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 CHAPTER XXXIII

MORIONS AND CABASSETS

With those helmets known as Morions we propose to class Cabassets—they are practically the same type of head-piece—they each protect the head in the same way, and only differ in the shape of the skull-piece and in the droop of the brim. To trace their evolution we have to refer to the brief account we have previously given of the XVth century chapel-de-fer in Chapter XI of our second volume: the morion and cabasset are the XVIth century descendants of the iron hat. The late Mr. J. R. Planché stated that the morion was a head-piece introduced to the rest of Europe by the Spaniards—who had copied it from the Moors—about 1550. Other writers agree with this, stating that the morion was, like the Morris pike, derived from the wars in Spain, though from which of the nationalities engaged they are not prepared to say. Mr. Planché does not state from what type of Moorish helmet the Spaniards derived the morion; but the author agrees as to its provenance, and it is undeniably true that it is to Spain we have to turn for the first mention of it or for an actual early XVIth century example of a head-piece that in any way resembles what is understood to-day by the morion helmet.

In the inventory of the property of Henry VIII taken in 1547, referring to the armour at Greenwich, "In the chardge off Erasimus Kirkener armerer," there is a confusing entry: "Itm a Murrion and a Baver^e to the same," confusing because a head-piece of the true morion form could not be worn with a bevor. This entry shows how the names of head-pieces varied: possibly in this instance the use of the word "murrion" must have reference to some other type of open helmet, probably to a helmet of the burgonet class. Indeed, we have contemporary pictorial evidence of this confused nomenclature. In the pictured inventory of the principal arms of Charles V made by order of Philip II, a volume now preserved in the archives