[3] 'consuta de losenges cum armis regis Anglie et de Leyburn.'
[4] 'consuta de armis de Northwode et Ponyngg in quadrangulis.'
[5] 'consuta de diversis armis in lozengis cum frectis purpureis cum stola et manipulo ejusdem operis.'
[CHAPTER IV]
THE TREATMENT OF CRESTS
Origin of Crests; Earliest examples of Crests; Ways of wearing Crests; The Helm and its treatment; Modern use of Helms; Absurd Crests; Use of Crests other than by individuals; The comparative sizes of Helms and Crests.
A crest was originally, as its name reminds us, a tuft or plume on the head of a bird. Such a plume or tuft, or bush as it was often called, was fixed in early times as an ornament on the top of a helm, of which it thus formed the crest. Other devices, such as could conveniently be so worn, were soon used for the same purpose, and like armorial bearings became associated with particular individuals. In later days when the helm enveloped the whole head, the crest played a useful part in revealing the wearer's identity, though his face was hidden.
One of the earliest suggestions of a crest in English armory appears on the second great seal (of 1198) of King Richard I, whose cylindrical helm has a leopard upon the cap with two wing-shaped fans above turned in opposite directions. On many seals of the second half of the thirteenth century, as, for instance, on those of Robert de Vere earl of Oxford (1263) and Henry de Laci earl of Lincoln (1272), the knight is represented as riding in full armour, with the helm surmounted with a fan-shaped plume, which is also repeated upon the horse's head. (See also fig. [58] and [pl. XI B].)