"15mm Carolingians" Topic

who makes 15mm Carolingians suitable for fighting Vikings in 15mm? Which are the nicest ranges? I know about:
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Baueda

Donnington

Magister Militum

Old Glory 15s

Essex

I don't think the "Carolingian" helmet is real.

If you believe that, as I do, then your basic dark age cavalry and infantry with round shields works.

Minifigs makes them as well. I don't know how historically accurate they are – I use them for fantasy gaming. link

Donnington have some Carolingians not in the morion style helmet in their orignal range. Some of the Minifigs have round helmets which are probably accurate. Like Dragon I do not believe in the crested helmet which really does look as though it is an attempt to show a classical crested helmet with a peak, like an Attic helmet,nwhich has then taken on a life of its own!

Essex Ottonians are pretty accurate as are some of their generic Dark Age figures which include some ace cavalry.

I think the cavalry in Essex is DSG1 Dark Age aheavy Cavalry in Mail

Personally, I like the Baueda ones best. Detail that's nicely paintable, lots of poses and variety. Plus mounted and dismounted figures for Big Chuck himself!

Baueda have some nice variety and the morion helmets are at least muted. However, they are a bit clunky IMO. Find figures holding a sword straight out at right angles a bit clumsy. Still its all a matter of personal choice.

I don't think the "Carolingian" helmet is real.

I believe it was, because period artwork shows one on the ground, and has details of its interior construction. It's shown often enough not to have been a fabrication.

Charlemagne had sufficient resources to have helmets such as those manufactured. Ironically, there's more evidence for these helmets than for spangenhelm types. This article has an interesting review, in which the author suggests the Carolingian helmet may have been referred to as a halsberga (neck protector):

link

Crispy, I'd love to make them but we are deep in 1914 at the moment.

Thank you for the cited article. Unfortunately it pretty completely disagrees with you!

The helmet that the article considers Carolingian is the one with two hemispherical skull pieces and a strap across the top and a brow band with a button to the front. This is not the morion style of helmet that dragon and I consider to be an artistic rendition of a crested Roman helmet.

As to the Halsberga it is widely accepted to have been a neck protector that joined to the byrnie or mail shirt. That is why the word becomes Latinised or rather Francisised as hauberk!
There is plenty of evidence for spangenhelm type gelmets that morph into the Norman style of helmet.bThere are Viking examples and possibly helmets in the Vienna Kunstshistorisches museum that show headpieces of two concave plates with a cross strap and brow strap, but nothing so far has been found of these morion like helmets. They appear to have no descendants nor any antecedents either.
It is rather like the fanciful helmets that artists derived from scullpture of Late Roman soldiers. What we find are either Intercisa or Deurne types (as shown on Khurasan's excellent Late Roman Range) .:-))

I wouldn't say the article disagrees with Khurasan about the style of helemt.
"The standard Carolingian helmet appears to be most clearly portrayed in the Psalterium aureum… …Two factors suggest that the Psalterium aureum helmet represents a type which was genuinely worn by the Carolingians rather than one which originated in external pictorial tradition."

shows the morion style helmet in the Psalterium aureum.

The Vivian bible pictures seem to be in the same form as this though the crest may be fanciful. It may be that the artist is exaggerated the style but may be doing so from contemporary helmets rather than Roman.
Some modern reconstructions probably overdo things to make it even more morion-esque.

The article does say the halsberga is likely to be a mail protection though, not the name of the helmet.

Have a look at the Stuttgart Psalter. It shows less exaggerated versions of the helmet with the button to the front!

All I'm saying is that the article does support the idea of this shape helmet, as Khurasan said.
I am completely agnostic on the matter :)

I think the likely look of the helmet is much more:

The supposedly Carolingian versions do not look very stable on the head!
I'd become an instant believer if one was found.

Like This

Its a helmet much tighter to the head.

Or this nice helmet with a neck protector from Maccabees
link

Great stuff gentlemen, very interesting, I've wondered about these Helmet's for years now!

I regard this one from Druzhina's vault as an even better representation of the two plate helmet with cross strap and rim and, in this case dependent mail curtsin.
link

Swampster, Am I right to think that the lady writing the article that Khurasan cites , does not believe that the Carolingians wore mail??

She does say that there are no ninth century pictorial sources for mail.
Personally, I'd say the P. aureum picture above looks like it could be mail rather than scale (viz. the later Bayeux needlework). Is the psalter 9th century? I think Druzhina's picture is also likely to be mail. Alvarez thinks it is scale.

She seems to have hooked onto the unarmoured outside of the hips*. Slits in the hauberk perhaps?

*Or, IMHO, the thighs. Apparently coxa – hip gave coxa – thigh in Portuguese. Also led to cuisse – thigh in French. And why would you say the 'outside of the hips'?

A very good point @Swampster. Looking at the representations if armour in the period I don't think they are at all reliable. I am tempted to see the Stuttgart ones as scale because they often have medial ridges on each scale, However, I also wonder if all these representations are based upon Late Roman illustrations such as the Vatican Vergil or the mosaics of Santa Maria Maggiore. Mail is notoriously difficult to represent accurately. Meyrick, I think it was, who saw early depictions as being if several different sorts, with scales, rings sewn on a leather background, square plates with a central hol, etc. Nowadays we would see them all as likely to be mail.
I wonder if the point about the thighs is like the Armenian cataphracts who were only vulnerable on their thighs because the rest of them was protected and they needed unarmoured thighs to be able to ride properly?
Certainly , in the pictorial sources, shirts of mail or scale come down to just above the knee and Notker's famous quote about Charlemagne and his men has them covered in iron.

For images of crested morion types referred to above see Chastity and Lust in Prudentius' Psychomachia (Leyden, Universitatsbibliothek, Cod. Burmanni Q 3, 9th century) & other Prudentius' Psychomachia manuscripts

MIRROR SITE
Prudentius' Psychomachia manuscripts

The Golden Psalter of St. Gallen, c.883-888 and 890-900 (Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 22) is dated as 9th century.
Saul's armour in the Golden Psalter droops like mail

The Leiden I Maccabees manuscript, Germany, (Codex Per F 17) is second half of 9th to early 10th century.

The Ivory Situlae of Aachen Cathedral is after 1000AD.

Druzhina
9th Century Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

For a different type of helmet and possible mail armour see
Constellation Auriga Recueil d'astronomie, Dijon, France, c.1000

MIRROR SITE
Constellation Auriga Recueil d'astronomie, Dijon, France, c.1000

Druzhina
Illustrations of 10th century Costume & Soldiers

Great service as always Druzhina. What is the source for the top thumbnail on your tenth century listing. That looks to me as though it is an important indicator of classicising influence.

That is presently Chastity & Lust in Prudentius' Psychomachia 'Conflict Of The Soul', Brussels, Bibliotheque royale, Ms. 10066-77, 10th century. (Mouse pointing will give a title).

Druzhina
11th Century Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

Poor old Lust!
in the first picture we see a brilliant exemplar of classicisation! Chastity has a tunic that has the outlines of a classical muscled cuirass with pteruges drawn upon it. Her shield is an exaggerated and impractical pelta like those on the pediment of Trajan's column .
When we look at the helmet I think we get a very good idea of how artists' imposition of a classical look can lead to the creation of a representation of an armour form that exists only on paper. The helmet is crested with two bulbous plates and has a line drawn through at the brow level (which occurs in other illustrations, that creates a sort of neck guard..
Seen in this context the helmet is part of a suite of classicised additions that take the picture of Chastity and symbolically arm her. Later in the sequence she is shown as a saint, again with the addition of symbolism such as the halo.

link

Has a couple of really interesting figures.One has an atypical short mailshirt and the other a longer mailshirt split at the sides and a strange pointy helmet that looks as though it is another work of imagination by the artist.
There is an interesting portrayal of how the shield is held.. This is not by a central grip within the boss, but by two straps that are pulled together in the hand. That's interesting because other wise, like swords and spears, the shields in that picture look realistic.

Later in the sequence she is shown as a saint,

I think the halo could have appeared at any time, as the artist(s) has not made much attempt at continuity between scenes, robe hem & sleeve length varies, a cloak appears & even the shield changes shape. In others armour can disappear and reappear in a sequence of scenes.

Druzhina
10th Century Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers