A nanban kabuto [European style helmet] | Edo period, 17th century

Italian and Spanish cabassets and morion arrived in Japan in the late 16^th - early 17^th century. They were adapted for use with Japanese armour by the addition of a shikoro [neck guard]. A 16^th century set of Italian cabasset helmet, cuirass and iron gorget was adapted by the addition of Japanese arm, thigh and leg components for use by the first Tokugawa shogun, Ieyasu, who gave it to his tenth son Yorinobu. The cuirass bears the impressions of four musket ball proof marks. The armour designated by the Japanese Government as an Important Cultural Property is kept in the Wakayama Toshogu shrine dedicated to Ieyasu. This is illustrated in Morihiro Ogawa ed., Art of the Samurai: Japanese Arms and Armor, 1156-1686, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 2009), no. 15. Interestingly, when adapted for use in Japan, the Spanish morion was worn back to front since the forecrest on the Japanese version could be fitted onto the original for a plume fixed to the back in Spanish style. Tokogawa Ieyasu must have been particularly aware of the importance of solid plate armour in battle since the gun had been a decisive factor in his own victory at the battle of Sekigahara in 1600, since when the Tokugawa shoguns ruled Japan until the Imperial Restoration in 1868.

Although European armour had an immediate effect on Japanese armour styles in the late 16^th and 17^th centuries, a small number of Japanese armours which reached Europe at the time and which may be found in European royal collections were regarded more as decorative objects, or curios. Two such armours of the traditional type were sent in 1614 as a gift to King James I from the shogun at the time, Hidetada, the son of Tokugawa Ieyasu, in the charge of a British sea captain John Saris. The armour is preserved today in the Royal Armouries.