The substitution for this spike of multiform and multicolor figures or devices dates from a later age. The Chronicle of Alfonso the Eleventh describes as something altogether novel and surprising, the crests upon the helmets of the foreign knights who flocked, in 1343, to Algeciras to aid the cause of Christianity against the Moor. "All of them," says this narrative, "placed their helmets at the door of their dwellings, supporting them on stout and lofty staves; and the figures on the helmets were of many kinds. On some was the figure of a lion; on others that of a wolf, or ass's head, or ox, or dog, or divers other beasts; while others bore the likeness of the heads of men; faces, beards, and all. Others, too, had wings as those of eagles or of crows; and so, between these various kinds there were in all as many as six hundred helmets."
This brings us to the celebrated helmet or _cimera_ (Plate xxxix.), now in the Royal Armoury of Madrid, believed till recently to have belonged to Jayme the First, conqueror of Palma and Valencia, and the greatest, both in spirit and in stature, of the old-time kings of Aragon.
Such part of this interesting helmet as is left consists of two pieces, one of them resting loosely on the other. Baron de las Cuatro Torres infers, from a detail which will presently be noted, that the lower of these two pieces is not original; and his opinion was shared by the Count of Valencia de Don Juan, who, notwithstanding, thought the spurious part to be coeval with the actual crest. The upper part consists of a fragment of a helm, made, like some flimsy theatre property, of linen, card, and parchment, and surmounted with the figure of the mythical monster known in the Lemosin language as the _drac-pennat_, or winged dragon, which formed, conjointly with the royal crown, the emblem or device of all the Aragonese sovereigns from Pedro the Fourth to Ferdinand the Second.
[Illustration: XLII PARADE HARNESS OF PHILIP THE THIRD (_Royal Armoury, Madrid_)]
There is, however, no reason to doubt the helmet's authenticity. It is known to have remained for centuries at Palma, in the Balearics, where it was worn upon the day of Saint Sylvester in each year, by a person who walked in the procession of the _Standart_ to celebrate the capture of the city by Don Jayme. This would explain the lower piece contrived and added to the crest itself, in order to adjust the incomplete and upper portion to the subsequent wearer's head. The helmet as originally made was meant for tourneying only, and is therefore fashioned, not of metal, but of the frail theatrical materials I have stated. Copper and wood, says Viollet-le-Duc, were also used in making these objects. The earliest wearer of the helm cannot have been Don Jayme. Baron de las Cuatro Torres remarks that on an Aragonese coin of the reign of Pedro the Fourth, the monarch is wearing on his head something which looks identical with this _cimera_.[112] Demay has further told us that the vogue of such _cimeras_, whose principal purpose was to distinguish seigniories, lasted from 1289 till the introduction of movable visors at the end of the fourteenth or the beginning of the fifteenth century. The present helmet, therefore, probably belonged to Don Pedro the Fourth of Aragon ("the Ceremonious"), and was made at some time in his reign--that is, between 1335 and 1387. A document has been discovered in which this monarch's son, Don Martin of Aragon, commands that year by year his own helmet, "_nostram emprissiam sive cimbram_," together with the banner of Jayme the Conqueror, is to be publicly exhibited in commemoration of the capture of Majorca. Therefore we may conclude from these important facts that here is the crest of a tourneying helmet which belonged either to Don Pedro the Fourth of Aragon, or else to either of, or possibly both, his sons, Don Juan and Don Martin.