Talk:Enclosed helmet

Merger /rename discusion
See Talk:Close_helmet Andy Dingley (talk) 12:05, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Close helmet which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 20:28, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Difficulties with the new articles
The basic difficulty is that "close helm" is used in the available literature as an alternative to "close helmet" to describe the same 16-17th century helmet with a bevor attached to the same pivot as the visor(s).

To appropriate "close helm" to describe early fore-runners of the "great helm" dating to c. 1170-1220 is a neologism and as such cannot be countenanced in any form of encyclopedia.

The present article "Close helm" has to be renamed, there is no alternative. Urselius (talk) 08:53, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I have just searched Google Books and JSTOR, there is no usage of the term "close helm" for the transitional forms of helmet dating to c. 1170-1220. The majority of works call these "great helms" or describe a transition between helmets with nasals and great helms without giving any name to the intermediate forms. I found a single reputable source which called the intermediate form a "barrel helm." I would suggest that if you want to keep a separate article for these helmets that you call the article "Barrel helm". Urselius (talk) 09:12, 24 December 2012 (UTC)


 * First of all, would you agree that we have at least got the right content under the right articles? If so, then I suggest that we leave close helmet alone and move this discussion to talk:close helm instead.
 * Secondly, article titles are relatively (relatively) unimportant. Their scope is much more important. Titles are easy to change. The scope of the close helm article is I think now clear, as the type of helm shown in the Peraldus image, and dating to the Crusades period. This is one piece, without bevor, but it is cut upwards around the back of the neck and it does have mail. It's thus distinct from the bucket helm, sugarloaf helm and great helm (whatever that is) as those all have a straight lower edge of solid plate (and thus limited head movement). Andy Dingley (talk) 11:12, 24 December 2012 (UTC)


 * We have separated the two types of helmet, but I think the present name for the article for the c. 1200 helmet is spurious, we need to lose the adjective 'close'.


 * The type of helmet you describe was in use for perhaps 20 years if that, it is a little restrictive to merit its own article. It was merely one stage in the evolution of the nasal helmet into the fully enclosed great helm. I think that that evolution is very important and should have its own article. My own preference would be to rename this article "Early helms" or something similar and describe the evolution of the conical helmet with a nasal, through round-topped and flat topped forms, with the addition of greater facial protection and extensions to cover the nape of the neck, into the cylindrical forms that were the fore-runners of the great helm. I think that would be a really useful article. Urselius (talk) 12:18, 24 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Early helms would be a good article, and there's no reason why we can't write it in addition.
 * This helm though appears to be a notable type, with a recorded history – so we should have an article on it. It also seems fairly distinct: it's further from other helms than, for instance, the sugarloaf and the bucket helms are. I don't have a strong opinion on what the article title should be, or which names are given in the lead of that article. Pot helm is one possible title and we can quite easily have a lead that begins,
 * The pot helm or close helm was...
 * If the term "close helm" is a problem (and it appears to be), then we can use that name in several articles, and we can explain and qualify it in each.
 * As to the evolution of the great helm, then that's a matter for sourcing. Personally I see the great helm (the later over-helmet used for the tourney) as being an evolution of the early and simple flat-topped bucket helm, rather than through this more developed pot or close helm, which then reverted and lost its more complex shape and mail. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:55, 24 December 2012 (UTC)


 * The basic problem, as I see it, is that the c.1200 helm does not have a particular name which is regularly used in the literature. I know that David Nicolle, a well known author in the field, refers to this type of helmet as "a primitive great helm" or "an early type of great helm", for example. On Wikipedia we cannot lead the field in nomenclature, that's a complete no-go. Niether can we use the names for helmets commonly used by re-enactors, or the modern armourers who make helmets for them, as our sources have to have some scholarly respectability.


 * So we have an article on a type of helmet that certainly existed, but that doesn't have a recognised name. It would be much easier to have a general article on the evolution of early helms, containing a section on the helmet in question than to try to come up with a name that just doesn't exist in the available secondary literature. Urselius (talk) 17:57, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I have discovered one reference to this helmet type being called an "Enclosed helmet" or "completely enclosing helm". Norman Knight 950-1204 AD, Christopher Gravett, 1993, Osprey, plate D and p. 54. Although an Osprey, the author was a curator of Armour at the Royal Armouries and so his usage and opinion carries some weight. I imagine that this is where the writer of this article got his nomenclature. To distance this article from close helmet I will rename it in line with Gravett's usage. I intend at some stage to revamp Nasal helmet and create an article called "Early helms" so that the evolution from nasal helmet to great helm can be followed by any interested reader. I hope that this will be a major improvement in clarity, though I would still rather delete this article altogether. Urselius (talk) 11:42, 29 December 2012 (UTC)