Varangian Helmets

[Gerhard von Liebau]

I'm currently working on a kit that I'm going to use for early 12th century Varangian reenactment. I'm not really sure whether we'll be portraying members of the guard and their servants, or the people known as "Varangians" who were settled members (or descendants) of earlier Varangian Guards given fiefdom's as individuals or groups to settle on Byzantine land... Possibly serving not as part of the guard anymore, but as Mercenaries in the East. Obviously, we know many of the members or their children returned West after their service was up or they were rich enough to wish to continue their lives elsewhere, but I want an Eastern feel to my kit.

I'm focusing on Infantry gear, as I do not, nor do my friends who I'm supplying, have horses. Axes, spears, swords, seaxes, kite shields and round shields, etc... Will be what we use for our gear. Clothing is pretty much under control (I know what we need, just don't have it yet!) and armour is going to be primarily short-sleeved mail shirts, because I can get them cheap on ebay...

I'm curious about Helmets in particular. I'm a great admirer of helmets throughout history (dating back to my Bronze Age reenactment interests, up to the 17th century) and wish to get together several helmets to fit this era. I and my friends all have relatively the same sizes of heads (all being 15-16 year old guys) and I was going to focus on collecting the helmets for a while, besides getting other necessary gear.

So, what types of interesting Byzantine or Rus influenced helmets might I find on the heads of Varangian folks at this time? Roughly 1100-1125 is my projected time period. I've already seen Egfroth's site, as well as the Miklagard Varangians. But, I haven't found any other good sites...

This is the helmet that I have currently, on it's way to me from Lewis Moore, as we speak... It's got a heavily Rus feel to it. I really liked the design, which is inspired by a piece by Joe Piela, shown below it, here...

(Note, in this picture, Lewis hadn't yet finished the aventail!)


[img]http://www.yoyofreak.net/forums/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=2560[/img]

And the piece by Joe...

[img]http://members.aol.com/yellowhgwy/conmail.jpg[/img]

I know of several other types of helmets, and am interested in any information people can provide about what would be likely types to find among the Northern Byzantine/Southern Rus territories that I plan on portraying as our homeland! We're going to be Mercenaries, I believe... But, this is all in planning, so I haven't made any final decisions. The date is pretty much secured, though.

Thanks!

-Gregory-

[Michael B]

Are you sure that Egfroth didn't put you up to this so that he could ride in and save the day?

See http://www.geocities.com/egfrothos/MyHelmets.html

and other pages.

Note that, at least on my browser, most of the pages on this site come up with a geocities banner obscuring the right side of the page - right over the menu on the home page, for example.

An interesting fact is that if you put a word like "egfroth" (eg. "eggfroth", "egfrothos") into Google now, you'll get the message "Did you mean egfroth?". Wow.

Michael B

[Egfroth]

Wow. I'm famous.

The banner should vanish after a little while - at least it does when I open a page.

I don't know if you've yet looked at http://www.geocities.com/egfroth1/HbkIndex.html - particularly http://www.geocities.com/egfroth1/HbkHelmets.htm - I'm putting together a site for Varangian newbies, and the second page contains quite a bit on helmets of the type Varangians may have worn.

I've also got quite a bit on paper - an article published in the Varangian Voice magazine some years ago, with photos of helmets from the right general region and timespan. Email me off-list if you'd like me to send you photocopies.