metal, we may assume that generally their medium was some lighter material as shown in the case of extant helm crests of later date. John Hewitt, in "Ancient Armour and Weapons, etc.," quotes a document of Juan de Brabant, made out as early as 1293, that gives the price and the material used at that date as follows:
Item pro VI pellibus per cameni ad crestas faciendas XVIIId.
Item pro castonibus et clavis ad testeras et cristas IIs.
The representation of a crest attached to a bascinet in contemporary painting and sculpture is rare; for it was nearly always on his helm that the knight wore his armorial bearings. We give, however, an illustration of the memorial slab of John, Count of Wertheim, 1407 (Fig. 298), where it will be seen that the crest he bears on his helm is duplicated upon his bascinet.
Generally speaking, in dealing with head-pieces we shall find it impossible to keep within the limits of the century in which they were mainly fashionable; for, with very few exceptions, a century was too short a period to allow for the birth and death of a universally popular defence. An excellent example of this truth is the case of the bascinet helmets we are describing. From the first mention of the bascinet by Guillaume Guiart in 1214, we have been trying to trace its evolution in chronological order, with the result that we have now arrived at the closing years of the XIVth century. Notwithstanding it has not as yet made its appearance in its most complete form: in the opening years of the XVth century we still find the bascinet the fighting head-piece. But by this time it has taken a very distinctive step forward in its protective powers; inasmuch as the tippet of chain is almost universally superseded by a protection of plate, as we show in our illustration (Fig. 292). We are able to give, however, an instance of the retention of the chain camail of the primitive type even in the first quarter of the XVth century: it can be noted still in use attached to the bascinet on the effigy of Ralph Nevill, Earl of Westmorland, in Slaindrop Church, Durham, whose effigy was executed about 1425 (Fig. 197, page 160).
During the second quarter of the XVth century the development of the "great" bascinet, as it was then called, with a gorget of plate and a detachable visor was rapid; and it is indeed difficult to know when to cease calling these head-pieces bascinets, and when to distinguish them from those helmets used for fighting on foot, the description of which we continue in our Chapter XIII dealing with the helms of the XVth century. These early XVth century bascinets are rarely seen, the twelve we illustrate being the only true
