Sallet

The sallet (also called celata, salade and schaller) was a war helmet that replaced the bascinet in Italy, western and northern Europe and Hungary during the mid-15th century. In Italy, France and England the armet helmet was also popular, but in Germany the sallet became almost universal.

The origin of the sallet seems to have been in Italy where the term celata is first recorded in an inventory of the arms and armour of the Gonzaga family dated to 1407. In essence the earliest sallets were a variant of the bascinet, intended to be worn without an aventail or visor. To increase protection to the face and neck, that the abandonment of the visor and aventail would have exposed, the sides of the helmet were drawn forward at the bottom to cover the cheeks and chin and the rear was curved out into a flange to protect the neck. The barbute or barbuta was a related helmet appearing in Italy at much the same time as the sallet. Unlike the sallet, the fully developed barbute consciously copied elements of the Classical Corinthian helmets of ancient times.

The sallet became popular in France, England and the Netherlands through contact with Italy and eventually was adopted in Germany. Regional styles developed, which were catered for by the great armour manufacturing centres of northern Italy (especially Milan) and southern Germany (Augsburg and Nuremberg). However, though a sallet, or complete armour, might be German in style it could have been of Italian manufacture, or vice versa. The German sallet may have been the product of the melding of influences from the Italian sallet and the deep-skulled "German war-hat," a type of brimmed chapel de fer helmet.

Later Italian sallets (by c. 1460) lost their integral face protection and became open-faced helmets with gracefully curved surfaces. In this simple state they were favoured by more lightly armed troops, especially archers and crossbowmen, whose uninterrupted vision was at a premium. For more heavily armoured troops a greater level of protection could be afforded by the attachment of a plate re-inforce for the brow of the helmet and a deep visor, usually of the 'bellows' form which incorporated many ventilation slits. Such helmets would have been worn with a stiffened mail collar, termed a "standard," which protected the throat and neck. Some Italian-style sallets were provided with a covering of rich cloth, usually velvet, which was edged in silver-gilt or gilded brass; ornamental decoration in the same metals could be added to the surface of the helmet, allowing areas of cloth to show through.

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Wikipedia