Costume armour and helmets with grotesque visors

The courtly feast, embodying the ideals of the aristocratic society, was an expensive display in which every participant had to play a part corresponding to his or her rank. For the male participants, realisation of this social ideal meant doing martial service, i.e. discharing their duty of taking part in tournaments. Tournaments, however, were divorced from real war and became an expression of the perfect, ideal contest which could only be realised in the form of elevated, magnificent displays. The tournament made it possible, on the basis of romantic notions of chivalry, ancient traditions and the fascination of bizarre fantasies, to build up an ideal world of make-belive.

Tournaments were often held during Lent, in conjunction with the masquerades belonging to that season. The indoor "Mummereien", above all as produced at the court of Maximilian I, engendered tournaments with disguises and pageantry - a kind of masked play among the aristorcrats of the Late Middle Ages. Tournaments in disguise were an essential part of court festivities. On these occasions the participants wore fantastic helmets with grotesque visors and costume armour. Most of the grotesque visors took the form of fantastic faces or animal heads.