The cervelière is a headdress of mail or iron plates wrapping exactly the upper part of the skull like a skullcap, used in Western Europe in the Middle Ages.
From the 8th century, it was not uncommon for soldiers to wear helmets resembling those of the Romans, minus the crest. Consisting only of a hemispherical cap, they can be considered the first cervelières.
The underlying brain bone
As soon as the first medieval armours appeared, men-at-arms covered their heads with a chainmail camail, worn under the helmet. In order to make it more comfortable to wear, they cover their skulls with a piece of padded skin or canvas that follows its shape and rolls up in rolls above the ears. The camail does not hurt the head under the pressure of the helmet or shocks. By tightening the chain mail, thanks to the strips of skin that lined it, the soldiers could maintain the underlying brains exactly on their skull.
These leather or canvas cervelières were in regular use at the turn of the 12th century.
The chainmail cervelière
From the middle of the 13th century, a mesh cerebellum appears, which is then worn on a skin camail. It takes a cylindrical or spherical shape, which allows the wearing of a helm over it. The links that compose it are often riveted "barley grain" and receive four others.
The cervelière de plates
This helmet is forged from one or more pieces of metal. Some of these cervelières were worn on the chain mail, others replaced the upper part. In the latter case, the cerebellum was padded and the camail was attached to its lower edge.
The design of the plate cervelière took the form of a bomb, without rim, point or protruding part. Those that were placed on the camail sometimes had a slightly protruding visor, but could not then be worn under the helmet.
Several riveted steel plates could make up a cervelière. It thus entered into the composition of brigandines as head clothing for pedestrians and were worn under the salad or the hood.