This form of helmet is described in detail in the anonymous treatise of 1446 published by de Belleval.[1]
There must have been a considerable manufacture of helms both in Paris and in Brussels in the XIVth century. Froissart, speaking of the battle of Rosebecque, says that "if all the makers of helms of Paris and Brussels had been exercising their craft together, they could not have made such a huge noise as the combatants did striking on one another's bascinets." We know that there was a rue de la heaumerie in Paris, in the parish of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, and I have the names of about a dozen XIVth-century helm makers at Brussels. In the same century we also begin to know the names of a series of armourers and swordsmiths who worked for the dukes of Burgundy at Valenciennes, the capital of Hainaut, and they can be followed in the archives of that town until the second half of the XVIth century, but as yet no actual pieces have been identified as their work. Germany also in the XIVth century was producing armour of some repute, for in 1386 the Duke of Touraine bought three ells of fine linen of Reims to have a little doublet made to be sent to Germany as a model for a pair of plates to be forged for his person;[2] and in 1389, the Earl Marshal, when he had challenged the Earl of Derby, sent to Germany for his equipment. We have seen that the Earl of Derby sent to Milan for the same purpose. In 1302 Raoul de Clermont owned a sword of Genoa, and we also meet with Florentine swords in France in the XIVth century. In 1322 Robert de Bethune possessed a Florentine sword with its misericord, and a little Florence sword garnished with silver gilt, is found in the inventory of P. de Beausault in 1361. We also find two Bohemian swords, one of which suitable for hunting, in the inventory of Jean de Saffres in 1365. I shall not enter largely on the history of the manufacture of armour in England, for that subject has been ably treated by Viscount Dillon and Mr. Charles ffoulkes, but before leaving the XIVth century I must refer to a conviction acquired long ago when making a study of English sepulchral effigies,[3] which was, that not only did a very fine school of sculpture exist in England in the XIVth century, of which we can only get an adequate idea from them, as they alone escaped the ravages of the Reformation and the Puritans, which almost entirely swept away the religious sculpture of the period, but that armour of excellent quality, great elegance of form, and beauty of decoration must have been made in England in that century and the first years of the succeeding one. Later, when during the disastrous War of the Roses, armour had to be made in a hurry, the qualities I refer to are much less apparent, the armour was simply made to protect the wearer, without any thought of making it at the same time beautiful to look upon.
