340s at the latest.

http://www.answers.com/topic/edmund-cro ... -lancaster

Except for the side pivots, the shape of the visor on Edmund's helmet appears to be similar to the later German klappvisier forms with the rounded snout and little curly "beard" at the bottom.

I also found an interesting Italian example in a 1320 crucifixion fresco by Pietro Lorenzetti- check out the "black and white" helmet on the fellow to the right of the cross:
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/l/lorenzet/pietro/

Klaus

Klaus the Red wrote:Except for the side pivots, the shape of the visor on Edmund's helmet appears to be similar to the later German klappvisier forms with the rounded snout and little curly "beard" at the bottom.

I also found an interesting Italian example in a 1320 crucifixion fresco by Pietro Lorenzetti- check out the "black and white" helmet on the fellow to the right of the cross:
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/l/lorenzet/pietro/

Klaus

Do you mean to the left of the cross ? Visor raised, helm looks rather like it might be a predecessor to a sallet ?

I find the helm just to the right of the cross very amusing - Wings!

Gavin

I got my orientation mixed up because of the three crosses- that's someone totally different. Thanks for pointing him out- I'm now seeing two figures and a possible third:

1) Lower left corner, brown maybe-sallet with gold trim.
2) Far right side, past the right-hand crucified thief, black/brown straight-sided peaked bascinet with white trim, raised visor and plume
3) Possibly the mounted figure between the left and center crosses with his back turned. Unfortunately, none of the detail shots cover him, so I'm making my best guess- he looks like he has his head turned to the right and his visor raised, with a dark complexion suggesting the "African legionary" figure who often appears in crucifixion groups.

K

Klaus the Red wrote:I got my orientation mixed up because of the three crosses- that's someone totally different. Thanks for pointing him out- I'm now seeing two figures and a possible third:

1) Lower left corner, brown maybe-sallet with gold trim.
2) Far right side, past the right-hand crucified thief, black/brown straight-sided peaked bascinet with white trim, raised visor and plume
3) Possibly the mounted figure between the left and center crosses with his back turned. Unfortunately, none of the detail shots cover him, so I'm making my best guess- he looks like he has his head turned to the right and his visor raised, with a dark complexion suggesting the "African legionary" figure who often appears in crucifixion groups.

K

Thank you for the clarification. Indeed the black and white bascinet looks like just that - I just missed it hiding back there.

Gavin

Klaus the Red wrote:Except for the side pivots, the shape of the visor on Edmund's helmet appears to be similar to the later German klappvisier forms with the rounded snout and little curly "beard" at the bottom.

I also found an interesting Italian example in a 1320 crucifixion fresco by Pietro Lorenzetti- check out the "black and white" helmet on the fellow to the right of the cross:
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/l/lorenzet/pietro/

Klaus

Yes, this form of visor is commonplace in English art circa 1320-40's, look at the Hugh Hastings tomb, for instance. It seems pretty clear to me that the form went from a flattish thing, or even whatj looks like a greathelm front on pivots (The Flemish Alexander manuscript), to these little rounded snout things, before the houndskull seems to develop at mid century.