Crusader helmets

should you ever find yourself in the Middle East battling Saracens in the mid 13th century then you'll probably be wearing one of these this is known as a Chappelle de faire which just is old French for iron hat although the earlier style didn't have the faceplate there was just this top part often with the nose guard and in the faceplate got added later and certainly most pictures I've seen of church fighting in these there in the Middle East fighting Saracens now the first thing I discover up on putting this on my head is that I can hear myself really amazingly well though I suspect you can hear me considerably less well an awful lot of my voice is just going straight into this faceplate and not in the direction that I would prefer it I can see you pretty well the amount of vision that's blocked by these isolates is not too bad I can see straight ahead fine up is definitely I can only see up at about that sort of angle so that's definitely restricted a little bit left and right pretty good actually that's about as far as my as my eye swivels anyway and with a tiny turn of the head I can see 180 degrees that'll do me it's down that I have a problem with but this isolate is quite tall so I can see ahead of me and down reasonably well I can see forwards and down at that angle so if I'm running across broken ground I can see what's coming up I can probably dodge things that way when I'm running up a flight of stairs at home I don't actually look at where I'm putting my feet I look a couple of steps ahead so I think that's probably all right and now this style went out of favor and possibly that's because it's got a flat top now a blow of course hitting there which would be quite common below we're hitting the very strong part of the helmet but one right on top is hitting a weaker part of the helmet and even if the helmet doesn't give your neck might give that blow is going straight down on top of your head and it's not glancing off and that could stun you break your neck and this flat-topped style didn't last for very long but it lasted a couple of generations so it couldn't have been completely rubbish a little bit later on you get bigger helmets like this now this is actually pretty much the same thing but the the faceplate now gets extended right the way around the back and this would be worn over the top like the last one of a padded coif and a male coy as well and now I feel considerably less comfortable in this helmet the isolate is quite a bit narrower and I have a big problem now looking down yes I can see through these breaths these little holes here are called breaths and I can see down a little bit through those if lighting conditions were very good if the ground were very pale I would perhaps be able to see a little bit of the ground but not much and one of the most deadly blows to aim against me would be starting low and coming up which is a very popular type of blow and under the best of circumstances that sort of blow is rather difficult to parry if you can't see it because you're down with vision is really hampered then it's going to be very difficult indeed again you'll notice flat tops it has the same problem as the last helmet which perhaps explains why this was superseded by this style which is pretty much the same but it's got the Sugarloaf top this this pointed arched top very similar to the Norman helmet and you may realize that the early Crusaders went to the Middle East with Norman helmets onto this this wasn't a new technology it wasn't as though wow we've invented the arched topped helmet they've been around for many many centuries they went back to it so the flat-topped helmet it seems with temporary experiment why did they ever try it in the first place I don't know the experiment lasted a fair while so it couldn't have been an absolute failure but they went back to this which this shape which causes blows to glance off as opposed to break your neck which proved a lot more popular I should really be wearing up here it is padded quite underneath this so it fits a little bit better and I'm up that up there we go and now I am really hampered in the hearing Department I'm certainly hearing myself loud and clear I don't know how well you can hear me I am limited in how much I can look up because this touches the back of my neck and of course if I were wearing more padding and armor here it will be even more limited so I can't even tilt my head to look up to look up now I really have to sort of lean back with my whole self it's quite a heavy and awkward helmet and well it's not greatly popular with me it doesn't ring for any length of time if I hit it you can hear it go ding for about one second something like that it doesn't ring like a bell because it's got my head stuffed in it again the breaths give me some vision down but almost none I would not like to fight in this for any length of time but then again if I were wearing a coin underneath I could ditch it and there's another video in that Sydney bays you

Channel: Lindybeige

Views: 1,349,752

Rating: 4.9500675 out of 5

Keywords: crusader, crusade, crusades, helmets, helm, helmet, armour, medieval, middle ages, history, warfare, knights, knight, man-at-arms, sugarloaf, greathelm, enclosed, nasal, norman

Id: Vc9vrkZNNsQ

Length: 5min 43sec (343 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 04 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

the problem with this is that lindy looks like he is about as flexible as an old broken chair

if someone had some serious training and was athletic they could probably pull some crazy moves off in full armor

[u/Mike_Facking_Jones]

Take everything he says with a handful of salt BTW