Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 1).djvu/125

This page needs to be proofread.

very naturally led Herr Ubisch to suppose that this example of goldsmith's work was part of a golden helmet worn by Agilulf, King of the Langobards (590-615) and husband of the famous Theodolinde. If this be the case, it would therefore point to the fact that the remaining conical helmets (Figs. 60 to 68) that we record are not Norman, but date from the VIth to the IXth century, a somewhat disconcerting admission to make, as instead of sixteen conical Norman helmets being known to us, we shall have to acknowledge only the first six helmets to be Norman, admitting the possibility that the latter ten may belong to Merovingian or Carlovingian times.

Fig. 64. Bronze and iron helmet discovered in Finland

Imperial Armoury, Vienna

The ninth helmet, of iron overlaid with gold (Fig. 63), was found in 1896 at Guilanova, south of Ancona, passing into the possession of Herr J. Rosenbaum of Frankfurt, who in 1903 ceded it to the Zeughaus of Berlin. The six bands that build up the skull-piece are connected at the top by a small circular