Great Helm – 14 Gauge – Deepeeka

This Great Helm is stoutly constructed from riveted plates of 14 gauge steel – a thickness intended for stage and sport combat. The face is well-perforated for ventilation and finished with a riveted dual fleur-de-lis of brass. The interior is unlined and blackened. Included with the helm is a basic cotton arming cap.

This helm is un-lined on the inside because historically, most great helms were worn over a closely-fitted helm, mail coif or a well-padded arming cap. Without that knowledge many Great Helms look like they were intended for a head of considerable proportions! These helms give an all-encompassing protection of the face, though this comes to some detriment of sight and hearing. That was a fine trade-off for the mounted knights and men-at-arms who bore such helms into battle, for what they really needed was protection from incoming missiles, and perhaps the splinters of their own lance as it struck home in the foe in the crescendo of the charge! Finesse of maneuver was not as greatly needed, as these heavy European cavalrymen had simple but effective tactics; to stay close to one’s peers and to wreak a coordinated charge upon the foe. It was more important to protect the face from the desperate missiles of the foe as the distance closed and to shield the face from the effects of driving a long wooden lance through the shields and armor of the unfortunates who were subjected to the charge.

In the outset of the 1st Crusade, it was Byzantine Princess Anna Comnena who remarked that a charge of the Franks could punch a hole through the walls of Babylon – such was the force of the accumulated mass of the trained knight and hoof-pounding horse projected through a single, sharpened lance-point.