We must remark also the difference existing among these helms on the point of ornament. Some are altogether plain; as in our woodcuts 57 and 71, and the Whitworth effigy (Stothard, Pl. XXIV.): others have a profusion of ornament, as in the knightly figure from Roy. MS. 2, A. xxii. (woodcut, No. 62). The term cylindrical, which has been applied to them, must not always be understood literally. In woodcut No. 57 we have a true cylinder; but in other cases, the helm swells at the sides, taking the "barrel" form, as in the second seal of Henry III. (woodcut 81); or, when viewed in profile, it presents a concave line behind, as in the seal of De Quinci (woodcut, No. 87), or, more strikingly, in the example at Worcester (woodcut 71, fig. 2).
The helm was worn over the coif of chain-mail. An ivory carving engraved in the sixteenth volume of the _Archælogia_ affords an excellent illustration of this usage; the knight being there represented in the act of raising his helm from his head armed in the _coiffe de mailles_.
The flat-topped cylindrical Helm, with moveable ventail, appears about the middle of the century. The figure of Ferdinand, King of Castille, in the windows of Chartres Cathedral, affords a good example. He died in 1252: the monument is engraved by Willemin, vol. i., Pl. XCVII.: the helm is fig. 8 of our cut 71. A real helm of this type is in the Tower collection: the ventail opens by means of hinges on the side (see Archæol. Journal, vol. viii., p. 420, and our woodcut 71, fig. 9). It is entirely of iron, weighing 13lb. 8oz. And it is not unworthy of remark, that a much later helm, one with the beaked visor characteristic of the close of the fourteenth century, also in the Tower of London, differs in weight from the above example by only four ounces. (Archæol. Journal, vol. ix., p. 93.) The moveable ventail seems to be portrayed also on the second seal of Henry III., and on the seal of Edward I. (woodcuts, No. 81 and 85).
About 1270 the round-topped Helm came into vogue: not, however, to the entire exclusion of the old fashion, of which examples are found to the end of this century, and even during a portion of the next. See our Plate LXXI., fig. 10, from Cotton Roll, XV. 7. The seal of Patrick Dunbar, tenth earl of March, affords another good illustration of the helm with round crown: engraved in Laing's "Ancient Scottish Seals," p. 54. It has moveable ventail, with apertures for sight and breathing, as before. Other instances occur in the groups of the "Painted Chamber" and the "Lives of the Offas." A very curious variety of this type is furnished in the seal of Louis of Savoy, 1294; where the ventail has the form of an eagle displayed, the clefts for sight and air being contrived between the plumes of the wings. (Figured by Cibrario, in the _Sigilli de' Principi di Savoia_, Pl. XXX., and in our woodcut, No. 71, fig. 11.)