Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 1).djvu/130

 was excavated at Giez in the province of Posen. The whole is of bronze with certain remains of gilding. The modelling of the skull-piece is graceful, and is made of two halves welded together. The crown-shaped border and plume-holder show traces of their former gilding. At the lower edge are remains of staples by which ear-pieces might have been attached. Giez was destroyed by the Bohemians in 1039. The helmet is now in the Museum of the Friends of Science, Posen.

When Mr. Seymour Lucas, R.A., was commissioned to paint for the Royal Exchange the panel illustrating the subject of William the Conqueror granting the first charter to the citizens of London in 1067, he went most carefully into the matter of the Norman helmet, and from drawings and notes which he then collected, had one reconstructed. By his courtesy we are able to reproduce it, and we give it as illustrating with much truth a characteristic Norman conical helmet of about 1080 (Fig. 69). It may be added that many impudent forgeries of these Norman conical helmets are in existence, some made as early as fifty years ago, and others, far more skilfully forged and difficult to detect, produced within the last few years in a factory outside Paris. They will be found described in Appendix I dealing with forgeries.

Showing a close-fitting bonnet of material worn beneath the chain mail coif

We should have imagined these conical helmets to have been very wide at their base, as for instance we see in the Eastern helmets of practically the same type but belonging to the XIVth and XVth centuries, for we have to remember they were usually depicted worn over the coif of mail, which in its turn was lined and probably padded, thus necessitating a helmet with a considerable base measurement to fit comfortably over these additions to the circumference of the head. However, from the evidence of those helmets we have examined and pictured, this is not universally the case, for many are of no greater circumference at their base than the small mid-XIVth century bascinet. We can therefore only surmise that many of these conical helmets were worn without the coif beneath, this class being distinguished by the presence of the holes round their lower edge to which the protection coif or lining was directly sewn. There was usually no separate protective apparel beneath