Beckenhaube mit spitzem Visier

Since the mid-nineteenth century, experts in historical armour have called this type of helmet a Hundsgugel (‘houndskull’), probably because its pointed visor is reminiscent of a dog’s nose.

The modern attribution to Ernest, Duke of Austria, is based on two Huntzkappen (‘dog hoods’) listed among the arms handed over to his son Frederick V, Duke of Austria (later Emperor Frederick III), at Wiener Neustadt in 1436. However, in a handwritten remark, Frederick also noted that ‘the harness and various other things that our blessed lord and father [Archduke Ernest] has left us, are not here’ (daz der hernasch und ettlicher zweg, so unser herr und vater seliger hinder sein gelassen hat, nicht gar da ist). Research has shown that in the Middle Ages, the terms Hundsgugel or Hundskappe were applied not to a type of helmet but to a mail coif. This means that the entry Huntzkappen in the above-mentioned inventory cannot have referred to this helmet.

Contemporaries may have called this type of helmet a spitze Haube (‘pointy helmet’) or englische Haube (‘English helmet’). The 1555 inventory of the arsenal at Innsbruck lists two englische Hauben, one of which was painted red and white while the other one had a panzernen Hundskappen (‘armoured houndskull’). As the helmet shown here was long housed at Ambras Castle near Innsbruck, it may be one of these two helmets. This suggests its original owner may have been either Duke Leopold IV or Duke Frederick IV, both of whom ruled the Tyrol at the turn of the fourteenth century. The second basinet with a pointy visor in the Imperial Armoury (inv. A 12) comes from the monastery of the Augustinian Friars at Brixen.

Such pointy visors were popular both in Italy and Germany, as well as in England. This type of helmet evolved out of the basinet worn since the thirteenth century as a semi-circular skullcap under a great helm. In the course of the fourteenth century, this older type of helmet was enlarged and soon covered neck, ears, and part of the cheeks. The top was given a conical shape, and in the late fourteenth century the tip of the helmet moved progressively backwards, so that after 1400 the back of the helmet – as here – forms a straight line.