A form of helm used for tilting with the lance and also frequently depicted in heraldry, is the great helm of the time of Henry VII. and Henry VIII., of immense weight and strength, resting on the shoulders, and securely fixed to the back and breast. It was relatively flat on the crown, produced in front into a kind of blunt beak, giving a bird-like aspect with no distinct neck. The ocularium, or slit for vision, is large and in the crown, and can only be used by bending the body forward; the head being raised before the moment of impact to avoid the danger of the lance penetrating. This helm is well represented in the tournament roll of Henry VIII. in Heralds’ College, and from its massive strength and the fact that by no possibility could a combatant be accidentally unhelmed, afforded absolute protection to the head. Le Heaulme du Roy is represented in this roll as silvered, with a crown-like border round the neck of pearls and gems set in gold. There is a magnificent specimen in the Museum of Artillery at Woolwich, one in Westminster Abbey, two in St. George’s Chapel, one in Petworth Church, and one at Parham. This form of helm was the most massive and secure, and the last that remained in use. A very early delineation of a helmet of this type is seen in the late fourteenth-century French MS. (Burney, 257) in the British Museum. Some exceedingly interesting delineations of the same kind of tilting helm in actual use are to be seen in Philip de Commines’ Froissart, Harl. MS., 4379-80 ([Fig. 25]). It is there represented plain and fluted, and with various crests and mantling, one of the most singular, and a favourite, being a close copy of the lady’s head-dress of the period, with the lady’s long gauze veil reaching below the waist. This manuscript is of late fifteenth-century date, and very remarkable for the apparently faithful representations of the armour worn by the English and French at that time. In one group of soldiery alone, in the second volume, page 84, the helm of the early fourteenth century, the beaked bassinet of the early fifteenth, and various forms of visored and unvisored sallads are assembled together.
Fig. 24.—Helm of Sir John Gostwick, died 1541. Believed to have been worn at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, 1520, and now hanging over his tomb in Willington Church, Bedfordshire. From a photograph by the Rev. Augustus Orlebau, Vicar.
All these forms of helm were more or less contemporary with the sallad, which gave place in turn to the armet or closed helmet, first heard of in 1443. Like, perhaps, the sallad, the armet was invented in Italy, and did not reach England or even Germany till about 1500. In France, however, a page of the Count de St. Pol bore a richly-worked armet on the entry into Rouen of Charles VII.; and the royal armet of Louis XI., crowned and richly adorned with fleurs-de-lis, was carried before him on his entry into Paris in 1461. It is also mentioned in 1472, in an edict of the Duke of Burgundy.
The fundamental difference between it and all helms and helmets that had preceded it is, that while others had either fitted the top of the head, as a cap does, or were put right over it, the armet closed round the head by means of hinges, following the contour of the chin and neck. Its advantages were neatness, lightness, and general handiness, and it conveyed the weight by the gorget directly on to the shoulders. Its use was exclusively for mounted combatants, though the great helm continued in use for jousts and tilts during the time of Henry VIII. It does not appear in English costume much before this reign, but in all the pictures of the triumphs and battle-pieces of Henry VIII. at Hampton Court, the English men-at-arms invariably wear it, and it is abundantly represented in works of art during the remainder of the Tudor period.
Fig. 25.—The entry of Queen Isabel into Paris in 1390.