Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 2).djvu/205

 other strange shapes that sat on the helms put out, for pride, before the English tents. The Spaniards followed the English fashion: the Crónica of Don Alvaro de Lima tells us how the knights in the fight at Olmedo in 1445 were crested warriors: "nor was the number small of those who bore trophies of wild beasts and plumes of divers colours." But we may well doubt if any English knight of the York and Lancaster factions fought under his crest. By that age the crest and the flowing helm-mantle that tossed its tassels in the lists were gear for tournament and joust; the XVIth century, an age of change, would not even joust under crests; they were no more in the mode. Of XVIth century crests we have only those belonging to the undertaker's heraldry, which are still to be seen on rusty helms hung high up on church walls, the helms that were carried in the pageant of the funeral. It is notable that not one of these funerary crests is of great bulk or fantastic shape. They belong to the timid heraldry of their time.

King René in his Livre des Tournois would have every knight show his crested helm at an appointed place before the day of the tournament. Of these XVth century crests two are known to the present writer; one is in the collection of Signor Bardini of Florence and is remarkable for its size and curious quality (Fig. 503). There can be no doubt of its authenticity. It is built upon canvas in layers of gesso and of leather in the form of the head and swan-like neck of an open-mouthed reptile monster, the scaly hide modelled and painted by the hands of an artist. Set on the helm it would rise to seventeen inches out of its torse or wreath, which is modelled, cable-fashion, in twists of black, yellow, and red. Signor Bardini can only say of it that it was the crest of a Florentine House. In consideration of its character and of its Italian origin we should give it a date in the second quarter of the XVth century.

The second of these crests is that in the Royal Armoury at Madrid, D 11 (Fig. 504). Although not of such quality as the Florentine example it has a pedigree of great historical interest. This is the crest which was borne on the helm of King Martin I of Aragon (1409-10), and was carried as his ensign at the Feast of the Standard held at Palma in Majorca early in the XVth century. Again, we have a monster's head and arched neck, here rendered more dragon-like by reason of the wings springing from either side of the base. Such a device is said to have been worn by the princes of the royal house of Aragon from the reign of Don Pedro IV (1343-69) to that of Don Fernando II (1412-16). It is constructed in two parts, the crest itself being of