Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 1).djvu/317

 *opening are two holes which also appear on the Burgess bascinet. These, no doubt, originally held the rivets of the hinge on which a visor worked (Fig. 281, c).

Viscount Astor, collecting specimens for his newly formed armoury at Hever Castle, in Kent, had the good fortune to purchase at the sale of the late Herr Hefner-Alteneck's Collection in Munich, the superb bascinet which has been described, and we think justly, as the finest specimen of its kind extant. It is a helmet of the third quarter of the XIVth century, with a pig-*faced visor working on a hinge fixed to the forehead. The ocularia and holes for respiration opposite the mouth protrude in the usual fashion of these visors, the lower edge of the former and the upper edge of the latter being serrated. The skull-piece has a bold and somewhat exaggerated outline, the apex being drawn out into a delicate point. This form is of a later type than those previously mentioned. It should be noticed that the apex, which was in the more primitive bascinet in the centre of the skull-piece, recedes further and further towards the back of the head as the years advance, until in the latest type the line of the back of the helmet is almost perpendicular to the bottom edge. The full complement of staples, twenty-four in number, for securing the camail are in position, and the series of lining holes running round the edge also appears. The whole helmet bears traces of having been originally painted with a design of jagged flames on both the crown piece and the visor (Fig. 282).

A bascinet helmet that may be placed on practically the same level in respect of quality of workmanship as the last mentioned specimen was obtained by the Metropolitan Museum of New York when it purchased en bloc the collection of the Duc de Dino. The helmet in question was acquired by the Duc de Dino from M. Chabrières-Arlés, who purchased it in 1888 at the sale of the famous Londesborough Collection in the catalogue of which it was described as coming from the castle of Herr von Hulshoff, near Münster, in Westphalia (Fig. 283). The skull-piece of this bascinet, which is fairly high, and shaped like a mosque-dome, terminates in a sharp point turned slightly towards the back. The sides of the skull, which cover the cheek, come a little forward towards the chin, after the style of the helmet we have ventured to class as the "barbute" (see Fig. 423). The staples for attaching the camail were replaced some time in the XVIth century by round-headed rivets. The internal lining, which was at first sewn in by means of small holes round the edge of the helmet, was at the same period replaced by another, a fragment of which still remains attached by