Helmets: The Great Helm 

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I saw it too. For some dumb reason I had a ridiculous idiotic thought in my noggin telling me they were perhaps the two advisories' horses fighting, and were in a wrestling stance trying grapple each other haha.

Bros before foes.

That made my day

You took the leap and made the pun, truly ribbeting

Some people just want to watch the world burn.

*laugh track*

why

Yes, great as in big! :)

gso619 no most modern reproductions are oversized like that one.

Great helms of this style were oversized because they had to fit over an additional helmet. This is not the result of oversized reproduction, its in keeping with the documented sizes of mid-late 14th century survivals like the Pembridge Helm, the Royal Armouries example and the Edward of Woodstock Helm.

I will never get over "Christ on a bike"

In Hot weather it become’s a head oven.

horse combat I didn't know that

I know lol, was just a joke as they look like they're hugging

They're hugging it out, like "Why can't our humans just talk this out? So many young men dying in the field over the disputes of old men in castles! Woe is the state of the world!" At which point they both stop, because someone said 'Woe'.

See, this is why RU-vid comments need a high-five button. :D

@@knightshousegames That's actually very witty. This website doesn't deserve you.

Battle horses are vicious...

Nah man, those horses were just sharing a brotherly hug

@@franciosdeaeruiu7555 yeah, they didn't ask to be there. Just poor victims of circumstance. But at least they got those neat saddles to wear.

They’re both called Ian too lol

It's just a flesh wound!

D:

Luckily they had bandages back then.

@@fanfanthomas9688 'tis*

@Kshitij Raj no

It has more of a crusader look to it

Everyone *agreed with* that

I have to agree, my own great helm is a flat top. Very similar in design to the one here only mine only has breathing ports on the left side of the face

@@gabriel300010 thats because in the first and second crusade, the flat top great helm was favored among crusaders

have you heard about a game called chivalry medieval warfare? if someone atacks you, you get realy scared. also that's just a game, amazing in real life what would happen.

Strength of a tank, skill of a Green Beret.

I find that in my opinion the great helm is better than the houndskul helmet. With this one you get much more vision than with that cone sticking out. I know it gives better protection and breatheability, but there's to little vision. The maximilian helmet is the best helmet in my opinion

+Just a talking taco What would YOU know? You're just a taco.

Andrew Forrest No one has eaten him yet. Maybe he wears a great helm?

I'm here to design very unique and specialized armor for my character, making sure it's designed logically

This is the problems with these videos about historical weapons and armors, once you started you can't stop

+John Huang Nice summary, Imagine the hinge technology, probably wasn't up to the job or even thought necessary or sensible back when they first enclosed the helms, then the steel got better and the hinges stronger so it became sensible to fit. Obviously that's just my conjecture!

+bren cav The hinge only needs to be a couple of rivets, so I don't think that would have been a technological limitation.

exactly

The reason there were no close helmets during 1000's its either they do not need to because of massive shields, or lack of technology

Or just make a plate gorget that rests on shoulders and protects up to the nose from front and sides? Doesn't look like much of tech or skilled involved.

+usaid alfatih Thank you and welcome!

+usaid alfatih Me too.

+Daniel Billington Me three!

+Knyght Errant I really like your delivery Ian. Have you heard of the channel forgottenweapons? Both of you guys are very similar lol

same

Thank you very much! I really appreciate it.

+Arioch IV Much like coifs, historical aventails come in a wide variety of shapes. You have some surviving mail very fitted around the chin, but on the actual bascinets we have with surviving mail, they look more like what you see in the video (here's an example of a surviving original aventail on its bascinet (www.pinterest.com/pin/449515606530388945/)

Under a mail coif an additional textile coif is often worn to keep the mail off the hair and skin, but it's largely unnecessary in a bascinet. Virtually all surviving bascinets have holes pierced around their perimeter for sewing in an integral textile suspension liner, negating the need for an additional textile arming coif. I do have a video on helmet liners if you're interested - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-itO64ZBX1jU.html

In a lot of cases it would be discarded after the initial cavalry charge, so getting it off quickly is important which is one reason we may not see any evidence of a chin strap. Sometimes it's also better to have your helmet knocked off by a lance (the helm itself would be retained by your cuirass chains if you're wearing them), then having all of that force transferred to your head and neck (either killing your or unhorsing you).

​@@KnyghtErrant What is the actual evidence for that it was discarded after the charge? I have heard somewhere that this is simply speculation, but I might be wrong. Apparently Henry V wore a great helm as late as the Battle of Agincourt, where it saved his life. And he hardly participated in a cavalry charge there. A properly bespoke great helm is supposedly nowhere near as restricting as some people claim, so what would be the reasons for discarding it? As war is not sport, people tend to value protection quite heavily.

@@Osvath97 ​ It _is_ speculation. The thinking is mostly rooted in helms that were specifically intended for wear over bascinets, which is not true of all helms (it would obviously be foolish to remove your _only_ helmet in the middle of a fray), and in many cases discarded might be a mischaracterization (although certainly possible in extremis). A lot of 14th century helms were equipped with provisions for attachment to chains that allowed the helm to be slung over the shoulder and retrieved when needed. Being able to reduce the burden down to a single helmet seems to have been important to them. Helms do offer great protection and are not as restrictive as bad modern reproductions would lead people to believe, but many of them are pretty terrible when it comes to vision and breathing, especially when compared to the underlying bascinet. In those cases where the helm _is_ worn over a bascinet, some people believe that in certain circumstances the need for unimpeded vision and air might supersede the need for the superior protection offered by the helm, and the fact that it was designed to be removable while still retaining an underlying helmet lends support to the idea.

​@@KnyghtErrant Well, when it comes to the later double-helmed ones, that makes more sense. Even so, the need for layered protection with an extra helm might have been a factor? Of course, if the chains are coincidental to the development of the secret-helm then it does lend credence to that it was designed to be removable while still in combat. But still, it feels like the need to easily remove it when out of immediate combat (but when still on the battlefield) feels more likely than something like a very specific "charge helm". I guess that is one of my main complaints, the concept of charging in, then when engaged in melee you would somehow throw the helmet off while also scrambling to draw your secondary weapon. However, it feels plausible that it may be desirable to remove the helmet even in certain combat situations, but apparently standing in a tight formation on foot, facing other knights on foot, while having a huge missile advantage, was not one of them for Henry V, despite it seeming a perfect kind of situation. No cavalry charge on either side and no sizeable amount of missiles aimed at him. Of course, that is only an n = 1, but it might be an indication. Though, it was the layered protection saved his life, apparently, which might be why he wore it. I also find arguments about what people today find difficult to use to be a bit suspect, most of the time. When most civilians try on a full modern military combat kit they find it almost inconceivable to fight in. Fighting in a great helm was probably a skill, and with the more limited ventilation physically demanding, which may perhaps be a reason we almost exclusively see man-at-arms use them. And thereby a status symbol, probably why great helms essentially became the "heraldic helmet". That does of course not mean that you would always want to fight in one as a knight, even the King of Norway fought with a kettle hat once in the early 1200s.

@@Osvath97 I'm curious what source states that Henry V was wearing a great helm specifically and not a great bascinet at Agincourt? I'm familiar with the story of his crown being damaged by the Duke of Alencon, but I'm under the impression that despite earlier association, Henry's funerary helm has long been divorced from that story by most scholars. Dr. Toby Capwell is pretty clear that the helm, regardless of whether it was actually worn by Henry at any point is definitively a jousting helm. Regardless, remember that Henry was famously shot in the face 12 years earlier, so even he didn't always think layering was necessary in actual combat.

Light carved hardwoods, molded leather and even papier mache from my understanding, but like +ultraboy222 said a lot of that was for tournament use, ceremonial, or funerary.

Thank you! I'm in full agreement. This is why a Great Bascinet or stechelm is superior in protection compared to most any other helmet as that is it's primary mode of protection (taking the head and cervical spine out of the harm's way), however, as you said, it's all predicated on the body armor being designed to marry with the helm itself so by extension it matters _when_ we're talking about. I would estimate that the 'pembridge' style of late 14th century Great Helm is probably the first style of helmet that took advantage of such a principle as it saw the first styles of body armors that could accommodate (especially since rigid back defense was finally catching up to the developing single piece breastplates), but it wasn't really until the early 15th century when the principle began being taken full advantage of.

Yes, this idea reach a pinnacle with the advent of the great or grand bassinet.

+tondu5634 Thanks, and yes there are all kinds of 'in-between' styles of helmets out there. Hopefully in the future I will have more time to cover some of the more obscure stuff!

+zarbran While I don't know for sure, I would guess that people wouldn't keep their great helm slung over their shoulder unless they expected to need it on short notice.

A lot of later helms like the frog mouth (and even other types of helmet like the great bascinet) were bolted or strapped directly to the cuirass and supported by the torso to produce the effect you describe.

I am on the great bascinet atm)) Btw don't you think that Sallet was partially popular because of easier manufacturing?

btw I'd really like if you showed the insides of the helmets too. To see how the padding and straping is done.

Well... no knight is going to stand there and let someone continually beat them over the head with a mace, but the idea is that the shape of the helmet helps shed the blow and of course you have another helmet on underneath. No, you wouldn't wear a padded cap and mail hood under all of those layers.

Knyght Errant thanks man I love ur channel, did u already see the ten terryfying facts about knights by mind warehouse. Well either way thanks

X Infinity Yes, I've seen that video and it's absolutely horrible :)

Knyght Errant 1 HOUR TO TAKE OFF ARMOR LOL

That particular one can't mount a visor, because as you noted, it has no pivots, but it's overall shape is not unlike a bascinet that _could_ have a visor mounted on it. If worn with a visor you couldn't wear the great helm anymore though. Even if the visor fit inside of the great helm, getting the two pairs of eye slits to line up would be a nightmare. I did remove the 'How a Man Shall Be Armed' video (well, I set it to private, I didn't delete it) because I no longer stand by some of the interpretations in that video. The arming clothes have some serious issues, and despite my best efforts to put annotations all over the video I think it was still giving people the wrong impression. I will be re-making the video with my current kit and hopefully higher production value when able.

+Stephan Barbarian manuscriptminiatures.com/4087/12054/

Wonderful, thanks a lot!

+Scott Farrell Hi Scott! I think if that particular great helm got struck with a lance it could potentially come right off your head. I would personally see a setup like that being more practical for something like an initial cavalry charge, and then discarding it for the melee and fighting in the open-faced bascinet. I would not really want to fight on foot with it, but that's just me. There's plenty of art to indicate that large great helms like that were used on foot though. I don't have enough (read: any) practical experience wearing a great helm so my opinion is purely theoretical. It would seem that for foot combat especially it would require significantly more stability to be effective. I've heard it argued that not having it secured to your head means that if you do take a lance to the face, and the helmet gets ripped off your head, very little of the force would actually transfer to your head (like modern crash-helmets that are designed to break away before your head does). A chin strap being the primary retention could cause serious injury from a lance strike. Imagine all that force being on a leather strap tucked under your chin or near your throat. The argument has merit, but at the end of the day, I don't really know the answer.

+Serpent@Eden It's likely that many of these helms had chinstraps to mitigate your concern. Some recent scholarship has turned up some obscure references to thongs being used to secure the helm in place (also in the case of a bascinet in one reference). There is an account of a tournament joust where one of the knights is caught cheating by using a weak thong to secure his helm so that the helm would fly off and not unhorse him. This implies that normally, a more secure method for keeping the helm on was used or it wouldn't have been worth mentioning. I hope to do a video on this sub-topic in the future.

Interesting. Thank you for your prompt answer. :)

+Serpent@Eden In the SCA where I live there was a guy who used a large enclose helmet (bascinet with bar grill I think) with a suspended fitting he had put on himself. One blow to the top of the head with a rubber poleaxe and down he went. The suspension fitting was not part of the accepted minimum requirements, so he was responsible. Makes me wonder if suspension fittings were ever that popular, since they can injure the wearer extremely easily if the blow comes down wrong.

Oisin Lee The suspension in this case is intended only to be worn over another helmet. It sounds like the mishap you're describing in the SCA was a similar suspension worn directly on the head. I think therein lies the danger.

Oh, OK

They weren’t great helms they were just flat top helmets