CHAPTER IX
THE HELM FROM THE EARLY YEARS OF THE XIIIth CENTURY TO THE END OF THE XIVth CENTURY
In tracing the evolution of body armour, and in speaking of the
various types of helmets and of weapons, we have so far merely
alluded to the great helm. It is now necessary, in order that we
may resume the story of this particular head-piece, to return to
the early years of the XIIIth century, the period at which we
began it (see Figs. 141, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148 and 149, pages 117, 118,
119, 120). From this point we pass from what may be called the period of the
theoretical helm, the period in which we can gather no very satisfactory
information on which to form our ideas of the helm's make, to one in which
we possess slightly more tangible evidence to assist us, namely, that available
in contemporary effigies and sculpture. This period covers about a hundred
years; for it is not until the last quarter of the XIVth century that we are
able at last to illustrate an authentic helm in actual existence. It is a
strange fact that, notwithstanding the survival of a certain number of conical
helmets of the XIth and XIIth centuries, and of a fair series of bascinets
of various years of the XIVth century, not a single genuine specimen
of the large helm is known to us that can be dated anterior to about
1370, and that of these late XIVth century helms we can instance five
known examples only. This fact is worthy of notice, and it is as well to be
forewarned; since there are numerous forgeries of early helms, some even
purporting to be of the XIIIth century, in the private and public collections
of every country. Of the non-survival of these helms, or even of fragments
of them, there is no satisfactory explanation. It may be by their weight causing
the several plates of which they were composed to break asunder rather
readily when once the rivets had been affected by rust, that their life was
shorter than that of the one plate head-piece; for when once they had been
broken up the plates were, no doubt, cast away as useless, or wrought
into unrecognizable shapes for other purposes.
But to return to helms of the early part of the XIIIth century. The representation of the helm can be seen in knightly effigies, in the great seals
