1400-1430
The aventail was usually composed of small, heavy links to form a dense and robust mail weave. Unlike the haubergeon, which by the beginning of the fifteenth century was an ancillary defence worn under the plate armour, the aventail provided primary protection for the neck and shoulders. It was desirable therefore that the aventail material be quite different from the lighter, more flexible mail reinforcing the arming coat and body armour. Very few of the surviving aventails are original to the helmets with which they are presently associated. At least two very fine examples do appear to belong however. One is now in the town museum at Le Landeron, Switzerland, while the other sits proudly on the ‘Lyle’ bascinet from Churburg Castle, now in the Royal Armouries.1
Fig. 1.18. Bascinet, North Italian , c. 1380-1400. Royal Armouries, Leeds, inv. no. IV.470.
Fig. 1.19. Bascinet, probably North Italian , c. 1400. Musee de l’ Hotel de Ville, Le Landeron, Switzerland.
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Aventails were almost always lined. The quilted textile lining made the aventail comfortable to wear around the cheeks and chin, but more crucially provided a layer of padding between the mail and the body, neck and head underneath. Constructed of heavy, densely-woven mail backed with layers of shock-absorbent linen and stuffing, the aventail became a highly effective defence, not only against arrows, crossbow bolts, spears and other stabbing threats, but also against the fearsome downward blows of pollaxes, bills and halberds, attacks which, even if initially aimed at the head, might easy be deflected by the helmet down onto the area between the neck and shoulders. Some English effigies suggest such linings, with the aventail’s hem seeming to be turned over, the lowermost links being folded under and inside the lining and then presumably stitched to it.
This helmet was sold directly to the American collector Clarence H. Mackay before 1929. It was then sold with other pieces from his collection at Christie’s in 1939, where it was bought by Sir Archibald Lyle. Lyle presented it to the Tower Armouries in 1946 in memory of his two sons, of whom one was killed at El Alamein in 1942, and the other in Normandy in 1944. It is impossible to be certain whether or not the two other aventails at Churburg (inv. nos. 13 and 15) are original to their helmets. Both have been removed at some point; that of no. 13 is currently mounted inside-out, strongly suggesting that the current mounting is modern and does not date from the working lifetime of the helmet.
Fig. 1.20. North Leigh d. 1411.