soldiers up to the time of Frederick the Great, either with the suit of armour or half-armour worn by the subject of the portrait or in allegorical trophies, &c. The armet was a fairly close-fitting rounded shell of iron or steel, with a movable vizor in front and complete plating over chin, ears and neck, the latter replacing the mentonnière or beaver. The armet was connected to the rest of the suit by the gorget, which was usually of thin laminated steel plates. With a good armet and gorget there was no weak point for the enemy’s sword to attack, a roped lower edge of the armet generally fitting into a sort of flange round the top of the gorget. Thus, and in other and slightly different ways, was solved the problem which in the early days of plate armour had been attempted by the clumsy heaume and the flexible, if tough, camail of the vizored basinet, and still more clumsily in the succeeding period by the salade and its grotesque mentonnière. As far as existing examples show, the wide-brimmed salade itself first gave way to the more rounded armet, the mentonnière being carried up to the level of the eyes. Then the use (growing throughout the 15th century) of laminated armour for the joints of the harness probably suggested the gorget, and once this was applied to the lower edge of the armet by a satisfactory joint, it was an easy step to the elaborate pivoted vizor which completed the new head-dress. Types of armets are shown in fig. 8.
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| Fig. 8.—Armets. |
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| Fig. 9.—Burgonets. |
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| Fig. 10.—Morion. |
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| Fig. 11.—Cabasset. |
The burgonet, often confused with the armet, is the typical helmet of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. In its simple form it was worn by the foot and light cavalry—though the latter must not be held to include the pistol-armed chevaux-légers of the wars of religion, these being clad in half-armour and vizored burgonet—and consisted of a (generally rounded) cap with a projecting brim shielding the eyes, a neck-guard and earpieces. It had almost invariably a crest or comb, as shown in the illustrations (fig. 9). Other forms of infantry head-gear much in vogue during the 16th century are shown in figs. 10 and 11, which represent the morion and cabasset respectively. Both these were lighter and smaller than the burgonet; indeed much of their popularity was due to the ease with which they were worn or put on and off, for in the matter of protection they could not compare with the burgonet, which in one form or another was used by cavalry (and often by pikemen) up to the final disappearance of armour from the field of battle about 1670. Fig. 9 b gives the general outline of richly decorated 16th-century Italian burgonet which is preserved in Vienna. The archetype of the burgonet is perhaps the casque worn by the Swiss infantry (fig. 9 a) at the epoch of Marignan (1515). This was probably copied by them from their former Burgundian antagonists, whose connexion with this helmet is sufficiently indicated by its name. The lower part of the more elaborate burgonets worn by nobles and cavalrymen is often formed into a complete covering for the ears, cheek and chin, and connected closely with the gorget. They therefore resemble the armets and have often been confused with them, but the distinguishing feature of the burgonet is invariably the front peak. Various forms of vizor were fitted to such helmets; these as a rule were either fixed bars (fig. 9 c) or mere upward continuations of the chin piece. Often a nasal was the only face protection (fig. 9 d, a Hungarian type). The latest form of the burgonet used in active service is the familiar Cromwellian cavalry helmet with its straight brim, from which depends the slight vizor of three bars or stout wires joined together at the bottom.
The above are of course only the main types. Some writers class all remaining examples either as casques or as “war-hats,” the latter term conveniently covering all those helmets which resemble in any way the head-gear of civil life. For illustrations of many curiosities of this sort, including the famous iron hat of King Charles I. of England, and also for examples of Russian, Mongolian, Indian and Chinese helmets, the reader is referred to pp. 262-269 and 285-286 of Demmin’s Arms and Armour (English edition 1894). The helmets in brass, steel or cloth, worn by troops since the general introduction of uniforms and the disuse of armour, depend for their shape and material solely on considerations of comfort and good appearance. From time to time, however, the readoption of serviceable helmets is advocated by cavalrymen, and there is much to be said in favour of this. The burgonet, which was the final type of war helmet evolved by the old armourers, would certainly appear to be by far the best head-gear to adopt should these views prevail, and indeed it is still worn, in a modified yet perfectly recognizable form, by the German and other cuirassiers.
HELMHOLTZ, HERMANN LUDWIG FERDINAND VON
(1821–1894), German philosopher and man of science, was born
on the 31st of August 1821 at Potsdam, near Berlin. His father,
Ferdinand, was a teacher of philology and philosophy in the
gymnasium, while his mother was a Hanoverian lady, a lineal
descendant of the great Quaker William Penn. Delicate in
early life, Helmholtz became by habit a student, and his father
at the same time directed his thoughts to natural phenomena.
He soon showed mathematical powers, but these were not
fostered by the careful training mathematicians usually receive,
and it may be said that in after years his attention was directed
to the higher mathematics mainly by force of circumstances.
As his parents were poor, and could not afford to allow him to
follow a purely scientific career, he became a surgeon of the
Prussian army. In 1842 he wrote a thesis in which he announced
the discovery of nerve-cells in ganglia. This was his first work,
and from 1842 to 1894, the year of his death, scarcely a year
passed without several important, and in some cases epoch-making,
papers on scientific subjects coming from his pen. He
lived in Berlin from 1842 to 1849, when he became professor of
physiology in Königsberg. There he remained from 1849 to
1855, when he removed to the chair of physiology in Bonn. In
1858 he became professor of physiology in Heidelberg, and in
1871 he was called to occupy the chair of physics in Berlin. To
this professorship was added in 1887 the post of director of
the physico-technical institute at Charlottenburg, near Berlin,
