WEBVTT - The Horned Helm, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.640 Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:17.680 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:20.920 we're back for part two of talking about helmets. Last time, 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:22.800 we had a lot of fun. We we talked about 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:26.439 caterpillars piling up their old exoskeleton heads on top of 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:29.920 their current heads. We talked about helmets from the ancient 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:33.120 Greek world. We talked about horned helmets and where those 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:37.040 motifs came from, the association with vikings, and and we 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:40.040 had so much more. And we're back today. Yeah, this 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:43.400 episode is going to be more of a um a 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:48.400 selection of various helmets and helmet traditions, uh from different 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:50.800 parts of the world. Um, we are going to get 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:54.040 into samurai armor a bit more. We toil. We very 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:57.520 briefly mentioned it in the first episode, and I've figured 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:00.880 it was deserving of a deeper dive. But before we 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:03.040 get into that, we're going to touch on just a 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:07.800 really bizarre helmet from European tradition. Yeah, this is one 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:10.080 that we were sort of planning on talking about last time, 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:12.640 but I guess we ran out of time. But if 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:15.119 if you're if you're talking about horned helmets and you're 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:19.039 just looking around for historical examples worth mentioning, you are 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:22.880 bound to come across one that is I would say 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:27.560 literally unbelievable, and I mean literally unbelievable in the correct 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.679 use of the word literally, because when you see it, 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:33.759 you will be inclined to think, there is no way 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:37.160 this is actually an early sixteenth century artifacts this is 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:40.319 a prop from a Terry Gilliam movie. Oh. Absolutely had 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:42.600 the exact same response when I first came across because 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:44.760 if you if you start researching helmets, and if you 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:48.160 start looking on using image searches to find examples, you 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:51.240 find a lot of of creative energy that has gone 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:56.800 into the creation of fictional helmets and sort of artistic 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:00.800 um twists on fictional helmets and sci fi helmets. Everything. 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:03.800 You have to do a fair amount of of digging 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:06.400 around to make sure that what you're looking at is 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:09.040 something from the real world. And when I looked at this, 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:11.120 this is just this is just too weird. I figured 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:15.880 this is some bizarre art experiment here. There's no way 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:18.919 that this was an actual helm from European history. Well 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:22.120 it is, I think a bizarre art experiment. But it's like, 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:25.440 you know, five years old. Uh so, No, it's not 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:28.280 from Terry Illium movie. It's not from the set of Legend. 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.959 This is a helmet that is known as the horned 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:35.800 helmet of the English King Henry the Eighth. It is 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:40.080 astonishingly bizarre. It is definitely worth actually looking up an 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:42.400 image of if you have a chance, but I am 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:44.360 going to describe it if you're not in a place 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:46.720 where you can look it up right now. So you 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:49.120 can read about this artifact and see close up photos 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:53.040 at the website for the British Royal Armories Collection and leads. 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:56.480 This helmet was commissioned as part of an armor set 0:02:56.520 --> 0:03:00.240 in fifteen eleven by then Holy Roman Emperor maximil In 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:03.160 the First and it was given as a gift to 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:05.839 King Henry. So Henry the eighth when he's a young man, 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:08.640 he's given this, this helmet and this suit of armor 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:11.919 as a gift. But I'm wondering what a gift like 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:15.840 this was supposed to signify, given its visual features. So 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:18.480 first of all, it's a helmet that's made of steel. 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:21.840 It's very close fitting, it's got features and a couple 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:26.200 of other metals. It's got a pair of corkscrew rams 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:29.240 horns made of sheet iron. And if you're trying to 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:32.959 picture this, they're not the tightly curled like Princess Leiah 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:36.480 rams horns. They're not the sticky bun rams horns. They're 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.200 like the curling out like a corkscrew that you would 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:41.920 use to open a bottle of wine. Then on the 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:47.240 face it has spectacles like glasses. Spectacles made of copper alloy, 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:49.520 so they shine in a kind of different color than 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:52.920 the rest of the face, and the spectacles may once 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:56.360 have been gilded. So this is a helmet that fully 0:03:56.520 --> 0:04:01.560 encloses the head with front facing flats that hinge open 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:05.040 like a flower spreading its petals in the sunlight, you know, 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:07.920 or like the face of the demag organ in uh 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:10.280 in stranger things. You know, it's got the petals that 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:13.560 open up. So it's got two side plates that hinge 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:15.640 out to the right and the left. So imagine these 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:18.799 would fold over sort of the the the jaw area. 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:21.920 The side burns and they flap out, and then the 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:25.960 face plate hinges up over the forehead. And so you 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:28.000 can open the flaps up like this and put the 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:30.280 helmet on by sliding it over the back of your 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:33.080 head and then you close the plates around the sides 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:35.080 in front of your head, which I have to admit it, 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:37.039 it's kind of hard for me to picture just looking 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:40.279 at an image of the helmet. I think most of 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:42.400 the images, if not all, the images you run across, 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:45.680 are of the closed helmet, as if it's being worn 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:48.280 and it's sealed up. Yeah. Actually, though, you can look 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.120 it up on the Royal Armory's website. They've got a 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:54.040 video with a curator at the museum. They're unfolding the 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:56.480 flaps and showing you how it works, So you can 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:59.240 check that out on their website if you're interested. But so, 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:02.800 the front of the front plate on this helmet, the 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:07.200 face plate is carved with a level of intricacy that's 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:10.040 almost kind of awkward, you know how when somebody like 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:12.880 makes a parody of something but they put way too 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:16.800 much effort into it. If you look close at this 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:20.800 face plate, you will see these delicate wrinkles etched in 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:25.400 around the eyes, and stubble all around the mouth and lips, 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:28.839 and a texture that looks almost like pours across the 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:33.039 cheeks and the nose. The expression on the face is 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:36.040 really hard to describe. It's something I guess the way 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:37.880 I could come closest just to say it is a 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:43.760 demonic rictus. Uh. It suggests I must scream, but my 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:48.520 lips are stapled together, loosely stapled together, but stapled together. Yeah, 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:52.360 I mean it's yeah, it is really hard to describe um. Certainly, 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:54.880 you know, the stubble is very interesting, especially in light 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:58.840 of mustaches on helms that we mentioned in the last 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:02.359 episode and and well up again in this episode later. Uh. 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:06.279 But yeah, this this expression, it's it is hard to 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:10.960 categorize because it it is intimidating. There's this there is 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:13.080 a sense of that when I look at this helmet, 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:17.520 I cannot imagine thinking that anyone who would wear this 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:22.680 um has good intentions. Like there's a there's a vileness 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:25.480 to it, you know. There there's the mouth is making 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:27.839 you get the impression it's making a sound kind of 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:33.279 like a you know, it's a there's a goblin esque 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:37.159 aspect to it. I will say that the the the 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:40.760 expression on the mouth of this face reminds me of 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:44.359 some of the faces that Willem Dafoe polls in some 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.479 of his various villainous roles. You know, this kind of 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:53.080 intense um grim lenoid kind of a smile, but but 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:56.039 not necessarily a happy smile or not a happiness that 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:58.920 is shared by other people in the room. Yeah, it's 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:03.680 it's like part Memlin or Goblin, part mad scientist, and 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:08.400 part Willem Dafoe in Streets of Fire. But so apparently 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:11.040 after the English Civil War, so this would be about 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:14.000 a hundred years after Henry the Eighth to death. After 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:16.640 the English Civil War, most of the rest of Henry's 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:19.920 armor was discarded. It was you know, used for scrap metal. 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:24.800 But for some reason, this helmet, this this grotesque, bizarre 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:29.320 horned helmet was preserved. And it's quite possibly just because 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:31.720 it looked so weird. You know, you can almost kind 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:35.480 of imagine Oliver Cromwell finding this and thinking like, yes, okay, 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:39.800 this is an accurate representation of the monarchy. But another 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:42.400 thing is something that we talked about in the last episode, 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:46.200 which is the dual use of helmets. Helmets that you know, 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:49.360 you might wonder like, would this actually be very useful 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:51.840 in battle or you know, if it was actually designed 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:54.560 to protect the head in battle, wouldn't it wouldn't it 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.040 be kind of different than it is. And this is 0:07:57.080 --> 0:07:59.200 another one of those helmets where it's just hard to 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:03.560 imagine it being very practical for a fighting scenario. It's 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:07.040 got the curling horns which just scream, you know, grab me, 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:11.720 knock me, use me as a lever. Uh and uh. This, 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:14.280 this intuition that we get from looking at this thing, 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:18.520 is in fact historically correct, because this wasn't fighting armor. 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:23.080 This was party armor. Um. I actually found a similar looking, 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.280 though less elaborate helmet in the online collection of the 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:29.160 Swedish Royal Armory Museum because I was trying to find 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:32.400 other examples of helmets kind of like this that we're 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:36.360 used as party armor, ceremonial armor instead of armor for battle. 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:40.319 And there so there's this helmet in the Swedish Royal 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:44.280 Armories collection that belonged to the Swedish King Gustav Vasa, 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:48.439 who lived from four to fifteen sixty. And this helmet 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:51.440 has everything. It's got a dorsal fin, it's got a 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:55.200 carved mustache, it's got splayed eye holes, it's got a 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:59.320 grimace straight from hell. It does not have horns or spectacles, though, 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:01.920 and it is it is a beauty I do want 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:04.360 to come back to the idea of of dress armor 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:08.280 versus battle armor for a king because I know some 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:11.080 you know, if you're not, you know, super familiar with 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:15.240 the history of British royalty and battle, you might think, well, 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:18.840 you know, why would Henry have any armor but uh, 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:22.600 fancy armor for non combat events? Would a would a 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:29.760 king have battle armor? So Henry lived through fifteen forty seven. Uh, 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:32.280 And it's worth to put that in context of King 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:36.480 Richard the Third uh died of his wounds on August 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:40.200 eighty five, and he was the last English king to 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:44.520 die in battle. Um. So the idea of a king 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:48.240 having battle armor not entirely out of the question for 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:51.160 that time period. No, not at all. And uh and 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:53.920 you know, Richard the Third is not even thought of 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:56.600 as an especially like you know, he's not thought of 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:59.160 as a warrior king usually. But no, he rode straight 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:01.840 into battle. He was trying to kill Henry Tutor, who 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:05.280 was attacking him to usurp the throne, and he was 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:08.160 like literally in there in the fight himself. But just 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:11.439 to reference what the Swedish Royal Armories Museum says about 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:14.439 the helmets with face plates like this, you know. They 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:18.640 say that around the sixteenth century it was popular for 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:23.120 wealthy elites like kings and other nobility in Europe to 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:30.679 wear armor, including close helmets, to wear these things too celebrations, parades, 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:34.480 big parties, and in the early sixteenth century, they say 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:37.520 that it was common to where these with quote grotesque 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:41.640 visors in the form of animal or human faces like 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:43.760 this one, the one we were talking about a minute ago, 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:49.960 to enhance the festive atmosphere and heighten the sense of theatricality. 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:52.320 So I guess it's possible to some extent that the 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:56.680 weirdness of these face plate grotesques, like King Henry's horned 0:10:56.720 --> 0:11:00.440 helm or King Gustav's weird looking face mat s here. 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:04.479 It's not just that something is being lost in translation 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:08.280 across time, language, and culture. It's possible that some of 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:11.400 them were supposed to look weird. They were supposed to 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:14.480 look funny. Yeah, it's like a masked ball, only a 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:16.920 lot more clinky. But when you really look into the 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:20.280 significance of the visual features, Henry the Eighth's horn helmet 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:23.000 gets even weirder. So I just want to mention a 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:25.400 couple more facts that are brought up by the Royal 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:29.120 Armories collection. One is that I mentioned the face plate 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:32.480 has spectacles, right, These cover the eyeholes, so their eye 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:35.760 holes in the face plate, and then these spectacles descend 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:38.920 down from a hinge at the bridge of the nose, 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:42.040 And that might look kind of weird to us today, 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:45.160 but this actually was a common format for spectacles at 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:46.960 the time. They would kind of have a rivet in 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:51.320 between these two separate arms that each went to one lens, 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:54.000 and it would fold down over the bridge of the nose, 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:55.920 so you can kind of clip it on your nose, 0:11:56.559 --> 0:12:00.000 but on the mask. There's no indication that these spectacles 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:04.440 ever held lenses, so it appears they were decorative rather 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:09.319 than functional. But why would you have decorative spectacles without lenses, 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:13.840 I mean, the the the immediate answer that would come 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:16.240 to mind as well, if you if you had spectacles 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:17.600 on a lot, or you use them and they were 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:21.000 part of your identity, then you might want them replicated. 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:23.240 In the same way that people who have, like for instance, 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:26.400 warned glass eyeglasses for a long time and then have 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:31.679 lasic surgery might still keep some glasses with just plain 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:34.920 glass as lenses just because that's part of their look. 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:39.480 That's possible. I don't think spectacles were really considered part 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:43.280 of Henry's look, especially when he was young. Uh, there's 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:45.800 another thing they point out that that might be the 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:50.840 answer here. Apparently spectacles were an accessory that in the 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:56.240 sixteenth century often appeared in renderings of the stock character 0:12:56.679 --> 0:13:00.240 from from culture at the time known as the food owl. 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:03.760 So I guess something kind of like the Shakespearean fool, right, 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:08.079 like touchstone and as you like it? Okay, so well. 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:11.000 On one hand, this is of course disappointing because it 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:14.679 sounds a bit like it's it's essentially like a nerd joke, right, 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:18.720 it's like making making fun of the very important individuals 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:20.840 at the time who at the time where we're using 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:22.520 them to get a lot of work done for the crown, 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:24.920 And here you're just gonna turn it around and use 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:28.160 it as a goofy trope because glasses look funny. So 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:30.960 it's possible that this is just a costume of the fool, 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:33.600 in the sense that a lot of times these fest 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:37.160 there would be festivals in which the fool is made king. Uh. 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:40.079 This is kind of perhaps a play on that. That's possible. 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:43.439 Here's another thing in that column. If Henry's helmet was 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:45.720 supposed to make him look like a fool. That would 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:50.120 also possibly explain the horns. Now, we mentioned in the 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:53.280 last episode that horns had appeared on European decorative helmets 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:56.680 and times gone by, but by the sixteenth century a 0:13:56.800 --> 0:14:00.880 human depicted with horns had negative kind of stations, often 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:08.560 either demonic connotations or connotations specifically of cuckoldry. And this 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:11.240 gets really interesting for a for a brief diversion that 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:13.640 really does come back to the helmet. So I was 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.800 reading an article by a scholar named Una mckilvina, who 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:20.440 is a historian at the University of Melbourne, and she 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:24.000 argues that there was something of a popular obsession in 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:30.080 the early modern period with cuckoldry, this bizarre paranoia pulsing 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:35.200 through European culture during the Renaissance about wives cheating on 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:38.480 their husbands. And it shouldn't come as any surprise given 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.800 the sexual politics of the time, right, Yeah, So obviously 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:45.200 there's a lot of paternalism and misogyny rolled up into this. 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:49.000 There was this idea that women were more lustful than 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:53.640 men and less rational, less in control of their actions, 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:56.720 and that they could lose control of their behavior and 0:14:56.760 --> 0:15:00.280 commit scandalous acts of infidelity, and as a res old, 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:03.200 a married man, by a virtue of being married to 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:07.320 a woman, was constantly at risk of being humiliated by 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:10.720 her cheating on him. Uh and this state of humiliation 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:15.440 was expressed through the imagery of invisible horns on the head. 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:19.600 This imagery shows up in Shakespeare in several different ways. 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:22.400 For example, in Much Ado about Nothing, there's a character 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:27.480 named Benedict who's being cynical about marriage, and Benedict says, basically, hey, 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:29.920 if I ever get married, I might as well quote 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:33.520 pluck off the bulls horns and set them in my forehead. 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:36.440 The ideas that he's like, what's the point. As soon 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:38.440 as you get married, a woman will cheat on you, 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:41.360 and then you'll have these horns. Now, it's not known 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:45.960 exactly where this link between horn imagery and sexual humiliation 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:49.520 comes from, but there are several theories. She mentions a few. 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:53.800 Some have to do with various types of castrated domestic animals, 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:56.640 such as the ox, which has horns, of course, or 0:15:56.680 --> 0:16:00.240 the capon, which is a castrated male chicken. It was 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:03.760 once common, apparently to ingraft the spurs from the legs 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.480 of a capon into its comb so that it could 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:09.960 be told apart from the other roosters. And maybe this 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:11.400 had something to do with it. But we don't know 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:14.760 for sure where this imagery comes from. But here we 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:17.920 tie it back in with the spectacles because apparently during 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:22.560 the early modern period there were also popular associations between 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:27.280 cuckoldry imagery and the stock character of the fool. So 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:30.720 sometimes the fool might have been depicted with spectacles. Other 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:34.840 times the fool might have been depicted with horns. Okay, 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:37.080 so so it all again could be part of just 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:40.400 sort of the the trope cartoon character of the day 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:43.680 for the fool possibly. So, I mean, it just makes 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:46.200 me wonder, like, Maximilian, what are you trying to say 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:51.440 with this gift? Man? Yeah, it's it sounds like either 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:54.840 just h it really depends on to what extent you 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:58.200 get Henry's sense of humor, because this is this would 0:16:58.200 --> 0:16:59.920 be kind of a dangerous gift to give a key 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:03.080 unless you knew he was really into this, right, Yeah, 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:04.439 And I want to be clear that I don't mean 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:07.600 to suggest that the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian the First 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:11.760 was insinuating anything about Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:14.359 at the time or anything like that. But it is 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:19.160 interesting that this elaborate gift helmet includes elements that exist 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:22.480 in this nexus of association with the character of the fool. 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:26.320 So yeah, it must suggest either I don't know, he's 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:28.159 that he thinks maybe Henry is going to have a 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:30.720 good sense of humor and will dress up in Fool's 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:34.320 armor for ceremonial occasions. I don't know. There is also 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:38.880 it really stinks of luxury to to have a helmet 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:41.159 like this, and helmets, says we've discussed in the previous episode. 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:45.679 You know, these are they're well crafted, um implements of 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:48.320 of battle like these are expensive items and to have 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:53.399 one that, for many reasons is is nonfunctional and could 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.320 even be something that would never be worn because it's 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:58.400 something of a but you know, perhaps like a white 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:01.960 elephant gift, you know. So maybe that that's part of 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:05.240 the the appeal of this helmet as well. I'm wondering 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:07.439 if it was kind of the horsehead mask of the 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:10.639 early undreds, oh man. So yeah, if they if they 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:13.160 could do selfies like this would be a helmet you'd 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:18.320 wear for your selfie. Now, speaking of Goofy helmets from 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:23.040 the medieval period. Specifically um one that I think a 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:25.760 lot of us have seen many times and it's always 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:29.320 kind of puzzles you on some reason is the hound 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:33.440 skull helmet, which comes from the German uns google or 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:37.760 or a hound's hood or sometimes translated as pig faced helmet. 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:41.160 So it's not quite a horn, but this helmet has 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:44.320 something that looks like a snout on the front of it, um, 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:46.959 you know, like the snout of say a indeed, a 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:50.200 hound or a pig. It has a very be steel 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:52.760 look to it. Uh and it even so it has 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:55.720 a very transformative nature to it. You see these nights 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:58.760 uh uh in depictions of nights dressed in this armor, 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:01.280 and they look kind of like Eastman, right. And this 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:02.960 is a common theme that we talked about in the 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:06.760 last episode, the zoom morphic mask or the theory anthropic mask, 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:10.400 the one that suggests transformation into an animal or having 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:13.840 some kind of animal characteristics, right. And and so this 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:17.000 style of armor also looks very goofy. It gets it 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:18.960 has kind of a spy versus spy feel, you know, 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:24.119 with like the pointed nose, very cartoony. So it raises 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:26.560 the question why do we see this design? Indeed, why 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:31.040 was this an extremely popular um form of the design? 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:32.960 This is not something where you just saw a few 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:35.800 examples of you know, relegated to the the you know, 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.760 the fancy affairs of a king. No, this was this 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.280 was a legit battle armor, and it was it was 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:45.800 a pretty widespread um uh throughout medieval Europe. Um. Let 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:48.520 me guess it was a beak for pecking the enemy. 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:50.639 It does kind of look like it looks kind of 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:53.040 you know, offensive in that regard, but it turns out 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:57.720 it did have two key purposes. So, first of all, 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:02.280 breathing is always uh an issue in a helmet like this. 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:04.240 You know, you put some sort of big metal contraption 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:06.720 over your head, Well, you still need to see out 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:09.280 of it, and you still need to breathe. Well, if 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:12.840 you just have a like a flat face mask in 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.520 front of you, there are only so many holes, so 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:18.520 many um events you can put in that thing to 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:22.320 allow you to breathe. But if it is elongated like this, uh, 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:25.679 then that allows for even more breathing holes. So it 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:28.000 depends on what example you pull up. Sometimes you pull 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:31.720 put you find an example of of this helmet and 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:34.480 it doesn't look like they're really that many they're not 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:37.320 really taking advantage of this feature, but others have a 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:39.800 lot of holes in the miss Essentially it's almost like 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:43.760 a whiffleball. But perhaps the more important aspect of this 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:47.480 design was that its shape would deflect blows to the face. 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:51.240 So if your face is shaped like a cone, it 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:54.800 is going to be harder for the enemy to land 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:58.359 a spear or a sword in such a way that 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:00.959 it's going to, you know, just through and cut your 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:03.120 face in half. Yeah, I see that. It's gotta it's 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:07.159 got a natural perrying formation. Yeah, so it and I 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:09.040 have to say it does also look kind of creepy 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:12.359 into humanizing and while also being kind of goofy uh. 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:15.119 You know. You also see lower slits in some of 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:17.680 these helmets, so they'll be like the upper is slip 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:19.960 like clearly for for for viewing, and then there's a 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:22.199 lower slit that kind of looks like a mouth. And 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:24.800 I was reading about this in History of Armor eleven 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:28.040 hundred through seventeen hundred by PAULA. F. Walker, and the 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:32.160 author points out that most of these lower slits were 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:35.680 probably intended to allow the night to look down, which 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:39.119 makes us again, think of the the movement limitations and 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:41.600 the vision limitations in a helmet like this, How are 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:44.200 you going to see what's going on below, you say, 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:47.159 in your lap on the horse or whatnot. Um you 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:49.520 know you're you gonna do a full body movement to 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:52.879 look down or do you need essentially lower windows in 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:55.240 your head cage so that you can see what's going 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:58.040 on down there? I see. Now, we talked about this 0:21:58.080 --> 0:22:00.280 in the last episode. To the idea that and you're 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:04.200 designing armor and especially helmets, you're often that, uh, you're 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:06.240 working with trade offs, right, you know, you've got the 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:10.120 level of protection versus what kind of limitations come along 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:12.960 with that protection. Sometimes it might be limitations and mobility, 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:15.680 especially for types of armor on the body, but with 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:18.560 helmets and armor on the head, you're gonna have limitations 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:22.280 to the senses. That's right. So apparently this is a 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:26.320 pretty successful design though. Um Walker writes that the style 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:30.800 here became universally used across Europe during the fourteenth century 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:33.320