Helmets: The Bascinet 

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+Warhorse Studios Thank you! Absolutely, please share! I'm really enjoying the Alpha of Kingdom Come, you guys are doing great work, and I know people like me are very happy to see what you're doing!

+Knyght Errant Great! Thank you :D

+PromptLP Yeah, but Bethesda does only have their one Fallout beer, we do have our four Kingdom Come Deliverance beers... thats the main difference ;) Vielen Dank für deine Unterstützung. :)

+Warhorse Studios So glad to see you here, keep up the great work on Kingdom Come.

+DevinSmith56 Thank you. :)

+It's Just Milk I Swear That's just part of its charm :)

Knyght Errant the happy looking helmets are scarier than the serious looking ones now that i think about it. cause if you're on a battlefield killing people with a big grin on your helmets face its a lot more sadistic looking.

looks like he is high, high as fuck, especially when ian moved around!

+It's Just Milk I Swear it looks like a content mouse to me

+It's Just Milk I Swear Nothing like a slasher smile to make your opponent rethink their current situation.

That is extremely fascinating, not something I've thought about before.

Could helmets have "chimneys" on top that lets hot air out?

People get that far in my videos? I'm impressed!

Well i do at least, i'd say the people who don't are missing out haha Btw, are you still planning to do a separate video on comparing your two visors? i just recently got a Bascinet with a visor that is also based on the Churburg CH16, and after using it for a bit i would like to hear your thoughts on how it compares to the Wallace one (as i do not own one in that style)

I do plan on making a video about vision in those visors. I'm trying to devise a way to test measurable field of view so it's not just me sitting there saying "Yeah, I think I can see a little more now..."

Yeah fair enough, trying to empirically test it doesn't seem particularly easy, getting a GoPro or something under the visor seems like a pain in the ass. The only thing i can really think of is perhaps getting two pieces of paper, putting the visors on and roughly drawing around where the edge of your vision is. might be a bit fiddly, need to keep your head at a set distance, but not too far away so that you can draw etc, but that might be a good way to compare the sight pictures of the two visors in a side-by-side comparison.

I can now never unsee that. Thanks.

this is basically the best way to explain a bascinet

i am more surprised by how someone don't see that immediately

In France the name for this helmet is "Bassinet à bec de Passereau" (pronounce Basseeney ha beck de passerow). It means Bascinet with Passereau's beak, and guess what is the Passereau ? A bird ;)

Opium13 or pig

Same I still favor Armets and Close helms tho

@jeanluc305 Ironic, considering the only hounskull in KCD looks like a cheap SCA repro, lol.

I personally like the Kettle helmet

I kinda prefer bascinets to armets and armets to sallets and sallets to barbutes off to the side are Roman and Viking style helms as well as Persian/mongol which I like a lot but not as much as bascinets

​@@liammackenzie9283the zoul one is fine

+Michael Eversberg II You mean with the visor down? What I may do is do an experiment outside where I do exactly that. Speak and yell commands or something with the visor up and then with the visor down so you can hear the difference.

Knyght Errant Exactly; it is a practical concern for a helmet, so I think it's fitting that your series explores it. Is this the final one for your kit, here? Shall we not expect anything new a while?

+Michael Eversberg II No, there are a couple more planned for the series (Kettle Helmets, probably a shorter featurette on throat defense specifically), and I've got a list of ideas for other videos as well that will explore more specifics and have more demonstrations. I've added your idea to my list. I agree, it's definitely a concern, and something medievals would have had to deal with.

Knyght Errant Good to hear there's more. You are well spoken; your military background does credit. I look forward to the kettle helm - back when I first started getting into this kind of stuff years ago, kettle helms were my de-facto #1 favorite. Have you considered weapon presentations? I spy a ballock dagger on your shelf, and surely you've arms fitting your harness? Cheers!

+Michael Eversberg II Thank you. Weapons are on the list too, and some other accessories like the plaque belt and sword suspension etc...

+Lee Hissong indeed

very well indeed sir would you also like a cup o' tea?

+jancello It does create a lever arm, but I think that happening in practice would be more a result of bad luck than intentional. There are a lot better targets on an armored man than trying to strike laterally at the end of the snout of houndskull. I'm willing to bet it's massive popularity suggests that the benefits of the design outweighed the disadvantages, of which the torquing of your neck is one. It's another reason to do assymetrical breaths on the visor. You don't want the tip of lance to snag a breath and snap your head to the side.

+Knyght Errant Thank you for the answer ! The hypothesis of my friend was that hound-skylls were predominantely cavalry visors, where the main menace is arrows and lances, and that more low-profile visors were used for foot combat. But that bias might come from the fact that he's doing some reenactment fighting, where people are bashing at the armor and such blows to the visor are more likely to happen.

There's just far too much evidence that houndskull visors were used on foot to relegate it to a cavalry visor. The visor styles seem to be more regional preferences than 'troop type' preference. Klappvisors were more favored in Germanic regions and parts of Northern Italy, but France and England are dominated by houndskulls. Consider that England's preference was to fight on foot anyway, and they were still wearing houndskulls, not shallow visors. Also consider that in most reenactment fighting 'edged weapons' are all really maces in drag because of the safety rules. So most weapons behave like impact weapons, which can skew observation.

+Knyght Errant Thanks again for your valuable answers :)

Thanks for the thumbs up about Piotr Feret though. I intend to get a klappvisier bascinet from him.

Hi thanks. Yes, many eBay sellers from India routinely steal photographs from competent armorers and fraudulently use them to sell knock-offs. Unfortunately, there's not much we can do about it other than make sure people are aware that they are indeed frauds.

@@KnyghtErrant It is unfortunate this happens, I almost fell prey to this concerning a wolf pelt. When I saw the helmet i immediately was skeptical, a helmet like that for 200 bucks?. I am just glad to be able to bring awareness to folk about this.

Thanks! When I'm wearing the helmet, to be honest, I barely notice the sound of the visor pin chain. The experience of wearing armor is not a quiet one, and I find any sound the chain makes to fade into the rest of the background noise.

+Phillip 053 There is no evidence for any mechanical device to keep the visor closed. It shouldn't really be falling open from gravity, but it's certainly a technique to attempt to lift your opponents visor to kill them. In many cases the need to be able to quickly lift your own visor to take a breath or shout commands would in my opinion outweigh the benefit of locking it down. It requires a certain amount of fine motor skill and time to fiddle with locking mechanisms, especially with a gauntlet on (and presumable a weapon in hand) that might prevent you from getting it raised when you need to.

Visor up or visor completely off are perfectly viable options reflected in the artwork.

Knyght Errant I'd still rather have the visor down, thank you very much. I rather like my face. :)

That may be so, but you may actually have more of a chance of keeping it intact if you can see and breathe better, thus giving you more situational awareness to a potential threat, at least that's what a lot of historical images suggest :)

Knyght Errant I’ll keep on my camel or behind a shield if I’m not wearing a faceplate

+John Huang Probably a little bit, but mainly it's significantly bigger. The open-faced bascinet I had in the last video has been returned to its owner so I can't do a direct comparison (and I didn't think to do one when I had it in my possession).

Knyght Errant Hmm, I thought given that it has to serve as a standalone defense without the great helm on top of it would mean that it would have and could afford to be of significantly thicker construction. Anyway thanks I dont imagine that great helm would work well for a combat on foot compared to this bascinet?

So, this is a problem with modern reproductions, not comparable to originals. If my standalone bascinet had been raised from one piece of steel, it would definitely be a lot thicker at the top than at the sides, so comparing things like thickness in modern reproductions reveals one of the shortcomings of how they are made. The open-faced bascinet I had showed was also mild steel, my houndskull is 0.3% carbon and hardened, so it's not directly comparable. You can certainly get modern reproductions done as a single piece raised helmet, but that's more than I can afford :) I definitely prefer a visored bascinet to a great helm + smaller bascinet for use on foot, but that's my personal preference.

Knyght Errant Thanks, yeah the modern reproduction certainly lacked a lot of the features we find in the original pieces. BTW how much did your houndskull weight, with aventail and everything? I'd guess something in the vicinity of 10 lbs? I didnt imagine that you get to weight the other bascinet and great helm?

I'm not sure what the new one weighs. But I do have planned a video where I will weigh every individual piece of armor on camera so everyone can see.

+The Blind Leader Hopefully, eventually... Behind the houndskull bascinet, the armet is definitely one of favorites. I'd love to have a mid to late 15th century Milanese harness with an armet! If I ever go t hat direction, you can bet I will do videos about it.

The Blind Leader armet and Close Helms are my favorite

+Xanatos712 You get a little more low vision from the Wallace A69 visor because of the 'mouth' as compared to the Churburg #16 visor. You get an awareness of where you're stepping, but it's certainly a concern. Seeing a low blow however is not a matter of seeing the head of your opponent's pollaxe for example, but seeing his upper body and shoulders moving. You would know full well that the weapon is coming in low and have a really good idea exactly where based on the other visual cues even if you didn't see the business end of the weapon unhindered.

Late 14th century Italian sources (and some other regions) show side-pivoting visors like this (s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/0a/56/83/0a5683846c88e1dc865ab4fab07ebc15.jpg). Some people modernly call them 'snow-plow' style visors. Klappvisors didn't really show up until around 1360 (with a few possible depictions before that) and they remained in use in some form until close to 1440 depending on the region you're looking at. Remember though that klappvisor refers only to the method of attachment (i.e, a center pivot) not the style of visor. There are houndskull klappvisors for example.

Thank you very much!

It's hard to say. The one on the right looks very much like a scale leg covering since it's not drawn like the mail anywhere else in the image. The middle one is very strange, but appears to show something with small iron plates, perhaps like the surviving 'panzerhosen' from the Bayerisches Museum (www.pinterest.com/pin/294845106830795725/).

Well there you go! That is very strange haha. I guess wearing scale on the legs would make more sense too, as an enemy is less likely to be able the stab in an upwards manner to get under the scales. Impressive knowledge as always! Thank you and keep up the good work!!

Found a few examples of scale sabatons too, but couldn't find any that covered from the knee down. au.pinterest.com/pin/75857574946592600/ au.pinterest.com/pin/370139663104607941/

+Serpent@Eden You do see klappvisors outside of Germany as well (Northern Italy and even the rare example on effigies in England), but they definitely seem to be more common there. I think more than anything else, Klappvisors evolved out of the Bretache (the nasal that secures in the same spot). The bretache was also popular in Germany. My opinion is that as they started to find the bretache was providing inadequate coverage, and they figured out a way to expand it into a visor while using a similar mechanism to secure to the front center of the skull, and thus the klappvisor was born. I don't own a klapp anymore, but when I did I seem to remember the visor being a bit easier to remove (especially with the helmet still on your head) but that may just be an incidental difference.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tDkB-zMUf7k.htmlsi=Ynqaymla_mKjJTAe

There is a textile suspension system, not unlike modern ballistic helmets. Here's a video about it - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-itO64ZBX1jU.html

Knyght Errant perfect! Thanks

Bretache

The aventail alone does a pretty decent job of keeping the helmet on your head. Modernly a lot of people fight in bascinets without any sort of retention and it's only during wrestling that I ever see the helmets come off. This is actually shown in some historical fighting treatises. In the late 14th century we do see some artwork that shows a strap emerging from underneath the back of the aventail, securing the helmet down to whatever back defense the person is wearing. This will prevent the above described problem, and is used with success in some modern contexts as well.

+zappelzockt Being able to remove the visor allows you to use different visors for different situations (joust vs mounted combat vs foot combat). It seems like a lot of people chose to fight without a visor on foot as well, so perhaps the visor was discarded after a cavalry charge. It's hard to say exactly. I'm willing to bet visors were frequently replaced throughout the working life of the helmet as well. Even the famous Wallace A69 has a plugged hole in the forehead where a klappvisor hinge used to be mounted.

But if you can afford participating in tourneys, you also can afford a second helmet, I believe - so different situations seem a bit off, in my eyes. Replacing damaged visors could be also a cause. Do you have experiences in fighting? Are the pins a weak spot? I think, a glanced off stroke could hitch in the gap between the skull and the pin and rip the rivet off?

+siouxsettewerks Hi, I actually have most of your suggestion already planned as a future video! I hope to address the functional comparison between the two visors in it and experiment with a lot of your suggestions.

Richard Fry wildarmory makes really good armor if you're still looking

Yes, he provided it all together. I did convert it to an adjustable liner, but that's it.

bretache

I prefer not to discuss the specific price of my armor because it has little relevance to what others will spend on armor. There are so many different grades of armor and within each grade, so many different variables that have a wild effect on the final cost of armor that it's very difficult to give an answer. How accurate you want the shaping to be, how polished it will be, the materials, whether or not it's heat treated, the decoration, the period of armor you're interested in, etc... If you're talking about strict living history grade armor (i.e., armor that is shaped historically, no concessions for modern sport combat) then you can spend anywhere from a couple thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars depending on specifics.

Thank you!

Other equally as effective styles just became more popular due to fashion preferences among plate armored warriors changing Humans have always cared about fashion and being “in style” it seems

+Phill Lappin manuscriptminiatures.com/5572/19855/

Thanks heaps

no problem!

+DoktorWeasel Every surviving bascinet that I'm aware of has holes drilled in it for a liner along the edges. I've never found the need for an additional padded cap when wearing a helmet with a sufficiently padded integral liner. You see the ties of textile coifs sticking out of helmets now and then in some manuscript illuminations but usually much earlier and often with much less substantial helmets, but with bascinets it's very hard to tell if something was worn under them because of the fact that you'd never see it from the outside.

Makes sense. Now that I think of it, I might just be remembering padded caps for mail coifs.

The discouragement of left-handedness in normal life is anecdotal to the best of my knowledge (springing from things like the connotation of left being evil, as reinforced in the language by things like the Latin word for _left_ being _sinister_), but it serves a very practical purpose in the context of warfare in the way it was being fought at the time. In the context of a judicial combat or a one-on-one deed of arms, fighting either handed is not a problem, and may even have its advantages. Fighting in warfare in a line with other men at arms, or in a cavalry formation, the circumstances will require a more practical synergy between individuals. Then more formally, in things like a regulated joust, obviously the lyst is designed to force left to left passage. There are no exceptions that I've ever seen in both survivals and artwork of an armor set up in reverse, i.e., a more reinforced right side both in field armors and sport armors. It's virtually *always* the left side that is more well defended in the event of asymmetrical armor (from both the standpoint of reinforcements or the piercing of a visor with breaths) and I normally hate using anything approaching an absolute.

That's very interesting. I wonder to what extent this only related to military endeavours or class and to what extent it permeated the rest of life. Would a farmer be allowed to be left handed or a scribe? If it was a widespread common suppression I wonder what extent that was the result of these military considerations or other activities in life?

That's a good question, and I wonder the same thing. I don't know if it was really a widespread cultural thing, or if it was mostly just relegated to a military context where you'd get the same effect of sitting next to a left-handed person at the dinner table bumping arms all the time :) If it went beyond that, was it a spillover from martial culture, or was it already part of the mindset? Interesting stuff...

As someone who fight left handed in lines, it has both advantages and disadvantages. I do get a fair deal of that struggle where the person next to me has their shield bumb into mine all the time. At the same time, having a leftie in the lines can be real good, but it does demand an extra level of awareness. Still, not as big of a deal as some think

chandesuchan You... You and I are on the same wavelength here. haha

albinotatertot This is probably the best comment I've seen on a video in ages.

it like a side-klappvisor