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A Tournament Helm in Melbury Sampford Church

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

James G. Mann
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Extract

It is to the ancient practice of suspending the funeral insignia of the deceased over his tomb that we owe the survival of our few existing English helms. Foreign visitors to our country churches often express their surprise at finding these relics still in situ. The practice also obtained on the Continent, but surviving instances there are very much rarer than here. Despite our innate conservatism, many church helmets must have disappeared through decay, indifference, and, latterly, the avarice of collectors. That they are not yet safe from spoliation was shown by a case which came before the Courts last year.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , July 1940 , pp. 368 - 379
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1940

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References

page 368 note 1 They are most frequently to be found in northern and north-eastern Europe. In Sweden and Finland one finds instances of complete armours in churches. Very few helmets have survived in situ in France and Spain. In Italy it was the custom to hang a stemma or achievement in the house rather than the church, and this practice has preserved several fine sallets.

page 368 note 2 Antiq. Journ. xiii (1933), 152.Google Scholar

page 371 note 1 Sir G. F. Laking, Record of European Armour and Arms, ii, fig. 491 A; W. J. Hemp, Proceedings Soc. Ant. xxxi, 196.

page 374 note 1 The photograph here reproduced, for which I am indebted to Mr. F. H. Cripps-Day, was taken before the helm recently underwent a drastic process of cleaning.

page 374 note 2 Laking, op. cit. ii, fig. 460.

page 374 note 3 Ibid., fig. 454.

page 374 note 4 Ibid., fig. 453.

page 374 note 5 The mark is reproduced in E. de Prelle de la Nieppe's Catalogue des Armes et Armures du Musée de la Porte de Hal, 1902, 551, mark no. 9. The orb and cross mark without the crown is found in Italian fifteenth-century armour.

page 374 note 6 Zeitschrift für historische Waffenkunde, xiv, 65. Major H. D. Barnes, F.S.A., ‘A Fifteenth Century Armourer's Letter’.

page 375 note 1 Antiq. Journ. xiii, 152.

page 375 note 2 Laking, op. cit. ii, figs. 470–3.

page 375 note 3 Ibid., figs. 461–9.

page 376 note 1 Arch. Journ. xxxvii (1881), 524Google Scholar, no. 78, where the Baron gave a description of this helm, at that time preserved in the Rotunda at Woolwich. It was first described by Hewitt, John in Arch. Journ. xxi (1864), 60Google Scholar. See also Archaeologia, lxxviii (1928), 70Google Scholar, pl. xv, reproducing measured drawings of the helm sent by A. W. Morant to Hewitt.

page 376 note 2 J. G., and Waller, L. A. B.Monumental Brasses, 1864, pt. 5.Google Scholar

page 376 note 3 Dillon, Viscount, Archaeologia, lvii (1901), 29.Google Scholar

page 376 note 4 Laking, op. cit., figs. 449–51.

page 376 note 5 All illustrated by Laking, op. cit.

page 376 note 6 Antiq. Journ., xi (1931), 408.Google Scholar

page 378 note 1 A. Gardner, Arch. Journ., lxxx (1923), pl. xl. The figures closely resemble another alabaster of one of the Martin family in Puddleton church in the same county and all three must have come from the same workshop. Although fine specimens of their kind, certain weaknesses of detail show that they are past the peak of fifteenth-century alabaster sculpture and date within the last third of the century.

page 378 note 2 Prideaux says lizards.