Bascinet
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The bascinet was a Medieval European open-faced helmet, typically fitted with an aventail and hinged visor. It evolved from the cervelliere.
It was also written as bassinet or basinet. The visor was often conical, giving the appearance of a muzzle or a beak. They were sometimes called "dog faced" (hounskull) or "pig faced". The early versions sometimes had a neck defence of chainmail called a camail while later versions often protected the neck with a separate but attached plate assembly called a colletin.
The bascinet, both with and without a visor (visors were often removable for better visibility and ventilation), was the most common helmet worn in Europe during the latter portions of the 14th and early 15th century, including during the Hundred Years War. Contemporary illustrations show nearly every knight and man-at-arms wearing one of a few variants of the basic "hounskull" helmet. The basic design was intended to direct blows from weapons downward and away from the skull and face of the wearer. Over the course of the late 1300s to early 1400s, the bascinet evolved from its more pointed form to a more globular form. Both the portion covering the skull and the hinged visor over the face became less angular and more rounded, until by the mid- to late 1400s, the bascinet had evolved into the armet.
It is theorized that more experienced fighters often wore their bascinets without visors for better visibility during hand-to-hand combat, and to avoid heat exhaustion.