Hello everyone,

I have been hard at work on my harness this year and Its near completion. Only thing left really is the helm, a bascinet.

My group leader had purchased a bascinet awhile ago from an armourer from the Ukrain and got a STEAL on it! He told me he was willing to sell it to me at cost :D I had tried it on and it felt nice and snug, but was concerned with it looking "too" big :/

I'v spent countless hours researching the shape of bascinets and I really like how the armourer had gotten the shape of the helm, but was worried on how big it looked :/ Iv been told they were made this big historically, but a lot of the examples iv seen don't look as big. If I were to purchase this helm I plan to get a visor based on the S17. Think this will look correct with the helm? https://plus.google.com/photos/115962623729091930300/albums/5433287750914154321/5512066027914022722?banner=pwa

The helm IS missing the bottom of the liner for the mail aventail, so it wont look correct there.

Let me know what you all think
Thanks in advance
-Reece

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Side view

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with visor down [ Download ]

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[ Download ]

It doesn't look 'too" big to me. I'm pretty sure most helmets had to have a reasonable amount of padding for sheer survivability. If you had a tight fitting helm with relatively thin padding, you would'nt get much protection from a blow to the head. Also if the visor sits too close to the face, you won't get much in the way of ventilation.
I think most of us base our perceptions of helmet fitting from what we've seen in pictures, ot maybe from movies..neither of those sources really have o consider the practicality of the helmets portrayed.

You could try to contact Doug Strong. He did take measurements of several bascinets. I think he did also work on a publication.

I'm not an expert, but it looks much too big to me. In 14th century art, bascinets look tight to the head. How do you plan to use it? Many combat sports, like SCA heavy fighting, require heavier-than-historical padding for safety reasons, and this forces many helmets to be larger than historical ones.

Ralph Grinly wrote:

It doesn't look 'too" big to me. I'm pretty sure most helmets had to have a reasonable amount of padding for sheer survivability. If you had a tight fitting helm with relatively thin padding, you would'nt get much protection from a blow to the head. Also if the visor sits too close to the face, you won't get much in the way of ventilation. I think most of us base our perceptions of helmet fitting from what we've seen in pictures, ot maybe from movies..neither of those sources really have o consider the practicality of the helmets portrayed.

Surviving padding from renaissance Europe is usually around 5 mm thick, and often of not-very-effective materials. The most common threats were spears and projectiles, and neither is very good at giving a concussion.

I think it looks too big, too. Seans right about thin period padding. How does the bascinet fit? Does it feel wobly or does it fit snuggly to your head? It should fit tight, so that it won't shift around with your motions. This is essential if you want to use your visor. How wide is your angle of vision through the slits? If the helm is too big, the slits are to far away from your eyes, so your vision will suffer. This can't be corrected with thicker padding.

Regards,
Thomas

I will be using this for HEMA as well as living history. It fits pretty nice and snug, but I want to be historically accurate as possible. In my group we need to document everything that fits within our timeline of 1415. We will be portraying the French army during the battle of Agincourt.

Also I'd like to note, I will using this as my fencing mask, once I get a mesh visor ;) So this will have multiple purposes.

Thanks for such quick responses :D
-Reece

Unless Doug's bascinets had the original owners head in it the measurements mean little alone. If you need much more than 5/8" of padding it might be too big.

Sean,

Where did you get 5mm from? Is it published somewhere I can have a look at it? I have seen a fair number of helmet linings and many were much thicker than that. maybe 3/8-1/2" being an average range. The lightest ones I saw were about 1/4 or a tad thicker. I worked with some later 16th and 17th century armour, some eight or so more or less full liners that were more or less complete and they were all 1/2-5/8". Here is one I worked with. The thickest was over 5/8" but it got downt o 3/8" in some places.

RPM

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Randall, I may have read some things and seem some photos in Blair, Edge/Paddock, and Blyth, but the best source I know is Blackburn et al., "Head Protection in England Before the First World War," Neurosurgery, Vol. 47 No. 6 (December 2000) pp. 1277-1278. It sounds like you have handled and measured more padding than they did.

Its obviously a complicated issue, because in late medieval and early modern Europe it was common to combine padding. In the early 14th century one man might wear a padded coif, a padded bascinet with a cloth roll on top, and a great helm while the man to his right just wore a padded visored bascinet over an unpadded coif. Similarly, some padding materials seem to work much better than others: I've heard good things about horsehair, but I doubt grass would be very effective.

Randall and Sean brought up some very good points. Sure, the wearers head needs to be brought into this two. On the other hand, Dougs research gives an idea of general size and proportion.
Considered that, the bascinet comes down too much on the shoulders, while the to of the face opening is too high. Maybe it needs to be tilted forward a bit.
Next is the thickness of the liner. Besides absolute thickness in general, it would be important to discuss if there should be a space between the liner and the metal when the head is inside or not. This would work like a suspension system.
Also the "preference" to wear padded vs. unpadded coifs under thin/thick liners might perhaps be attributed to taste or not absolute well fitting helmets.

The point if the visor distance and ocularia in relation to the eyes is another coplicated matter. When we look at houndskull visor we see very different shapes, even in case of similarelmet shape. So the distance to the eyes is influenced by that. Have a look at the three Churnitg bascinets, there is one with a very flat/horizontal bro section in the visor, pushing the distance eye to ocularia farther out. My opinion, the visor was down while charging with the lance or something where action was at similar distance, as soon as close combat was imminant, the visor was up.