The sallet (also known as celata, salade or schaller) was a war helmet that replaced the earlier bascinet across Italy, Germany, and much of western and northern Europe during the mid-15th century, first recorded in a 1407 Gonzaga family inventory. In Germany it became almost universal, while Italy, France and England also favoured the alternative armet helmet alongside it. Regional styles diverged: Italian sallets were rounder and more open-faced, while the German type developed its famous drawn-out tail, sometimes built from several articulated lames, growing more pronounced through the century. Archers benefited particularly from the sallet’s adaptable design: a moveable visor could be raised for the clear sightlines and ventilation needed during sustained shooting, then lowered for protection when the fighting closed to melee range. This reproduction recreates that archer-styled visored sallet.
Archer’s Visored Sallet
The sallet (also known as celata, salade or schaller) was a war helmet that replaced the earlier bascinet across Italy, Germany, and much of western and northern Europe during the mid-15th century, first recorded in a 1407 Gonzaga family inventory. This version is styled for archer use, combining a moveable visor with the good visibility and ventilation an archer needed for accurate, sustained shooting. The sallet’s open, adaptable design made it a genuinely practical choice for archers, who needed clear sightlines that a fully enclosed helm would compromise.
Related products
-
Archer’s Domed Helmet
SKU: RTU788This domed helmet reflects the practical, economical protection worn by Medieval archers, whose need for a clear line of sight and good hearing shaped their equipment choices. Unlike the fully enclosing great helm favoured by mounted knights, archers generally wore lighter, more open helmets suited to drawing a bow and tracking targets. Its rounded profile offered reliable protection without compromising the visibility and mobility an archer's role demanded.
-
Spartan Helmet
SKU: AH6078/H042This helmet reflects the equipment of the Spartan army, whose citizens — trained from childhood in the famously demanding agoge system — formed the core of one of the ancient world's most feared military forces. Spartan hoplites typically carried a version of the Corinthian helmet, its enclosed bronze form offering strong protection within the tightly packed ranks of the phalanx formation Sparta's army was built around. This unplumed pattern reflects the essential Spartan helmet form without additional crest decoration.
-
This sallet reflects the equipment of an archer during the Wars of the Roses (1455-1487), the prolonged English civil conflict fought between the rival houses of Lancaster and York. English longbowmen played a decisive role throughout the conflict, and a sallet’s open, visor-optional design suited their need for clear sightlines when drawing a bow. The sallet had by this period become the dominant Medieval war helmet across much of Europe, offering good protection with genuinely improved mobility over the earlier bascinet.
-
Krefeld Helmet (Imperial Italic D)
SKU: AH6054KThe Krefeld helmet belongs to Robinson's Imperial Italic D classification, one of the plainer, more soldierly helmet forms that equipped Roman legionaries from the late 1st century BC into the 3rd century AD. Unlike its more ornately decorated Imperial Gallic cousins, the Italic series dispensed with the raised eyebrow motif entirely, reflecting a simpler, faster production method historian H. Russell Robinson attributed to Italian workshops rather than the accomplished Gallic smiths of the north. Its find, recovered near Krefeld in Germany, sits among the well-documented cluster of Imperial helmets that trace the legions' long presence along the Rhine frontier.
