Hi all,
I have been thinking lately about cheek pieces on helms.
My frame of reference is Europe, north of the alps, and west of Dniepr.

My question is if wecan assume that cheek pieces on helmets have been constantly (if with varying popularity) in use?

We know them quite well from the classic sutton hoo, Vendel and Coppergate finds. There also seem to be some sort of cheek plates on some of the Lewis chess-men.

Then there seem to be a gap, where I would assume that the prevalent use of mail hoods make cheek plates obsolete (for helms that did not provide full cover, such as great helms or barbutes), but then they appear again in the late medieval era/renaissance with kettle hats, skull caps and proto-burgonets.

Can we "fill in the blanks" with findings, or manuscript images in this rather large time span? Or did the cheek piece helms actually disappear for a few hundred years and then re-appear again in the late medieval era?

I am especially curious about the situation of eastern Europe, since I know that my knowledge of that area is weak.

Just to clarify, are you claiming that all helmets in these periods had cheekguards?

There are some from the migration/early medieval period that do not. I'm thinking particularly about the many broad band/bandenhelms (which have the greatest longevity of any helmet form) that don't.

This might help:

http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewto...p;t=137658

I'm sure you can find unusual examples here and there, but I'd say cheekpieces were indeed pretty much not used for a while--I'm thinking Norman Conquest era, of course.

Matthew

plate cheek defenses go back SO much farther in time (Romans, Greeks at least) that it does seem that IF there is any period in which they were not used at all that period would be the exception. Also, plate and mail do not provide equal protection, so even in periods in which mail dominated, somebody might have still used plate cheeks. It just seems like too practical a solution for it to have been abandoned entirely. I have no evidence to offer, though.

Scandinavian kettle hats of the 13th-14th centirues were often fitted with cheek guards. They are particularly evident in Norwegian art.