HELMETS

The helmet was composed of two parts: the HEADPIECE, which was
strengthened within by several circles of iron, and the VISOR,
which, as the name implies, was a sort of grating to see through,
so contrived as, by sliding in a groove, or turning on a pivot, to
be raised or lowered at pleasure. Some helmets had a further
improvement called a BEVER, from the Italian bevere, to drink. The
VENTAYLE, or "air-passage," is another name for this.

To secure the helmet from the possibility of falling, or of being
struck off, it was tied by several laces to the meshes of the
hauberk; consequently, when a knight was overthrown it was
necessary to undo these laces before he could be put to death;
though this was sometimes effected by lifting up the skirt of the
hauberk, and stabbing him in the belly. The instrument of death
was a small dagger, worn on the right side.

ROMANCES

In ages when there were no books, when noblemen and princes
themselves could not read, history or tradition was monopolized by
the story-tellers. They inherited, generation after generation,
the wondrous tales of their predecessors, which they retailed to
the public with such additions of their own as their acquired
information supplied them with. Anachronisms became of course very
common, and errors of geography, of locality, of manners, equally
so. Spurious genealogies were invented, in which Arthur and his
knights, and Charlemagne and his paladins, were made to derive