'Spanish' morion, made in Northern Italy, formed in one piece with a tall almond-shaped crown rising at its apex to a short backward-directed ‘stalk’, and a narrow integral brim rising slightly to a point at its front and turning down slightly to a similar point at its rear. Probably Milanese or Brescian.

The edge of the brim, which is turned inwards and roped with a file at wide intervals, is followed by a narrow recessed border. A series of 18 iron rivets with domed heads (replacements) encompass the base of the crown for the attachment of the lining and the missing cheek-pieces. Many are fitted beneath their heads with washers roughly cut from a sheet of tinned iron. Two further rivets, spanning the arris at the rear of the skull, fill holes originally occupied by the rivets that served to attach a plume-holder.

The helmet is etched in relief on its brim, around the base of its crown and in four bands radiating from the point of its crown with scattered military trophies on a stippled and blackened ground. The bands are all edged with narrow, blackened tracing-lines. Etched in each of the interspaces of the crown is a panel shaped like a maple leaf with a bifurcated stalk, framing a scatter of military trophies. The whole is now very worn.

The style of decoration found on this morion was fashionable throughout the second half of the sixteenth century. However, morions with flat brims seem to have begun to replace those with swept brims, such as this one, in the 1580s.

The phrase ‘Murryons of Spanyshe fassyon’ is found in the 1588 Inventory of the Tower Armouries in contra-distinction to ‘Murryons’. The accounts of the Master of the Armouries, dating from the early seventeenth century contain many references to converting ‘old combe moryons into serviceable Spanishe moryons’. Sir John Smythe writing in 1591 refers to 'vpright morrions after the Spanish manner'.

Measurements: height 28.6 cm, width 40.5 cm, depth 35.6 cm. Weight: 1.701 kg

Text adapted from Arms and Armour in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen: European Armour, London, 2016