Posts: 323 Location: Telemark, Norway
Wed 26 Mar, 2008 11:27 pm
Jerry,
There are others like this that only have the reinforcing plate covering part of the front, see the Prankh helm for instance. Of course for the joust only the left side really needs to be reinforced anyway. The helm is rather heavy anyway, so they needed to cut down weight wherever possible. It is about 1cm thick on the front left , and weighs some 17lbs!
I had thought about the possibility of a repair. It seems a good possibility, especially when you see the inside of the helm and how it was done. Possibly it was a damaged helm anyway, and of no further use and was repaired just to hang over the tomb - if it ever originally hung over the tomb? As a precedent for the use of repairs and tricks like this in funeral achievements, the crest of the
Black Prince helmet in Canturbury Cathedral, Kent, the cap of maintenance supporting the crest was entirely made out of tiny little scraps of leather sewn together. Possibly someone thought that they could save a bit of money by doing this. The labour was the cheap bit, not the leather. And he was dead anyway, so he was unlikely to complain! This little trick was not discovered until the replicas were made in 1952.
By the way, there is no actual evidence that it in fact was Henry V's helm, but it was however hanging there in the 1950's. There is no evidence that the sword was his either, unfortunately.
The Abbey are very protective of the helm, so it is quite doubtful that you would get to examine it. David Edge told me that it took him ages just to get permission to use the picture of it for his book! It is many years since I got to examine the helmet, but at that time only A.V.B.Norman, and Howard Blackmore had been able to examine it in living memory. Possibly others have done so since, but not that I know of.
As a little aside, 'Nick' Norman told me that when he examined the helmet he in fact couldn't resist "very unpfofessionally" putting it on. He swore that he could see the fields of France through the eye slit! :lol:
I do hope that you can find those pictures Rod. That would be fantastic !
Regards,
Russ