The earliest kettle or war hats I've seen displayed in museums are those 15th century eisenhut type war hats raised out of a single sheet of steel, as opposed to the earlier spangen-construction ones you see in the Morgan Bible. For that matter I haven't seen any skull-cap type cervelierre from before that helmet type evolved into the proper bascinet. Have any of those been found or dug up, or is artwork all we have to go off of?

The earliest surviving war-hats that I am aware of are the Scandinavian examples of "spangenhelm" construction, 14th century. I think they have good pics of one on the Vikverir site. I'll find the link for you when I have a sec. And then there are the 8th century spangenhelms with very narrow brims, one from Groeningen sp? and another from somewhwere else in the same vicinity.

Oh, please do! I have seen the Norwegian kettle before but I would love to see those old spangen helms that have a brim.

I'll try, I found some good pics once but lost them in a computer crash, and I have not been able to find them again yet. As I remember, at least one of the two and maybe both had large, quadrangular spike rivets maybe an inch long, giving the helms quite a fearsome look! The brim on one is only a half an inch or so, the other perhaps closer to an inch, so quite embryonic and more of a reinforcement than anything, though I am sure that such a small brim could still help deflect blows away from the face. Edit: I found it! Go down about half-way, to the Groningen and Bremmen examples http://www.gav.org.uk/Research/Viking%20Age%20Helmets.pdf I have also seen some other examples with long spike rivets but no embryonic brim.

Thank you Scott, this is a good lead! :)