[Craig Peters]

I have a couple of questions relating to illustrations from this manuscript. First, have a look at the dome-shaped helmet below. David Nicolle indicates that helmets of this sort are reasonably common in 12th century illustrations from the Holy Roman Empire, and therefore people obviously wore helmets that looked like this. My question is, are there any extant artifacts like this in museums?



The second relates to the figure below. The object that the man is holding- what is it? Is it a whip or a quirt, or some similar object? Or is it actually a tri-headed flail, attached to ropes? If it is a whip or quirt, why does it seem to have reasonably substantial heads which look to be far bigger than necessary to prod horses and mules? If it is a flail, what would it be used for (it does not look like the farming flails I have seen)? Is there a possibility that a peasant might have employed it as a military weapon?

[Sam Gordon Campbell]

I'm aware of any surviving examples of a domed nasal helmet, but I don't see why one could have one, they seem less done the the phyrgian ones.

Secondly, to my mind that it just a whip for the mule and donkey there. the reason the heads are so big? Well knotted rope tends to be quite substantial, but I think it's just the artist trying to draw knots as small as he could whilst still making it reasonably obvious that they are probably knots. Could you use it in battle? Only if you're a baggage handler in a bad way