[CHAPTER VI]
CRESTS AND CROWNS, CAPS OF ESTATE, AND WREATHS

Crests within Crowns; Nature and treatment of Crowns; Caps of Estate: Their possible origin and introduction into Heraldry; The colour of Caps; The placing of Crests upon Caps; Wreaths or Torses; Their Colour; Crests and Mottoes; Use of Crests by Bishops; The ensigning of Arms with Mitres, Cardinals' and Doctors' Hats, and Caps of Estate.

The treatment of the crest varies. In the earliest examples it is set directly upon the mantled helm (fig. [77] and pls. [XIV] A and [XVII] B), to which it was actually attached by wires through holes on top. But from the first large numbers of crests were fixed, or rose as it were, from within a crown or coronet encircling the helm, or stood upon a cap or hat of estate that surmounted it. (See figs. [65], [67], [72], [73], [74], [75], and pls. [XIII] E and F, [XVII] A, [XXI], [XXII], [XXVII] A, etc.)

PLATE XIII.—Various treatments of crests.