Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 2).djvu/92

medial line of the helmet. It is somewhat difficult to determine the use to which so many holes were put; but, perhaps, like those figuring in Dürer's famous drawings of tilting helms (see page 138), the aiglettes were threaded through them in profusion to keep the lining of the salade from flapping about the wearer's head. The lining is composed of four segments of wadded canvas drawn together in the centre by the aiglettes, allowing for ventilation in the centre. The whole was sewn to a leather strap, the rivets for the attachment of which appear on the outside of the skull-piece just above the aiglette holes. Sir Noël Paton put it on record that when he first remembered the helmet the loop of leather used for suspending it from the saddle was preserved intact; but now part only remains. Sir Noël Paton purchased this salade from Mr. W. B. Johnstone, R.S.A., who in turn had obtained it from Mr. David O. Hill, R.S.A.

Fig. 403. Jousting salade

German, about 1470-90 No. 73, Wallace Collection

In describing the example in the Wallace Collection, No. 73 (Fig. 403), an example which is considered by some authorities to be of even earlier date than the Noël Paton specimen, we may seem to be reversing the proper order of things; but though in general outline the Wallace helmet appears to be a fighting salade of about 1460, we are forced to assign it to a later date owing to the flattened keel form of its crest. The skull-piece, which is forged entirely from one piece, is of fine strength and of even thickness. The tail is five inches in length, and the ocularium is formed by a flanged opening three inches from the bottom of the helmet, the lower edge protruding half an inch beyond the upper. There is a row of nine rivets, which passes round the centre of the skull for the attachment of a leather strap (parts of which remain), to which was sewn the lining. In the front of the salade, at the extreme bottom, is a small roller, against which must have rested a long tilting bevor of the same pattern as those worn with the tilting salades just described. The purpose of this roller was to assist the wooden bevor, when struck in the proper place by the adversary's lance, in sliding upwards and detaching itself—a stroke which scored well in the tournament. To detach the long bevor by a single blow, it was necessary to strike it at a marked point, which, as often as not, was a painted heart; the shock so directed released a spring attached to the breastplate, and the bevor was thrown forward and upward. M. Viollet-le-Duc gives