Medieval helmet covers five centuries and at least four completely different design philosophies. The nasal helm protects the face with one bar and leaves you able to see and breathe. The great helm encloses the head and trades vision for cover. The bascinet puts a hinged visor on a pointed skull so you can have both. The sallet drops the front and adds a tail at the back. This archive runs through all of them.
The shapes and the gauges
Steel is mild steel at 16 or 18 gauge, riveted rather than pressed. The early shapes are a rounded nasal helm with a knotwork browband and a riveted nasal bar, a Norse nasal helm at 18 gauge with a riveted dome, an Elder Futhark brow band and a padded liner, and two spangenhelms at 16 gauge, one with a riveted brow band, leather liner and chin strap, one with an engraved brass browband and a suede liner. The great helms are 16 gauge: one with a brass cross reinforce, etched knotwork sights and domed rivets, one blackened with a polished steel cross reinforce and a chased vegvisir, and one riveted with a brass cross reinforce and a knotwork engraved band. The later shapes are a pig faced bascinet at 18 gauge with a hounskull visor, brass hinges and a knotwork brow band, a sallet at 16 gauge with hinged temple pivots, a swept rear tail and a chased vegvisir, and a visored helmet at 18 gauge with a riveted brow band, a perforated bevor and a padded leather liner. A Viking spectacle helmet with riveted eye guards rounds it out. Prices run from 289 dollars to 409 dollars.
What goes under and around it
A helmet is one layer of three, and the ones underneath decide whether it fits. The comparison of mail, plate and lamellar covers how the layers work together and which order to buy them in. Mail is in chainmail armour and the steel bodies are in plate armour. The full range of later European heads is in medieval helmets.
Ransack Viking is a US company based in North Babylon, New York. These pieces are handmade in the Czech Republic, then imported, inspected and shipped from New York.
Free US shipping
On most pieces. Heavier and oversized ones carry a flat charge.
Hand Forged
Heated, hammered and ground by hand.
Engraving available
Names, dates or Norse runes on most pieces.
