mail coif, though we do see, at a slightly later period, a close-fitting bonnet of leather or some other material as a separate piece worn under the chain mail, as shown in the illustration taken from the album of Villard de Honnecourt (Fig. 70). The helmets must have been attached to the head by some means which is now not easy to determine. Close inspection of some of the helmets of the soldiers in the Bayeux needlework reveals the fact that there are three projections at the back of the helmet that may be intended to represent the leather thongs by which the helmet was secured; not being in use, they are shown loose in the wind.
It is worth noting that some helmets in our illustration (Fig. 71) chosen from the Bayeux needlework are here and there shown with a neck defence, which might possibly be described as a primitive camail: for in one or two instances it reaches to the ears on either side, and descends to the shoulders.
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Fig. 71. Five selected helmets and a coif of mail depicted in the Bayeux needlework
Showing the divers types of nasal-guard, neck-guard(?), etc.
These helmets must have resembled very much the conical helmets with quilted neck protections and prominent nasal-guards taken from the Soudanese after the battle of Omdurman in 1898. We illustrate three of these helmets (Fig. 72) which, from their crudeness of workmanship, might have belonged to any age, but which, as a matter of fact, are XIXth century adaptations of ancient material, though as they now appear are angleform like the helmets figuring in the Bayeux needlework.
With the last years of the XIth century we see but little alteration in the form of the helmet; perhaps it may have decreased somewhat in height and have grown a little more shapely in its outline. From the Great Seal of William II we notice that the nasal-guard is there certainly a part of the helmet. On referring back to page 41 (Fig. 47) we see a soldier whose nasal-guard is distinctly drawn out of the helmet itself and not attached to
