ARMET AND CLOSE HELMET.
This is the most perfect form of helmet and the most familiar, so much so indeed as to render any description almost unnecessary. It may be said to have been evolved from the sallad and mentonnière, in the sense that the bavier took the place of the latter; but instead of being slipped on over the head like the bassinet and sallad, it was constructed to hinge over it, and strictly followed the outline of the head and neck. Its form is globular, with a guard for the back of the neck, and in front round the chin is the bevor or bavier. The space between this piece and the rim of the crown-piece is filled in by a movable visor, which is pierced with narrow openings for vision and air. It thus consists of at least three pieces—the skull-piece, the visor, and the bevor; the visor is usually in one piece. It is beaked, and exhibits a series of ridges with air slits in the indentations. The crown-piece is usually combed. During the second quarter of the sixteenth century the visor was made in two plates, the upper closing inside the lower—the upper plate could be lowered at pleasure, without moving the one below. The Seusenhofer armet in the Tower is a masterpiece of the kind, being composed of six pieces, working one within the other. English armets date from the last decade of the fifteenth century, perhaps a little later. They were to be met with in Germany as early as the middle of that century. It is impossible to make much distinction between the armet and close helmet, which latter was the improved armet of the sixteenth century. A camail was sometimes used with the earliest form of armet. Illustrations of this head-piece may be seen on several of the suits given in this volume.
Fig. 13.—Sallads and an early Burgonet.