Morion Helmet

Origins

The morion grew out of the open infantry helmets of the fifteenth century, the kettle hats and the Spanish and Italian capacete, as the pike and the arquebus took over European battlefields. An infantryman in close order needed to see, to hear orders and to raise a firearm to his cheek, and a helmet that left the face open while shedding downward blows from above served him best. The name probably comes from the Spanish morrión, from morra, the crown of the head. By the 1550s the characteristic comb morion, with its high crest and upswept brim, had become the standard helmet of foot soldiers across Spain, Italy and the Empire.

Design & Construction

A comb morion is raised from a single sheet of steel or from two halves joined along the comb, which runs from front to back over the crown and stiffens the skull. The brim curves up at the sides and rises to a point fore and aft, giving the crescent profile. Inside, a leather band with a padded lining was fixed by a row of brass-headed rivets around the base of the skull, which became a decorative feature, and cheek pieces tied under the chin. A plumed holder was often fitted at the back. The simpler cabasset, a related helmet with a pear-shaped skull ending in a little stalk and a flat brim, was issued alongside it. Munition morions were plain and blackened; officers' and guards' pieces were etched, gilded or embossed, and the Milanese workshops, including the Negroli family, made some of the finest.

Combat Use

The morion armed the pikemen and arquebusiers of the Spanish tercios, the German Landsknechts and the armies of the Thirty Years War, worn with a breastplate by pikemen and often alone by shot. It kept off falling blows, pike butts and sword cuts while leaving the soldier free to aim the Matchlock Musket. Its link with the Conquistadors is partly legend: the men who fought the Aztecs in 1519 to 1521, facing the Aztec Macuahuitl, wore a mix of sallets, cabassets and open helmets, and the fully developed comb morion belongs mostly to the later conquests and to the garrison soldiers of the Spanish empire. Its ceremonial use continued in bodyguards such as the Saxon Electoral Guard and the Papal Swiss Guard.

Legacy

The morion faded from field use in the mid seventeenth century as armor disappeared from the infantry, but it never left European ceremony: the Swiss Guard of the Vatican still parade in plumed morions, now made of lightweight materials. Collectors distinguish munition-grade morions from the richly etched pieces of the Saxon guard, many of which were sold from the Dresden armory. In film and popular art the morion, together with the Swept-Hilt Rapier, still marks a figure as a Spanish soldier of the age of exploration.