This sixteenth-century helmet was formerly part of the personal collection of a Maidstone businessman. Although the collection was subsequently deposited at Maidstone Museum many of the objects came without a provenance and have been catalogued subsequently. While issues of this nature are common features of many museum collections, this helmet is a particularly curious piece which raises many questions in its own right.
It is clear that the helmet has been substantially altered during its lifetime. What the observer sees now is not the piece that was originally constructed. It probably started out as a close helmet of north Italian origin, dating to the mid-sixteenth century. It seems to have begun life with cheek protections and a peaked cap. Close helmets were at their most popular from the sixteenth through to the mid-seventeenth centuries. The generic close helmet was formed around a central skull piece. The only remaining piece of the original close helmet, however, seems to be the skull.
Based on the evidence of the surviving skull, the original close helmet was of a good munition standard and had possibly seen practical use in warfare. The better-quality helmets were normally shaped from a single piece of metal, whereas the poorer types were constructed from two pieces of metal welded and riveted together. An interior examination of this helmet shows that the skull was fashioned from one sheet of metal rather than two.
Although the skull is probably mid-sixteenth century in date, the key transformations probably occurred during the late-seventeenth or early eighteenth centuries in Pisa, when the helmet was adapted for use in the Gioco del Ponte civic tournament. Close helmets were the helmets preferred by combatants in these civic tournaments. The Gioco del Ponte was a communal tournament fought between members of the Tramontana and Mezzogiorno, the townspeople of the north and south sides of the river Arno in Pisa. The game starts as the Mazzascudo, fought between two teams known as the roosters and the magpies in the piazza dei Cavalieri. Between Christmas and Shrove Tuesday a section of the civic square would be chained off and townsmen could challenge each other. On holidays a general battle would take place. The day would commence with single combats before a trumpet blast announced the beginning of general combat. Participants wore soldiers’ armour and a considerable amount of padding. The tournament persisted until 1782. It was subsequently revived in a different form, with a heavy weight rather than a dangerous club fight, in 1935 (Settia 2013).
The helmet has the letters GP engraved at the back of the neck, so at the very least it has been altered to deliberately associate it with the tournament. The added barred visor is another characteristic typical of the helmets used in the tournament. A fall, or peak, was presumably crudely cut away at the time of its conversion in Pisa. Additional plates at the rear might be contemporary with these alterations or added later. The hinges at each temple have also been altered. Additional pieces of metal have been added on the inside and outside.
These changes make the Maidstone helmet an intriguing and challenging object for a curator to understand. Through an understanding of helmet typology it is possible to determine the likely category of the piece. It is only through visual observation and experience, however, that it becomes possible to understand the latter history of the helmet and its use in Italian civic tournaments.
Barber, R. & Barker, J. (2000) Tournaments: Jousts, Chivalry and Pageants in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge).
Settia, A.A. (2013) ‘Military Games and the Training of Infantry’, Journal of Medieval Military History 11: 1–24.