Moderator: Glen K
+1 the changing nature of warfare is an area too often glossed over or dismissed.chef de chambre wrote:...the level of demand vs. the battlefield threats faced...
So what changes in warfare could have driven this change? I'm thinking of, say, 7th century with Baldenheim and Valsgarde helmets to 11th century, with very plain nasal helmets worn by Norman and Saxon kings and noblemen. Aren't the weapons functionally identical at both ends of that span? Spears, swords, axes, arrows. I'm not sure we can make a case for kite shields obviating the need for neck and face protection! Infantry, cavalry--I'm not even sure we can claim that cavalry became all that much more important. Even if armies became larger overall, that wouldn't make a difference to the 3 or 4 guys trying to bash your particular head.Peikko wrote:+1 the changing nature of warfare is an area too often glossed over or dismissed.chef de chambre wrote:...the level of demand vs. the battlefield threats faced...
Very true...and I don't suspect the answer is an easy one to arrive at.Matthew Amt wrote: So what changes in warfare could have driven this change? I'm thinking of, say, 7th century with Baldenheim and Valsgarde helmets to 11th century, with very plain nasal helmets worn by Norman and Saxon kings and noblemen. Aren't the weapons functionally identical at both ends of that span? Spears, swords, axes, arrows. I'm not sure we can make a case for kite shields obviating the need for neck and face protection! Infantry, cavalry--I'm not even sure we can claim that cavalry became all that much more important. Even if armies became larger overall, that wouldn't make a difference to the 3 or 4 guys trying to bash your particular head.
One thing about plate cheekpieces and neckguards is that they have to be properly made, and even then they can be a nuissance, chafing and catching, etc. A mail coif is comfortable by comparison, and allows free head movement without any bites or snags. Even a mail neckguard swings and catches annoyingly. And since a *shirt* of mail was obviously considered to be perfectly adequate protection for a good 1500 years, why should a mail coif be thought to be a significant disadvantage compared to plate neckguards and cheekpieces?
This is where the question of "Why" becomes perilous, eh?
Matthew
Thanks!Matthew Amt wrote: And since a *shirt* of mail was obviously considered to be perfectly adequate protection for a good 1500 years, why should a mail coif be thought to be a significant disadvantage compared to plate neckguards and cheekpieces?
This is where the question of "Why" becomes perilous, eh?
Matthew
Not necessarily. You would have opted for what was *fashionable* and affordable. As Atli says, fashion has an unreasonably strong influence. Also remember, the "default" is NO protection, so *any* helmet is an advantage.RenJunkie wrote:So if you can't afford the crushingly expensive hooded maille shirt, I would have thought cheekpieces and a nape plate better than nothing. I know I would have opted for them...lol.
Are you sure it wasn't started by Robert Urich/Officer Jim Street in S.W.A.T.?Cap'n Atli wrote:Thousands of teenage boys wore their baseball caps backwards from the 1980s through the '90s and beyond. Utterly impractical; and totally inspired by one character in the movie Wayne's World
a yup!Baron Alcyoneus wrote:If you lose the skill base to make something, it can be difficult to regain it. Granulation isn't that difficult of a concept, but the skill to do it was "lost" for centuries. Similarly, in the Amazon, they don't make stone celts, they've lost the knowledge. But they are all over the place laying on the ground, and if yours wears out, you go find another one- or so I was told by an anthropologist.
And it it likely a combination of factors in Western Europe. You don't start to see visors again until around the end of the 13thC, but they still had faceplates in S Russia, IIRC.
Hmm, I kinda doubt it. Two to 3 centuries is more than enough time for an industry to keep up with most any demand. And crusading armies were not all that huge, certainly not in terms of fully armored men. The economy was growing, as well, after all, with heavy international trade--those crusaders followed trade routes, after all. I don't think there was any significant economic decline between the "Dark Ages" and the Crusades, in fact I would have guessed that overall there was expansion and growth. Anyone with enough money to launch a crusade could afford enough iron to equip his troops, after all!Thomas of Tadcaster wrote:Perhaps demand out stripped the ability to produce. The scope of warfare expanded exponentially. In 200-300 years we went from small groups raiding to entire cultures crusading. Designs were streamlined. Materials conserved.
But it's in the post-Roman era that we see helmets at their MOST complex! Cheekpieces, faceguards, neckguards, mail drapes, gilding, silvering, embossed overlay, garnet inlay, you name it. Valsgarde helmets spring to mind, but also things like the Baldenheim helmets. This was NOT a decline in armor!btswanfury wrote:I think socio-economic considerations are paramount. The loss of cheek and neck guards in the early middle ages on helms mirrors the rapid decline of armour of all kinds.
IS there any evidence that helmets were simply slapped together by non-experts in the early medieval period? My impression was that they all showed good skill, even the plain ones. In other words, armor was made by *armorers*, not by the average village smith. But even a village smith could have pride in his work.Got a few pieces of metal and some skill? Rivet together a spangen and you're good to go! Anything more than that is an afterthought.
Well, the average militiaman rarely had a helmet in many cultures, but yes, anyone with enough money could simply buy one on the open market. That's with just the armorers producing them, let alone if the village blacksmiths are cranking them out, eh? Society didn't quite drop to Monty Python levels, with peasants in rags scraping for filth--there *was* an international economy.And with the de-professionalization of armies in the early middle ages and the general lowered standards of living, it's not like your average low income levy militiaman can just go to Wal Mart and buy a helmet of his liking.
Heck, only the Romans *might* have had centralized standards, and their stuff was usually much lower quality than the early medieval stuff! You want junk? Go Government Contract! It's only when the artisans have to impress their customers to stay in business that they make good stuff.There is no centralized bureaucracy enforcing government standards on contract armor manufacturers.
The aristocracy sets the fashions, as I mentioned above, and they rarely worried about "cheap"! Many cultures had minimum basic requirements for their grunts, but they were generally based on wealth, to be sure that everyone serving could afford what he needed. Or like in Saxon England, small areas would pool their resources to provide troops.As such, the need to get protected as cheaply as possible comes to the fore.
Weren't pot helms worn by *knights*? Functionally, it's not significantly different from the round or conical helmets that came before it, and really no easier or harder to make. It's just a change in *fashion*.I mean, just look at the crusading pot helms you see emerging in the early 12th century. It's like wearing an upside down flower pot on your head. But it's better than no helmet, and could be had cheaply and quickly, which is a nice incentive when going off on crusade and you don't want to be the last guy to grab his piece of the true cross!
Dark Ages refers to the little knowledge we have about the period. Most scholars call it Late Antiquity or the Migration Period. There was plenty of art culture and literature from that period we just didn't know where it was for a long time.Drogo Bryce wrote:There is a reason they call them the "dark ages"... only real explanation I can see. How long after the fall of Rome, was it until the coat of plates showed up, the closest thing to a Lorica Segmentata?
But as has been discussed in this thread, I think a lot of technological and manufacturing skills, as well as general scientific and engineering skills were lost.audax wrote:Dark Ages refers to the little knowledge we have about the period. Most scholars call it Late Antiquity or the Migration Period. There was plenty of art culture and literature from that period we just didn't know where it was for a long time.Drogo Bryce wrote:There is a reason they call them the "dark ages"... only real explanation I can see. How long after the fall of Rome, was it until the coat of plates showed up, the closest thing to a Lorica Segmentata?
There has been a big shift in our understanding of that period in the last 20-30 years or so.
Oh! I hadn't thought of those--there's a pair shown in Arms and Armor of the Medieval Knight, if I recall correctly. Something like this?Jason Grimes wrote:This conversation reminded me of those simple spangens that were from the 5th century (I can dig up a picture). I'm assuming that these were used all through the time period in discussion. The only real difference between them and the later one, is that the latter were made out of one piece instead of spangen construction, and with maybe the addition of a nasel.
Hmmm, that's not my strongest area, but virtually *all* the helmets from that period that I'm aware of had cheekpieces and neckguards. A frightening number of them are also heavily decorated, and I don't think the Intercissa types are generally seen as being reserved for higher officers--though it's true that the common descriptions of them as "cheap and crude" typically miss the part about them being covered with gilded silver foil! However, it should also be noted that that foil was gilded on *both* sides, so apparently it was being "mass produced" elsewhere for application to whatever item needed it. This is definitely not an indicator that these items were made "one-off" for aristocrats.audax wrote:Most late Roman ridge helms, the ones built for the common soldiery, had no neck or cheek pieces. Why? Because helms without them were cheaper to make and could be mass produced in the state run fabricae (factories) that had developed from the Tetrarchy onward.
Oh, they work! You can't count on a thrust to the face actually hitting square, after all, a minor twitch at the last split-second will cause it to hit off-center--which the cheekpiece will cover. Plus, it's easier to hit someone who isn't looking right at you! Unless his cheekpiece is in the way.I suspect that most cheek pieces didn't do that much to abate damage since most blows were stabs in the face or groin, rather than slashes.
I'm not sure this idea is supported by the evidence. Certainly *some* late Romans were unarmored, but that's also true back in the first century. Troops who paid for their own kit were just as likely to cut corners. Vegetius harps about the loss of discipline in his day (as many historians do!) as part of his overall campaign to re-instill "ancient" methods. Modern scholars who know the era better than I do have found plenty of evidence for armored late Roman infantry.Most late Roman infantry wore nothing but their clothes in battle.
Yet the helmet makers went from making spangenhelms to making Norman-style conical helmets raised in one piece--I doubt they had "lost the art" of cutting out a cheekpiece! And there is certainly plenty of skilled metalwork from the 10th and 11th centuries, including plenty of gold jewelry, reliquaries, etc., plus mono-steel sword blades and the like. To me, it looks like their capabilities are getting better, not worse. They were obviously fully capable of matching or surpassing anything done before them (okay, hard to surpass Sutton Hoo, granted!), yet they opted for plain helmets with only a nasal. The only other thing I can see that is significantly different is that noble warriors have mail covering more of their bodies, including that coif. So it was practical for them to ditch the neckguards and cheekpieces, and it became *fashionable* for helmets to be made in that new style for everyone else.Drogo Bryce wrote:But as has been discussed in this thread, I think a lot of technological and manufacturing skills, as well as general scientific and engineering skills were lost.
