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Forum Index > Historical Arms Talk > Cotton Padded Helmets? Reply to topic
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Nuno Pereira





Joined: 11 Sep 2005

Posts: 7

PostPosted: Mon 03 Apr, 2006 1:51 am    Post subject: Cotton Padded Helmets?         Reply with quote

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
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Wolfgang Armbruster





Joined: 03 Apr 2005

Posts: 322

PostPosted: Mon 03 Apr, 2006 6:46 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

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 Innocents.jpg
1340 slaughter of the Innocents
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Nuno Pereira





Joined: 11 Sep 2005

Posts: 7

PostPosted: Mon 03 Apr, 2006 7:53 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

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.
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Bruno Giordan





Joined: 28 Sep 2005

Spotlight topics: 1
Posts: 919

PostPosted: Wed 05 Apr, 2006 12:19 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Wolfgang Armbruster wrote:
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.


Sorry, the modern common form for sallet in italian is celata (single l).

I'm sure I hve read many period local variations to the modern celata in the past (even cellada, celada etc, almost spanish like), which were due to the fact that the writers were using early forms of tuscan or local dialects.
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