HELMETS
The most general name for a helmet up to about 1450 was basnet, or bacinet. This, as its name implies (see p. [156]), was a basin-shaped steel cap worn by fighting men of all ranks. The knights and nobles wore it under their great ornamental helms.[161] The basnet itself was perfectly plain. About the end of the 16th century the usual English helmets were the burgonet and morion.[162] These were often very decorative, as may be seen by a visit to any collection of old armour. Spenser speaks of a "guilt engraven morion" (Faerie Queene, vii. 7). Between the basnet and these reigned the salet or salade, on which Jack Cade puns execrably—
"Wherefore, on a brick wall have I climbed into this garden, to see if I can eat grass, or pick a sallet another while, which is not amiss to cool a man's stomach this hot weather. And I think this word sallet was born to do me good, for many a time, but for a sallet, my brain-pan had been cleft with a brown-bill."
(2 Henry VI., iv. 10.)
It comes, through Fr. salade, from Ital. celata, "a scull, a helmet, a morion, a sallat, a headpiece" (Florio). The etymologists of the 17th century, familiar with the appearance of "guilt engraven morions," connected it with Lat. cælare, to engrave, and this derivation has been repeated ever since without examination. Now in the Tower of London Armoury is a large collection of salets, and these, with the exception of one or two late German specimens from the ornate period, are plain steel caps of the simplest form and design. The salet was, in fact, the basnet slightly modified, worn by the rank and file of 15th-century armies, and probably, like the basnet, worn under the knight's tilting helm. There is no Italian verb celare, to engrave, but there is a very common verb celare, to conceal. A steel cap was also called in Italian secreta, "a thinne steele cap, or close skull, worne under a hat" (Florio), and in Old French segrette, "an yron skull, or cap of fence" (Cotgrave). Both words are confirmed by Duez, who, in his Italian-French Dictionary (1660), has secreta, "une secrette, ou segrette, un morion, une bourguignotte, armure de teste pour les picquiers." Ergo, the salet belongs to Lat. celare, to hide, secrete.
We now caulk a ship by forcing oakum into the seams. Hence the verb to caulk is explained as coming from Mid. Eng. cauken, to tread, Old Fr. cauquer, caucher, Lat. calcare, from calx, heel. This makes the process somewhat acrobatic, although this is not, philologically, a very serious objection. But we caulk the ship or the seams, not the oakum. Primitive caulking consisted in plastering a wicker coracle with clay. The earliest caulker on record is Noah, who pitched[163] his ark within and without with pitch. In the Vulgate (Genesis, vi. 14), the pitch is called bitumen and the verb is linere, "to daub, besmear, etc." Next in chronological order comes the mother of Moses, who "took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch" (Exodus, ii. 3), bitumine ac pice in the Vulgate. Bitumen, or mineral pitch, was regularly applied to this purpose, even by Elizabethan seamen. Failing this, anything sticky and unctuous was used, e.g., clay or lime. Lime now means usually calcium oxide, but its original sense is anything viscous; cf. Ger. Leim, glue, and our bird-lime. The oldest example of the verb to caulk is about 1500. In Mid. English we find to lime used instead, e.g., in reference to the ark—
"Set and limed agen the flood" (c. 1250),
and—
"Lyme it with cleye and pitche within and without." (Caxton, 1483.)
Our caulk is in medieval Latin calcare, and this represents a rare Latin verb calicare, to plaster with lime, from calx, lime. Almost every language which has a nautical vocabulary uses for our caulk a verb related to Fr. calfater. This is of Spanish or Portuguese origin. The Portuguese word is calafetar, from cal, lime, and afeitar, to put in order, trim, etc.