Piston tournament helmet

German piston tournament helmet around 1450–1500 ( Metropolitan Museum of Art )

Piston tournament armor of the 1480s

The piston tournament helmet , also known in heraldry as a bow or spade helmet (not to be confused with the late antique spade helmet ), is a tournament helmet with a large, spherical bell and a barred field of vision that was used in the 15th and early 16th centuries . In a later development, the helmet bowl is made of pressed leather to save weight. Also known is the Escuffa which was used as a helmet reinforcement.

This to the variants of Bascinet counting helmet type came as a special head protection for the nobility popular piston Tournament on. Here, the enemy had with a wooden mace the crest be cut off. Under Friedrich III. the piston tournament helmet was elevated to a coat of arms symbol, the use of which was originally intended to be reserved for the nobility to distinguish it from the bourgeois stech helmet . At the turn of the 16th century, the piston tournament lost its importance, so that the helmet worn for this only fulfilled a heraldic function as a coat of arms symbol and funeral helmet .

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  Historical depiction of the 15th century by Barthélemy d'Eyck

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  Two dukes in piston tournament helmets during a piston tournament, depiction by Barthélemy d'Eyck

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  Helmet show of piston tournament helmets in the 15th century from Conrad Grünenberg's book of arms

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  Piston tournament in Georg Rüxner's Thurnierbuch - From the beginning, causes, vrsprung, and come from the tournament in the holy Roman Empire of the German nation of 1530

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  Albrecht Dürer around 1520: Coat of arms of the Lords of Roggendorf , with a helmet

See also

• Armor for the butt tournament

literature

• Harry Kühnel (Ed.): Picture dictionary of clothing and armor. From the ancient Orient to the end of the Middle Ages. (= Kröner's pocket edition. Vol. 453). Kröner, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-520-45301-0 .
• Bruno Thomas, Ortwin Gamber: The Innsbruck art of armorer. Catalog, art exhibition from June 26 to September 30, 1954. Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck 1954.
• Peter Jezler , Peter Niederhäuser, Elke Jezler (eds.): Knight tournament. History of a festival culture. Book accompanying the exhibition in the Museum zu Allerheiligen Schaffhausen. Quaternio Verlag, Lucerne 2014, ISBN 978-3-905924-23-7 .

Web links

• Piston tournament helmet made of leather in the Württemberg State Museum