Frankish kettle helmets

[Erpingham]

The recent hours spent studying Manuscriptminiatures.com referred to in previous posts have led me back to a medieval mystery - did the so-called Frankish "kettle helmet" exist and, if so, what was it like?  We have no archaeological examples, only images.  Here are a variety of examples

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4868/13169/

800-850 Two variants, one with clear framing and possible neckguard, other with more Phrygian style.

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4956/15014/

c. 890 Very Romanised, with Late Roman style crest

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4957/15041/

890-900 The classic bowl shape, with reinforced ridge and extended to cover neck at the rear

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4955/14997/

900-1000 Bowl-shaped with clear extension to cover neck, with crest/feather at front

http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4358/13466/

1050-1100 A possible late derivative

These are simply examples pulled from a number of examples - I've deliberately avoided some of the best known ones, but most are familiar.

There are a number of schools of thought.
 
One is these are all derive from Late Roman art, as miscopied by later artists.  While the late antique is very clear in some, others seem to have moved some way from such originals.  It is also unclear why other equipment seems to be post-Roman, yet helmets are based on Roman artwork.

Another idea is we are dealing with helmets derived from Late Roman designs.  So, we have a two-piece helmet joined and reinforced along the ridge, with a reinforcing band round the rim and  neckguard.  Such a helmet ought to have cheekpieces but they may have been dispensed with or have been omitted by the artist to allow faces to be clearly seen. 

A third possibility is this is a post-Roman design, with a genuine bowl shape ancestral to medieval kettle helmets.

Most wargames image references and hence figure ranges seem to lean toward the third possibility.  I think I would lean to some version of the second.  What do others think?

[Patrick Waterson]

This article comes out in favour of the helmet type being genuine.

The standard Carolingian helmet appears to be most clearly portrayed in the Psalterium aureum.  The helmet can be described as follows: the cap tapers toward a projecting neckguard, with an obvious rim encircling the entire helm. This rim appears to rise to a point at the forehead, where a button marks the intersection with a band descending from the apex. This band may form part of a crest running across the whole of the cap, which some sources depict bearing a plume as well.

<snip>

Two factors suggest that the Psalterium aureum helmet represents a type which was genuinely worn by the Carolingians rather than one which originated in external pictorial tradition. First, the helmets depicted in surviving late Roman and Byzantine miniatures are not of this type. Although Dufrenne has claimed that late antique models can be found in the synagogue at Dura  and on the Theodosian column, in both cases the helmets are closer to those in the Vatican Virgil than to the Psalterium aureum type. Second, the most plausible explanation for the consistent portrayal of the same helmet type in such a variety of Frankish sources influenced by different iconographic traditions is that the artist copied from life. As is demonstrated below, the depiction of round shields with onion shaped bosses provides a parallel case where archeology has proved the contemporaneity of the type. As for the derivation of the Psalterium aureum helmet, several late Roman cavalry helms have been discovered which could represent the sort of model from which the Carolingian form ultimately developed.

Hope that is of some use.  At least it gives the thinking why the helmet type should be genuine.

[aligern]

I lean learly towards your first explanation. These are close fitting helmets that have a central reinforcing strip joining two half bowls.nThe resulting conventional shape is then classicised to give us sonething that imitates an attic helmet as seen from the front. There is a very good example of such a portrayal of a Roman helmet in a wall painting from, I think Dura.
Recently I saw in the Hungarian history museum in Budapest a Roman 2nd century carving showing a helmet with a classicised look. When one looks closely it is apoarent that this is a conventional Roman imperial helmet, but with its lines altered to conform to classical conventions. It is art, not  crude realism that dictates how headgear looks in sculpture, drawing and painting.

Other items are not so classicised because that does not appear to be the convention. items such as swords and spears are generally contemporary. Armour is sometimes classicised, with key figures wearing moulded cuirasses, often boots are reprsented as ornate classical designs.
One interesting area is plumes. These are represented in classical illustrations and in realistic representations in say the picture of a Late Roman soldier in the catacombs of Rome.  The plume carries on in Late Roman art and finally becomes a vestigial few curved strokes within the boundary of the helmet in Anglo Saxon illustrations of the eleventh century.
If we ever find one of these Carolingian morions I will happily accept it, but until then there is little evidence that they were worn in reality.
Roy

[aligern]

I am afraid that the writer of the article that you so helpfully cite Patrick is naive. She does not understand that the portrayal of helmets and the depiction of shields and spears within the Western European post classical tradition are very different. Helmets are classicised and shields are not. I would have more respect for her view if she traced the lineage of the illustrations and looked at the sources that were available to Carolingian illustratirs. Incidentally, in the Stuttgart Psalter all the helmets anre represented in a plastic style where even ones that sholud be flat curves are represented as curving and not fitting to the head closely.

Roy

[Erpingham]

I lean learly towards your first explanation. These are close fitting helmets that have a central reinforcing strip joining two half bowls.nThe resulting conventional shape is then classicised to give us sonething that imitates an attic helmet as seen from the front.

Actually, I'd place that between one and two, if I understand correctly.  The actual helmet referenced is a decendant of the two-part ridge helmet but the depiction follows a late Roman stylistic convention? 

[aligern]

Iam not at all sure that it is a descendant of a Late Roman ridge helmet. I think it might have more to do with Germanic whaler helmets as shown on Trajan's column that become the helmets found in sixt and seventh century Scandinavian graves. However, they could be related to two part Roman helmets, its just that these tend to be joined with a raised rim between the two halves, whereas the Carolingian helmets that look like reasonable helmets look as though the join is flat with a flat band riveted onto it holding both sides and then a rim band around rhe brim. I don't recall Late Roman types with flat brims around  two part bowl??
Roy

[Jim Webster]

I always wondered at their similarity to this

http://legio-wargames.com/communities/3/004/007/474/483/images/4612693861.swf

Jim

[Erpingham]

I've always been struck by the parallels with these, from the Arch of Constantine

http://open.conted.ox.ac.uk/sites/open.conted.ox.ac.uk/files/styles/full_size/public/resources/DSC_0659.JPG?itok=0FhJerip

[aligern]

If you are sceptic like me then you see the Arch of Constantine figures as classicised representations of an Intercisa style helmet.

We have waltzed around this debate before and it always leaves open the possibility that these chaps are wearing a contemporary helmet and that we just have not found one. However, I think that the fact that we have Imperial Gallic and Italic helmets and their clear descendants in our museums and that we can see how art and sculpture represent either these types or very similar ones in both realistic (soldiers tombs, the Tropaeum Traini ) and in official  classicised art such as the Trajan and Marcus Aurelius columns and the Ludovisi sarcophagus. Given the departure of the official art from realism then it is logical to see the Arch of Constantine in that official tradition. We debated the helmets shown on the chair of Maximian, bishop of Ravenna and I think we mostly agreed that the helmets are a classicised version of something.
The difficulty of those who believe in the realism of the Carolingian comb helmets is that their proponents cannot show an antecedent or a descendant , let alone a contemporary example, whereas the two part bowl strap across the top can show representations in art and related archaeology.
Roy

[Erpingham]

If you are sceptic like me then you see the Arch of Constantine figures as classicised representations of an Intercisa style helmet.

Certainly a possibility.  Another source of Roman helmet images of this type - the Triumphal Arch mosaics in Santa Maria Maggiore - shows some with what appear to be the eye design on the bowl, as seen in Intercisa type helmets.  But that could be that Late Roman helmets tended to have eye designs:)

I think I would still argue for a two part ridge helmet with neckguard as what is being depicted in the carolingian examples.  Some are very clearly sylised in a Late Antique manner, others seem less extremely morion-shaped.  Whether these last are descendants of Roman ridged helmets like the Intercisa type  or another form of Germanic (?) two-part banded helmet I don't think we could tell without archaeological evidence.  The neckguard as integral or as a separate flexibly attached piece both occur in late Roman helmets, so either would be possible.  Whether they would have had cheek pieces is another mystery. 

[Jim Webster]

I suppose the Morion might have evolved from what people saw in the pictures

Jim

[aligern]

Isn't a morion developed from a burgonet, making it open at both ends?
R

[Jim Webster]

Isn't a morion developed from a burgonet, making it open at both ends?
R

Haven't a clue, but I'm not about to let ignorance stand in the way of a pretty theory 

Jim

[Erpingham]

Isn't a morion developed from a burgonet, making it open at both ends?
R

Oakshott thought they were derived from kettlehelmets.  Certainly there were kettlehelmets with wide downturned brims that had a similar "V"-shaped opening from the later 14th century on.  The burgonet, IIRC, is a derivative of the sallet.  In particular, the non-Germanic form, the celata.  Classicism may have played a part (as it did with the barbuta ).  There is cross fertilisation between the burgonet and morion in the 16th century e.g. in cheekpieces and the development of the ridge comb.