Hello,

I was reading some 16th century Portuguese texts and found reference to the use of cotton padded body armour in Brazil and Africa but what intrigued me was the reference to cotton padded head covers/helmets (celadas).

Do you have any idea what they looked like?

Cheers,

Nuno

That's interesting. We know that a lot of Cortez' men (and Conquistadores in general?) abandoned their steel-breastplates during the summer heat since padded cotton-armour proved to be a sufficient defense against Aztec arrows, but the celada thing is news to me.
However there's a thread on this forum dealing with the sallet and it's predecessors. One possible forefather of the sallet could be the Italian cellata, something like an iron skullcap.
Maybe those Spanish and Portugese celadas were just metal-caps covered with fabric?
Anyway here's a picture of 14th century Italian cellatas.

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1340 slaughter of the Innocents

Wolfgang,

I think the celada was very similar to these metal skullcaps but made from leather and stiffened cotton padded cloth. Never seen any pictorial evidence but the design was probably very similar to the metal ones. Thanks for the reply and picture.