impracticable, as it would have necessitated the division of the camail at the side, with the consequent loss of its protective quality. The camail is therefore nearly always replaced on English made armets by gorget plates such as are seen on helmets of a later period. A good illustration of these is to be noted on the Bury St. Edmunds armet (Fig. 445, A, B). It is difficult to explain the characteristic contour of the back of the skull-piece to which we have referred; but taken generally it will be found that the top of the skull-piece is somewhat flattened, and that from a point about half-way down the back a concave outline is apparent. An examination of the illustrations of the armet which can be seen in Eye Church, Suffolk (Fig. 446), a very characteristic English example, will help the armour student to appreciate this particular form of skull-piece. Another feature of the English made armet consists in the circumstance that while the fore part of the skull-piece is reinforced with a plate of the same form, as can be seen on those of Italian origin, the ocularium is rarely formed by the space between this plate and the top of the visor. In nearly all cases English made armets, when they possess their original visors, have sight-slits in the visor itself, as in the case of the earliest Italian forms (see pages 81, 82, Figs. 432 and 433) or as seen on the Spanish armets (Figs. 443 and 444). Of the armourers who produced these ordinary early XVIth century fighting head-pieces, or indeed of any English made armour of these times, we are wholly ignorant. The armets are as a rule unmarked; and if by chance an armourer's mark is found it is sure to be one of which no record exists. We think that many of the original visors of the English armets shown in our illustrations, from English churches, must have been altered or adapted when they were used for funerary purposes. We have noted those which, in our opinion, are preserved in their original condition.
In the case of two other helmets (Figs. 445, I, J) we see a somewhat different form of English armet, an armet in which the general proportions of the head-piece appear to be evolved from the later bascinet helmets of the middle of the XVth century. They are the only two English armets of this type with which we are acquainted, and their general construction leaves little doubt that they were made by the same armourer. Both skull-pieces are drawn out to an apex at the top, while the chin-pieces and the tails of the skull-pieces, which are complete, splay outwards in the manner of gorgets; but this formation of the lower part of the helmet is not brought about by the addition of gorget plates, as seen in most English made armets, but by the formation of the lower edge of the helmet, which is drawn or flanged out of the back of the skull-piece and from the chin-plate itself. The second
