[Augusto Boer Bront]

I have seen that in tha late 14th century there were paddaed aventails in bascinets under tha mail one.
http://www.man.poznan.pl/~ritter/tmp/mediewal...pMocny.jpg
But whed did it made the firse appareance?
And how were they fixed? Were they solidal with the padded inlay of the helm or they were a separate piece?

[Jason O C]

Hi everyone. While searching this site for the answer to my question, I noticed that it had already been asked before. So in the hope that this thread just went unnoticed the first time around I would like ask it again, and this time hopefully someone with an answer will see this and help both myself and Augusto out. Thanks in advance.

Jason

[Ian S LaSpina]

For what it's worth, in my most un-scholarly opinion, having worn bascinets with maille aventails, they make terrible protection for your neck and upper shoulders without padding. In fact, sewing a linen padded aventail to affix underneath my maille aventail is my next project. Without the padding, your neck would be very susceptible to impact, which as we all know, necks don't provide good impact absorption on their own. With no padding, maille alone on your neck might only protect against glancing slashes. A solid cut or thrust could still break your neck, crush your throat, etc..

In the reproduction world I've seen aventail padding as stand alone as well as integrated in to the linen helmet liner. In use, these would both be replaceable parts of a helmet. Maille would rough up the padding with normal use, so an easily removable padding setup might be easiest to deal with.

[Stephen Curtin]

Ian, although I agree with you that having no padding under the mail around your neck is a bad idea, weren't there often padded collars, either as part of the aketon or as a stand alone pieces, and with an aketon on beneath the torso armour (whether that be mail, or plate, or both) would another layer of padding around the upper chest and shoulders be needed? Btw I'm not saying that the padded aventail didn't exist, I'm just wondering if an aketon with a padded collar couldn't do the same job. In regards to whether a padded aventail would be better made as part of the helmet liner, or as a stand alone piece, my only thought about this is that the type made as part of the helmet liner would restrict side to side movement of the head, but having never worn one of these I could be way wrong, and perhaps someone whose has could tell you if this is the case.

[Felix R.]

Stephen a padded collar is not the same as a padded aventail.

[James Anderson III]

Generally speaking, mail is poor protection without good padding underneath. The few that I have seen, the padding is a fully padded coif with extended aventail padding. I don't remember the time period off the top of my head, it's been years since I saw it.

[Jason O C]

Thanks guys for the replies. I did a bit more searching and found a site called Armour Archive, in which this topic has been discussed many times. Anyway it seems the consensus is that padding was used underneath the aventail of a bascinet, but it is unclear whether it was made as one piece with the helmet liner or as a separate piece.

If the padding was all one piece then I imagine that it would look something like this http;//mailmaker.tripod.com/paddedcoif/paddedcoif.html

Who knows perhaps a padded coif (as in the above link) was un-attached, and simply put on before the helm. This would have the advantage of making cleaning the interior of the helm easier.

Jason

[Stephen Curtin]

The padded coif that Jason linked to has me curious. Is there any evidence for something like this historically? I've often seen things like this in movies (kingdom of heaven for example), but I've never seen them in any illuminated manuscripts or other historical artworks. I have seen padded collars and arming caps which serve the same purpose, but never a singular piece like this which protects the entire head, neck, and throat. So did they exist or it this another hollywood mistake?

[Felix R.]

One thing, I was thinking of lately is the attachment of the aventail itself.
Most pieces are detachable by a string. What is the reason, only cleaning issues? Maybe it has to do with the way they were worn. You could make it better fitting when attaching the aventail to the helmet after putting it on.

First lay the aventail around your neck, then put on the helmet and attach the aventail to it. By this method you could use a really close fitting aventail.

[Stephen Curtin]

Felix, you might be on to something here. If you look at these images you'll see a man put on his aventail before his bascinet.

www.manuscriptminiatures.com/search/?manuscri...eve-ms1130

[Daniel Granath]

Could it be something like these?
http://www.kostym.cz/Anglicky/2_Detaily/01_Doplnky/II_01_100.htm
http://bilddatenbank.khm.at/viewArtefact?id=373578
http://bilddatenbank.khm.at/viewArtefact?id=373580
http://bilddatenbank.khm.at/viewArtefact?id=373465

[Augusto Boer Bront]

Not exacly. Those are internal padding for jousting helms, like the frog-mouth ones.

[Ian S LaSpina]

[Stephen Curtin]

Thanks for adding those links Daniel. Augusto this piece may have been made for a jousting helm, but perhaps it could be considered as a proof of concept for single piece padded coif, like the one that Jason linked to above. Ian, your probably right about the mail standard, and great job on the aventail.

[Felix R.]

[Augusto Boer Bront]

[Stephen Curtin]

[Ian S LaSpina]

[Felix R.]

Well, I don´t argue against sewing the padded liner to the aventail at all. I was just pointing out that there must be a reason to have the aventail attached to the basinet by a string. So there must be a reason for quick detachability. Otherwise you could just sew it to the helmet as well.

There are actually a lot of different face openings in basinets and most reconstruction aventails are not properly shaped to those openings. There was an interesting discussion over at the Armorarchive a while back. There are also ways to make the aventail "bag shaped" around the chin, I am not going so far to say this would be appropriate for what we are looking at, but it was in earlier times. Then, you could also shape the liner more "chin fitted" without changing the hanging maille piece in that area. I don´t say you would need a snug fit there.

I cam eup with that idea when I was modifying my bascinet. It does have a totally different shape than yours, or the most versions. But it has a liner with triangular flaps that attach to the inside of the elongated cheek pieces. Pulling in the liner after putting on the helmet by a drawstring would make it work like a chinstrap.

Another thing that made me think of something chinstrap-like is the fact that most if not all helmets of modern times have something like that, for instance helmet for motor bikes. Those are very snug fitting and still there is a chinstrap, because when there ist uncontrolled force applied, you wouldn´t just rely on a snug fit.

Just some thoughts, to get a clue about the idea in the first sentences.

[Felix R.]

The Walter von Hohenklingen effigy, for example, does look like having a shaped chin section.