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THE SALADE HEAD-PIECE

or horse breast-plate, representing two knights clad in armament which might well be assigned to the early years of the XVth century, jousting and wearing exactly this type of head-piece (Fig. 332). In the arsenal of Fürstenwalde on the Spree there is a representative German Schallern shown misleadingly upon a half suit of fluted armour of early XVIth century date (Fig. 333). It is safe to conclude that the Italian Celata and the German Schallern were the only contemporary head-pieces of the salade type worn when the bascinet was the almost universal helmet. The third and certainly the best known form of salade is that which is drawn out at the back to a tail, a form which, broadly speaking, may be described as the French type; although in the second half of the XVth century it was the popular head-piece of nearly all civilized Europe with perhaps the exception of Italy, which remained constant to the Celata form. This French type consists in a finely moulded skull-piece prolonged over the neck very much after the manner of a mariner's sou'wester. This tail-piece was occasionally composed of two or more laminated plates. In some cases a hinged visor was added in front; but often the ocularium was formed by a slit, or a double slit, in the skull-piece itself, as seen in the German Schallern. Although all salades are head-pieces of the greatest rarity, excellent examples of nearly all types can be inspected in our National collections. Perhaps the Wallace Collection shows us the greatest variety; for inclusive of those found on the suits numbered respectively 340 and 620, there are sixteen examples, all varying in form.

Fig. 331. Salade of the German schallern type, about 1440
H 46, Musée d'Artillerie, Paris

Fig. 332. Painted picière probably Burgundian
Ex coll. J. M. Soyter. G 533, Musée d'Artillerie, Paris

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