16th centuries, when western European full plate armour had been perfected. Movable face and cheek pieces allowed the wearer to close the helmet, thus fully protecting the head from blows. The term armet was often applied in contemporary usage to any fully enclosing helmet, however, modern scholarship draws a distinction between the armet and the outwardly similar close helmet (or close helm) on the basis of their construction, especially their means of opening to allow them to be worn. While an armet had two large cheekpieces hinged at the skull and opened laterally, a close helmet instead had a kind of movable bevor which was attached to the same pivot points as its visor and opened vertically. The classic armet had a narrow extension to the back of the skull reaching down to the nape of the neck, and the cheekpieces were hinged, horizontally, directly from the main part of the skull. From about 1515, the Germans produced a variant armet where the downward extension of the skull was made much wider, reaching as far forward as the ears. The cheekpieces on this type of helmet opened sideways, on vertical hinges on the edges of this wider neck element. The high-quality English Greenwich armours often included this type of armet from c. 1525. Greenwich-made armets adopted the elegant two-piece visor found on contemporary close helmets; armets of this form were manufactured until as late as 1615. The lower edge of such helmets often closed over a flange in the upper edge of a gorget-piece. The helmet could then rotate without allowing a gap in the armour that a weapon point could enter. The armet is found in many contemporary pieces of artwork, such as Paolo Uccello's The Battle of San Romano, and is almost always shown as part of a Milanese armor. These depictions show armets worn with tall and elaborate crests, largely of feathered plumes; however, no surviving armets have similar crests and very few show obvious provision for the attachment of such crests. The armet was most popular in Italy, however, in England, France and Spain it was widely used by men-at-arms alongside the sallet, whilst in Germany the latter helmet was much more common. It is believed that the close helmet resulted from a combination of various elements derived from each of the preceding helmet types. References Bibliography Further reading Medieval helmets