Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 2).djvu/90

 helmet is omitted in front. In the Tower armoury is a salade which most clearly shows this characteristic (Fig. 400). It is an example of the early years of the XVIth century, and has the square-shaped tail-piece instead of the pointed. This is a not uncommon feature; indeed, we are able to give illustrations of three with tail-pieces so formed. The Tower salade is quite in the Maximilian style, with channels arranged in groups of three, and with crudely engraved ornaments. The engraving is not etched, but cut with a tool, and cabling forms the crest of the skull-piece. It will be noticed that the channelling and ornamentation cease over the ocularium, leaving a plain polished surface, on which it was customary to apply two plates formed like wings or shells which together took a semicircular shape. These curious plates appear on all the tilting salades represented in the "Triumph of Maximilian." They were not applied for defensive purposes, but were targets, to dislodge which required a particularly neat stroke of the lance, a feat which scored heavily in the tournament. M. Viollet-le-Duc shows them admirably in his Dictionnaire du Mobilier Français, vol. ii, p. 405. The lower edge of these plates fitted on to a projecting bolt at either end of the ocularium, and they were retained in position from above by a forked steel spring, the hole for the screw of which exists on the comb of the Tower salade illustrated. The Windsor armoury can show us another such salade (Catalogue 1902, No. 110) upon a suit that was obtained from the Tower of London: this head-piece is not genuine, but it gives a good idea of what we wish to explain (Fig. 401).

In the style of about 1500, showing the detachable wings above the ocularium H.M. the King, Windsor Castle