The Armet: The 15th-Century Helmet That Completely Protected Your Head

September 25, 2026

The armet is a type of combat helmet that was developed in the 15th century. This helmet was widely used in Italy, France, England, the Low Countries, and Spain. The armet was particularly special because it was the first helmet of that era to completely enclose the entire head, while still remaining small and light enough to move naturally with the wearer.

The helmet was especially worn by fully armoured soldiers, the so-called men-at-arms. Because the armet completely enclosed the head and fit snugly around the neck and throat, the helmet needed a mechanical system to open and close it so it could be put on. A typical armet consisted of four parts:

1. the helmet bowl

2. two large hinged cheek pieces that clicked closed over the chin at the front,

3. a visor that sat on two pivot points, one on each side.

The cheek pieces could open sideways via horizontal hinges; when closed, they overlapped at the chin and were secured with a spring pin or rotating hook.

Sometimes an extra protective piece was added for the lower face, called a 'wrapper'. Its straps were protected by a small metal disc 'roundel dagger' at the bottom of the helmet bowl.

The visor was attached to the pivot points with removable pins, just like in later bascinets. This method remained in use until around 1520. After that, the visor received a fixed connection.

Early armets sometimes also had a small chain mail aventail on the lower edge of the cheek pieces. The oldest surviving armet dates from 1420 and was made in Milan. This suggests that the armet was probably invented in Italy.

The dramatic change in form – a smaller helmet bowl with large hinged cheek pieces – was so different from earlier helmets that it's thought the armet was invented by one specific armorer, rather than gradually evolving from earlier models.

However, Italian bascinets from around 1400 have also been found in Chalcis (Greece), which already had one hinged cheek piece. This design may have influenced the development of the armet.

16th-century knight at the Battle of Pavia in historical armour and military equipment.

The armet reached its greatest popularity in the late 15th and early 16th century, when European plate armour was at the height of its development. At that time, the word "armet" was often used for any completely closing helmet, but modern researchers make a clear distinction.

An armet has two large sideways-opening cheek pieces.

The close helmet looks similar, but it has a moving bevor that opens vertically, together with the visor.

The classical armet had a narrow, downward-running back that extended to the neck fold. The cheek pieces were attached via horizontal hinges.

From around 1515, German armorers made a variant where the back became much wider and extended to the ears. In this version, the cheek pieces opened sideways via vertical hinges.

In England, these helmets were incorporated into the famous Greenwich armour suits (from around 1525). These English armets often received a stylish two-piece visor, like the close helmet. These kinds of helmets were made until around 1615. The lower edge often closed over a raised rim of the gorget, so the helmet could rotate without creating a dangerous opening at the neck.

The armet appears frequently in artworks, such as in Paolo Uccello's Battle of San Romano. There, the armet is almost always worn as part of a Milanese weapon suit.

In paintings, the helmets are often seen with high and ornate feather crests. On actual surviving armets, however, such attachments are almost never found.

Although the armet was most beloved in Italy, it was also widely used in England, France, and Spain, alongside the sallet. In Germany, the sallet was more popular than the armet. It is thought that the close helmet ultimately developed from a mixture of features from both earlier helmet types.

16th-century aristocrat in an ornately decorated Greenwich armour from the Renaissance period.

The close helmet

Close helmets were worn alongside the armet from the 16th century onward. They remained in use throughout Europe until the middle of the 17th century and were especially worn by heavily armoured riders such as cuirassiers, who around this time were equipped with, among other things, pistols.

The helmet completely encloses the head and has a visor that can rotate, together with a fixed bevor that was an integrated part of the helmet. In documents from that period, the close helmet was sometimes also called an armet, but modern researchers make a clear distinction between the two helmets.

Although both look similar in appearance, the way they open works very differently. Like the armet, the helmet fits snugly around the head and neck, which means a mechanical system is needed to put it on and remove it.

An armet opens sideways through two large hinged cheek pieces, but a close helmet opens from top to bottom instead. This happens because both the bevor and the visor rotate around the same pivot points on the sides of the helmet.

When closing, the moving parts were usually secured with small hooks that fell into metal eyes, or with spring mechanisms. Often the bevor was also kept closed with a belt. Around the year 1500, armour began to be increasingly influenced by fashions from everyday life. This resulted in many different forms of the close helmet.

The earliest types still looked clearly similar to armets. In Italy, England, and France, between 1510 and 1525, the helmets were usually round in shape, with visors that had the shape of a sparrow's beak, so long and pointed forward.

In Germany, during the same period, the well-known Maximilian style emerged, in which armour and helmets were decorated with fluting. The helmet bowls there were bulbous with a low crest, sometimes featuring subtle relief, sometimes executed smoothly.

The German armorers produced two recognizable types of visors: the Nuremberg visor, which had the shape of a kind of pleated bellows, and the Augsburg visor, which protruded further forward and thus earned the nickname "monkey head".

From the twenties of the sixteenth century onward, a new type of close helmet developed that became common almost everywhere in Europe.

The older single-piece visors were replaced by a system where the face was protected by two movable parts. The visor was split into an upper part with the sight slits and a lower part, the ventail or upper bevor, that extended sharply forward like the bow of a ship.

When both parts were closed, the upper visor fit precisely within the upper edge of the other. Thanks to a small protrusion, the upper visor could be easily opened separately, without the lower part moving along.

During the same period, close helmets often received a series of movable metal plates on the lower edge of both the helmet bowl and the bevor, so the neck remained well protected when turning the head.

17th-century cavalryman in munition armour with historical military equipment from the early modern period.

The crest that ran from front to back over the helmet became increasingly tall and impressive during the course of the sixteenth century, especially in Italian designs. By the end of that century, however, this crest was made smaller again.

There are also many close helmets preserved with so-called grotesque visors. These helmets were presumably worn during processions, celebrations, and tournaments as part of parade armours. Some of these visors show animal heads or demonic faces, while others show funny faces instead.

The close helmet was often used both on the battlefield and in tournaments. Wealthy aristocrats frequently owned complete armour suits with interchangeable parts, so-called garnitures, with which they could adapt their equipment for heavy combat, light combat such as reconnaissance missions, or various forms of tournaments.

Such garnitures usually contained extra reinforcements for the left side of the helmet, which were used during lance jousts. These reinforcements were called doubled pieces or advantage pieces.