Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 2).djvu/197

 Not unlike the Costessey helm, and of about the same date, furnished also with a similar soufflet visor, is the splendid head-piece still to be seen in Wimborne Minster (Fig. 494). It has hung for many years over the tomb of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, who died in 1444, and is figured at the end of the description of the tomb in Blore's "Monumental Remains," 1826. Blore says of it: "An original helmet, so nearly of the date of the monument, is placed above it, that we can scarcely doubt its connection with our subject." The date of the Duke's death is, however, certainly too early for the helm, and its present position in the Minster cannot be its original one. In 1881, when it was exhibited at the Royal Archaeological Institute, both Mr. Wentworth Huyshe and the Baron de Cosson described it in great detail, extracts from which description we give. Mr. Huyshe stated at the time that he had received a letter from the Vicar of Wimborne, the Rev. E. Fiennes Trotman, to the effect that the helm had "no connection with the tomb over which it hangs, and that the old sexton told him that in his boyhood the helm had become unattached, and was lying about the church, and was subsequently suspended over the tomb." The perforated and fluted visor of this helm is movable, and can be detached from the hinges, to which it is fixed by means of a pin on either side, as in the case of the Capel and other helms of the same nature to which we have referred. These pins in the Wimborne helm, it will be seen, finish above in small rings, and a small hole appears near the edge of the visor on a line with its topmost rib. The well-known statuette of St. George in wood on the retable now in the Dijon Museum (Fig. 424) helps to explain the use of this hole and the ring at the head of the pin; for a small chain is there seen to connect the pin with the visor, so that when the latter was removed the pin remained attached to it and could not get lost. The spring catch, by which the visor, when lowered, was secured to the chin-piece, is still in position and in a fine state of preservation. Few helmets of this early date are provided with so elaborate an arrangement for keeping the visor closed; but as an additional precaution against the possibility of the visor being forced up by a thrust from below, there is a small plate fixed to the chin-piece, behind which the edge of the visor falls when it is lowered. When the helm was exhibited at the rooms of the Royal Archaeological Institute, the total absence of any traces of a means of fixing it to the breastplate led to the supposition being entertained that the lower part of it had been cut away. In many helms of this kind, however, two large holes are found near the lower edge through which passed staples fixed to the breastplate. The Astley MS. describes a similar helm as being "pỹnid