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Imperial Armoury, Vienna

Showing the hemispherical helmet

flat-topped cylindrical helmet worn in the same manner as the preceding, over a mail hood. To the best of the present writer's belief there is no genuine helmet of this type in existence, but a very excellent representation of it is to be seen on the Magnaville effigy in the Temple Church, London (Fig. 132, a, b). There is no effigy that is more widely known than this monument to Geoffrey de Magnaville (or Mandeville), Earl of Essex, who died before the end of the XIIth century, and none which gives us so excellent an illustration of a knight's apparel in the early part of the XIIIth century. Geoffrey de Magnaville was excommunicated for ravaging the King's desmesnes. Being mortally wounded, he was visited by Knights Templars, and having clothed himself in their costume as a passport to heaven he endowed the order with a certain proportion of his property. His body for some years hung in a leaden shell from a tree in the old Temple garden; but absolution being subsequently accorded him, it was buried in the New Temple Church, after which no doubt the effigy was raised to him. We draw attention to these facts as accounting for the remarkably advanced fashion of the armour in this effigy, which appears to have been erected in the first quarter of the XIIIth century. On it we see a type of helmet almost cylindrical in form, and fully 7-1/2 inches high. Down the front is applied a band of metal, which may be for strengthening the helmet, or for concealing the join, as the skull no doubt was made of several pieces riveted together. Around the chin is a band of metal lined with a thick quilted material having the appearance of the metal chin-straps of a modern Life