Armour & Weapons

82 PLATE ARMOUR CHAP. IV precursor of the Salade, which may be considered the typical headpiece of the fifteenth century. The rear peak of the bascinet is prolonged over the neck, and in a later form of German origin the peak is hinged to allow the wearer to throw back his head with ease. The ocularium, or vision slit, is sometimes cut in the front of the salade, but more often it is found in a pivoted visor which could be thrown back. The Beavor is generally a separate piece strapped round the neck or, in tilting, bolted to the breastplate. Some writers call this the Mentonière, but this name should rather be applied to the tilting breastplate which also protected the lower portion of the face. Shakespeare uses the term beavor very loosely, and frequently means by it the whole helmet. The German ‘Schallern’, or salade, so called from its shell-like form, seems to have been evolved from the chapel-de-fer or war- hat by contracting the brim at the sides and prolonging it at the back. In fact, in Chastelain’s account of the fight between Jacques de Lalain and Gérard de Roussillon the salade worn by Messire Jacques is described as ‘ un chapeau de fer d’ancienne façon ? The salade was often richly decorated. Baron de Cosson, in the preface to the Catalogue of Helmets exhibited at the Archaeological Institute in June, 18802, instances a salade made for the Duke of Burgundy in 1443, which was valued at 10,000 crowns of gold. More modest decoration was obtained by covering the salade with velvet and fixing ornaments over this of gilded iron or brass. There are several of these covered salades in the various collections in England and on the Continent. Sometimes the salade was painted, as we see in an example in the Tower. The Armet, or close helmet, followed the salade, and is men- tioned by Oliver de la Marche as early as I443-3 name is supposed to be a corruption of ‘ heaumet ’, the diminutive of ' heaume’, the great helm of the fourteenth century.1 Whereas the salade is in form a hat-like defence, the armet fits the head closely 1 G. Chastelain, p. 679. 2 Arch. Journ., xxxvii. 3 Oliver de la Marche, p. 288. 4 N.E. Diet, gives Armette, a diminutive of Arme. Armez is also found.