Use
The nasal helmet would usually have been worn over a mail coif, which protected the lower parts of the head, throat and neck. The coif could be a separate item of armour or be formed as an extension of the mailcoat itself. The existence of rivets and holes around the lower edge of these helmets indicate that they were lined in some manner, though no linings as such have survived. Practical considerations suggest that linings must have been adjustable to ensure a secure fit.
The nasals of these helmets were often so large that the wearer was unrecognisable to an observer. The celebrated incident at the Battle of Hastings, illustrated on the Bayeux tapestry, where William the Conqueror had to lift his helmet to show his troops that he was still alive is an indication of the anonymity nasal helmets produced.
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“... it is use, and use alone, which leads one of us, tolerably trained to recognize any criterion of grace or any sense of the fitness of things, to tolerate ... the styles of dress to which we are more or less conforming every day of our lives. Fifty years hence they will seem to us as uncultivated as the nose-rings of the Hottentot seem today.”
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