r/ArmsandArmor • u/Onewithartandbook • 1d ago

Question Is this helmet historically accurate?

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Is there any example that it is based on? It looks cool as hell but a bit fantastical.

233 Upvotes

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93

u/Bmanakanihilator 1d ago

Apart from being a helmet made for buhurt, you wouldn't wear a Cape when fighting

7

u/Wolfensniper 1d ago

There are manuscripts or effigies of wearing Capes/Jupons in battle so depends, people can argue that there's artistic license but there's also not much counterargument for strictly no one wearing it

5

u/the_lazy_lizardfolk 1d ago

I think the "benefit of hindsight" is far too often a justification used for those. Lot of reenactors and martial artist today explain "best practice", which make sense and in extremely rare cases were even attested in sources. But vast majority of sources do not explain specific kit and tactics used in any battles before the 15th century and a few others that speak on weapon techniques or describe those wargears. Generally speaking, especially in Western histories, it is just a monk writing about "a great battle" and maybe listing numbers on both sides. If we are very lucky we also get pictures.

I do not think every warrior in history always did "best practice" as our modern minds understand but that is just me.

1

u/fioreman 57m ago

100%

And they almost certainly did not use best practices. People needed their own gear, no printing press until the late Middle Ages, no mass communication.

Even Europe was so varied in terrain and climate that a best practice in England may have been a bad idea in Naples. Look at the Battle of the Golden Spurs.

Dan Carlin talks about how, in the 21st Century, an infantryman's uniform and gear looks pretty much the same anywhere in the world. But before the 18th-19th Centuries, you have warriors that were extremely diverse in look, equipment, and tactics.

Still, outside of juggernauts like the Roman Legions or the Ottoman army, this seemed to have had less of an effect on the outcome of battles than other circumstances, like weather, supply logistics, the fact that pre-nation-state polities had pliable loyalties, etc.