3, 4, and 5); and numberless examples are to be found in cotemporary sculptures, seals, and illuminations.

Another helmet was in use at this period, flat-topped and ornamented with a cross, like the one I have described, but open in front, the face being defended by a grating, or a plate perforated for sight; which, from a recently discovered specimen, we find worked upon hinges, fixed on the left side, so that it could be flung back like a door to display the countenance, or admit more air. This great curiosity, for the discovery of which we are also indebted to Mr. Pratt, has been purchased (mirabile dictu) by the authorities at the Tower, and is now in our national collection (see figs. 6 and 7). From the slightly conical form of the crown, I am inclined to date this specimen a little later than Mr. Hewett has done (Arch. Journal, No. 32, p. 420), and appropriate it rather to the reign of Henry III than that of Richard I, or even John, and, consequently, second in point of antiquity to the one found at Eynsford, and now in Warwick Castle.

There were several varieties of this sort of helmet, which may be seen on the seals and other monuments of the thirteenth century: some having oval-shaped openings for the face, like that in which Simon de Montfort is pourtrayed in Montfaucon (Monarch. Franç.), from a painting on glass in a window of the cathedral at Chartres; others, of which the vizor or aventail were removable at pleasure, or hinged at the top, and lifted up instead of being thrown back; and in not a few examples to be found in the seals of the earls of Flanders, engraved in the well-known work of Olivier de Vree (Olivarius Vredius), it is difficult to decide whether they are actually helmets, or merely skull-caps, with cheek pieces attached to them. One of the most singular varieties I have met with, is in the seated figure of a knight at Hampton Court, Herefordshire (see fig. 10). Another, which must surely have opened in some manner to receive the head-for seen in profile, it does not appear possible that it could be placed over it without serious injury to the olfactory organ in the process-is exhibited by an effigy in Walkerne church, Hertfordshire (see figs. 8 and 9), the cross in front being formed by a bar of iron dividing the occularium, and terminating at the chin in a floral ornament. In the reign of Edward I, the cap and coiffe de

mailles took the form of the head, and the helmet, as a matter of course, was rounded at the top to fit them. Of this class is the specimen from Wells, in Norfolk, exhibited to the Association by Mr. Knight, and engraved in No. XXIV of this Journal. It is re-engraved here (fig. 11), together with a group of heads from the paintings formerly on the walls of the Painted Chamber in Westminster, alluded to in my description of the helmet in the above number, and exhibiting one identical with it (fig. 12).

To this form succeeded one which may be familiarly termed the sugar loaf: the outline describing pretty nearly the pointed arch which superseded the old Norman round one in architecture about the same period. The brass of sir Roger de Trumpington, dated 1297, exhibits one with a ring at the bottom of it, like that we see in the helmet from Wells, to which is fastened a chain, attached at the other end to a portion of the knight's harness, to prevent the loss of the helmet when removed from the head (fig. 13). In some specimens it is attached by such a chain to one of the mammellières, or ornamented plates on the breast, and the sword, by a similar chain to the other. On the apex of this helmet was frequently another ring, to which was tied the cointise, as it was termed in Norman-French, being a scarf or kerchief of the colours of the wearer, of his feudal chieftain, or of his ladye love. (Vide fig. 14); but the flat-topped helmet does not appear to have been generally discarded, for as late as the reign of Edward II we see it represented in illuminations, carvings in ivory, etc., with the crown apparently rather concave than convex, the cointise rising out of it in the style of a feather. It is remarkable that no monumental effigy affords us an example of this fashion. At least none has yet come under my observation. The helmet supporting the knight's head in all the sepulchral portraits of this period that I can remember having met with, is round-topped or conical.

The next change we perceive in the helmets, is the projection of the fronts at the point where the opening is made for the sight at the occularium: as seen in profile, the angle is tolerably salient (vide fig. 14, from the effigy of sir Wm. de Staunton, circa 1324, in Staunton church, Notts). The cross, plain or fleury, is still preserved as a defence or an ornament. Of this form, and the one

immediately preceding it (the sugar loaf), I know no existing specimens; but from hence we have an unbroken series of English helmets, commencing with that of a hero whose name, even after five hundred years, "stirs the heart like the sound of a trumpet",-Edward the Black Prince! His helm still hangs over his honoured tomb in Canterbury cathedral (fig. 15), with his jupon, his gauntlets, and the scabbard of his sword.1

Another helmet of the same period, that of sir Richard Pembridge, is now in the Meyrick collection at Goodrich Court (plate 23, fig. 1), similar in every point to that of the Black Prince, save in the figure formed by the perforations, which in the prince's describe a coronet. A third, perhaps rather earlier than either of these, was, through the kindness of Mr. Pratt, exhibited to the Association on the 26th of February last. It was discovered in Kent, near Sevenoaks, and was beautifully engraved by our zealous associate Mr. L. Jewitt, of Plymouth, from a careful drawing by Mr. Charles Bailey, hon. sec., for the 26th number of our Journal (vol. vii, p. 161). The perforations in that example are in the form of a fleur-de-lys, and the bar which strengthens the front and forms the upright of the cross, is fleur-de-lisé at each extremity.

The next alteration was an important one; the occularium, instead of being a simple slit on each side of, or divided by the iron bar just alluded to, was now a continuous opening between the crown of the helmet and the lower portion, which began slightly to project, a change suggested probably by the angle it had previously described. A very interesting specimen of this transition period was exhibited to us by Mr. Pratt, in May 1850, and also by his kindness at the Manchester Congress (see fig. 2). It has since been purchased for the national collection at the Tower. The crest then upon it, an ante

1 The sword itself is said to have been taken away by Oliver Cromwell; upon what authority I am ignorant. If "Old Noll" was guilty of one half of the desecrations it has been found convenient to lay at his door, the antiquaries of England ought to burn him in effigy every St. George's day. How was it he did not take the scabbard also? Oliver was not the man to do things by halves. If we may believe Bolton, who has engraved it in his "Elements of Armory", there was, in his time, another shield, of the sort called the "pavoise”, which had belonged to the prince, and which has disappeared, without the slightest notice having been taken of its loss. In those days there were no archæological associations.