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Hanging over the tomb of the Fettiplace family, Swinbrook Church, Oxon. These helmets have been adapted for funerary purposes

(a) Italian form, but probably of English workmanship, about 1580-90 (b) English workmanship, about 1560-70

there are helmets of yet one more class of which we must take account; we allude to those which for the last three hundred years have helped to preserve the traditions of our great families—the helmets of the XVIth century so constantly, even now, to be seen in the churches of England. We have already mentioned, in our chapters on the salade, the armet, and the helm, in Volume II, those which in their entirety or in individual parts have rightful claim to late XVth or early XVIth century date; but many ordinary close helmets are to be met with which belong to the closing years of the XVIth century, though they often hang above the tomb of some worthy of earlier date. We will record three that will serve to illustrate the late XVIth century type to which we refer, two in Swinbrook Church, Oxon, of varying form, accredited to the Fettiplace family (Figs. 1201, a, b), and one of the same late XVIth century order in Stanton Harcourt Church which, doubtless the helmet of some later Harcourt, now hangs above the tomb of Sir Robert Harcourt, standard bearer to King Henry VII (Fig. 1202). Two of these represent just the ordinary so-called Milanese helmet; they are as a rule devoid of decoration, but often painted by the funeral furnisher of the time, and