I know the mother of the kid in #6
The namesake of our Arnold Winkleried made a heroic sacrifice of himself by gathering the Austrians’ pikes to his breast and opening a breach in their line. Why is William Tell by far the more famous Swiss hero? Simple: it’s more fun to shoot objects off people’s heads.
I’ve often heard it said that the common perception that Vikings had huge horns on helmets was an obvious example of mistaking opera stage props for history, with the explaination that ‘obviously’ having horns on a helmet exposes you to all sorts of risks in actual combat, so no self-respecting Viking would do it. For example, the horns could be knocked by a weapon, jarring the head.
On the other hand … Japanese armour very commonly has all sorts of crests, projections and (yes) horns on their helmets.
[emphasis added]
Now, I have no doubt that as a matter of historical fact Viking helmets did not have horns on them, but I am not sure that the rationale cited was necessarly true.
If having horns was such a liability, why did the Japanese do it? Or did they only have horns on armour intended for ceremonial display and not actual combat?
And a great video to play for any gamer who uses the phrase “My knight in heavy armor sneaks …”
As a student of medieval history and an avid player of World of Warcraft, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at armor in WoW and boggled at how utterly impractical it would be in actual real-life combat. Especially “hunter” class armor that has all sorts of spikes and horns. Okay, this guy’s supposed to be sneaking through the underbrush in this stuff? Not to mention plate-wearing classes with helms that look like they must weigh 50 pounds.
A corollary of that is the sword carried in a scabbard on the back. A seemingly omnipresent trope in just about every fantasy series and game, yet it next to never happened in real life. About the only contemporary depiction I have ever seen is a woodcut ( I think ) of some Swiss or German troops with monstrous zweihanders strapped to their back for transportation, but not exactly sheathed at the ready ( I don’t think they even had a sheath - swords like that were virtually polearms ). Basically it was utterly impractical and nobody ever did it.
But it looks cool in video games :D.
You’re not trying to kill each other, you’re not being anywhere near as nasty as if you were. Those protrusions mean that someone can aim for the “horns” in several ways that would be worse news for the wearer than a regular hit: whip 'em, grab from behind, stick blunt object in between and move it to the side… if they’re relatively small and linear (as in the Japanese helmets) then it’s not really a good target, but branched stag horns? That’s asking for someone to use your helmet as a pisspot.
From my own research, a lot of those zweihanders weren’t even intended for personal combat - their whole purpose was to lop off the business ends of spears/lances.
Firstly, no, as has been said, generally in period crests of that sort were a tournament and parade thing, not a warfare thing. Teutonics did wear them, though, so they are more-or-less right for the villains of the piece (only, not in that situation).
But really, this is likely a more accurate representation (note the very Steppe-influenced pointed helmets on the Russians) even though created centuries later.
Having said that, Cennini gives pretty detailed instructions for making tourney crests of leather and gesso. They would not have been too heavy, and likely pretty tear-away. Nobody was going to get their neck broken by wearing a crest.