[B. Nyffenegger]

I was reading A History of The Art of War: The Middle Ages, when I encountered a picture of a knight of the 1100's wearing a maille coif with a plate visor/ mask attached to it. The illustration was in the manuscript "The Lives of the Two Offa's". The illustration itself was added in the 14th century. I have found no other example of this outside this illustration. My question is: Was a visor/mask ever worn with a maille coif, or is this just a error by the illustrator?

For reference: http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/illma...75371.html



Thanks,
Brian

[Gregory J. Liebau]

This is an interesting image that has been published a lot as an exclusive example showing this form of visor over a coif. I think that perhaps people have since brought another example or two to light, but for the most part we can only appreciate it as an historical oddity. Whether it occurred in reality or not is hard to say based on such slight evidence (when using art for material suggestion it's typically best to have many related examples or cross-references from artifacts or various forms of art, at least)...

I wouldn't wear a visor like that, personally, because the shock-absorbing characteristics of a full helm are greatly mitigated without the whole skull being encompassed by solid steel.

-Gregory

[Brian Robson]

It leaves the neck open too - as shown in the image