of the opinion that this bascinet, like the helmet just described, is wholly German in style and of German workmanship.
The last helmet we can place in the category of the "great" bascinets is that curious head-piece, partly bascinet, partly armet, and partly helm, that was presented to the Zeughaus of Berlin in 1912 by the town of Fürstenwalde on the Spree, in the Town Hall of which place it had been for many centuries (Fig. 310, a, b). Such a head-piece as this would answer to M. Viollet-le-Duc's description of what he understood to be the helmet termed a bicoquet or bycoket. But in the case of the bycoket head-piece, as in that of the barbute, we admit that we still cannot determine to what form of head-piece either of these terms should really apply. When we turn to the French derivation of the word we find that bicoque means une maison très-simple et très-petite, or une petite place mal fortifiée et sans defence; so that we cannot help thinking that it is highly improbable that the term would be used, in a transferred sense, to describe a fully protective head-piece. We read, too, that the royal cap of estate was known as the abacot, abocoket, or bycocket. M. Beneton de Morange de Peyrins, again, in his work Traité des Marques Nationales, Paris, 1739, alludes to the bicoquet as a "species of morion, pot en tête or salade," "plus leger que le gros casque de battaile." Are we not therefore justified in concluding that the bicoquet helmet was a small salade-like head-piece, more after the fashion of a cap of maintenance but fashioned in metal? As, however, in the difficult case of the barbute head-piece, so in this matter of identifying the bicoquet helmet we have no wish to be dogmatic. We leave the solution to the decision of the reader, advising him in all fairness to consider the argument which M. Viollet-le-Duc puts forward in his famous Mobilier. The helmet in question is a finely made and excellently preserved head defence, but curiously incommodious for purposes of wear, since it encases the head and neck so closely that any rotatory movement is well-*nigh impossible. The skull-piece is oviform, though shaped in closely to the back of the neck. It possesses great cheek-pieces, hinged, after the manner of an armet, immediately below the visor pivot. These overlap down the chin, where they are secured with a turning-pin. The visor is of flattened hemispherical form, of stout proportions, and pierced with a multitude of circular holes for the purposes of seeing and breathing. The visor is attached to the skull-piece on the rivet hinge and pin principle. A series of holes for fastening the lining strap runs round the lower edge of the helmet; while above them at intervals are rivets with star-shaped rosette washers on the exterior. These appear to be purely ornamental; for they can serve no purpose,
