Miscellaneous > The Sallyport

Viking horned helms, yep I went there.

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Sir Wolf:
i wrote a thesis paper in college about the myths of the vikings. horned helmets no go there. lol. best guess where the colorful depictions from the monks saying the horned devils exaggerations and maybe possibly cheek plates tied up. i cant remember all of the other reasons but heraldry was just not there.

Sir Vander Linde:
Thank you both for your replies. :D

Sir Wolf, I have heard many times from others as well that "heraldry" was not there. Any idea where that view point comes from? I'm of Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Northern German Sorbs decent and know of my families heraldry from that time, of course it evolved  an got more complicated but it was there.

Any ideas? (asking because you guys are a pool of knowledge) ;)

Sir William:
Vander, I've often wondered this myself.  True, we can thank Hollywood for the visuals and its likely that it never actually existed, at least not for what we term the 'Vikings' but we have no real way of knowing despite all of the documentation currently available.

There's alot about history which we cannot know as we weren't around back then and not everyone prescribed to keeping written records about basically everything for future generations to take a gander at.

So, its unlikely so far as we know, but that doesn't equate to 'absolutely not' - no one alive can say that with any sort of real guarantee.

Sir James A:
As was covered, "helmet toppers" for the medieval period were heraldic in nature. Mostly used in tournaments, they probably saw some use on the battlefield, but I'd wager not a whole lot - it's excess weight and target with little practical purpose. The more wealthy may have worn it for show and authority, but the common soldier probably did not.

Romans, I don't really know much about. Taking a complete guess, would they have a "team color" where the soldiers of the same army all have blue, or red, or something? Again, completely guessing.

I doubt the vikings had horns. Their armor wasn't very advanced, and attaching horns that don't serve any purpose other than confusion/intimidation seems like something they wouldn't care for at a practical level. As with crests, it's an extra "target" of sorts, and probably more liability than usefulness.

Lord Dane:
Romans wore helmet crests to signify their title and position amongst their ranks. Their color typically signified their house (i.e. House of Julii was red) but only Roman Consorts could wear their house signet on campaign. Auxillaries could not bear any crests (not Roman citizens) and even Legionaries (Roman citizens) could only bear it if they had significant importance in rank, title or office and it had to bear the color of their Cohort Commander. So I am told at least....

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